The history of civilization, from the fall of the Roman empire to the French revolution

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

THE

HISTOEY OF CIVILIZATION,

FBOM THB FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIBK
TO THE FBENOH REVOLUTION.

BY F. aUIZOT,

AUTHOR OF "HISTORV OF THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION OF 1610,'

TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM HAZLITT, ESQ^
01 the Middle Temple, Barrlater-at-Law.

IN THBEE VOLUMES.

VOL. III.

LOXDON : GEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET,
COVENT GARDEN.

188(5.

PRINTED KY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
STAMFOIiD STKEF.T AND CHARING CROSS.

CONTENTS.

College
library

D

o

o

V.

LECTURE THE FIRST.

Object of the course — Elements of national unity — They exist and begin to
be developed in France towards the end of the 10th centurj' — Thence
dates French civilization — The feudal period will be the subject of this
course — It includes the 1 1th, 12th, and 13th centuries, from Hugh Capet
to Philippe de Valois — Proof that these are the limits of the feudal
period — Plan of the course : History ; 1st, of society ; 2nd, of the human
mind, during the feudal period — The history of society resolves itself
into, 1st, history of civil society ; 2nd, history of religious society — The
history of the human mind resolves itself into, 1st, history of learned
literature ; 2ud, history of national literature in the vulgar tongue — Im-
portance of the middle ages in the history of French civilization — The
present state of opinions concerning the middle ages — Is it true that
there is danger in historical impartiality and poetical sympathy for this
period ? — Utility of this study p. 1

SECOND LECTURE.

Necessity for studying the progressive formation of the feudal system — It is
often forgotten that social facts form themselves but slowly, and in
forming themselves, undergo many vicissitudes — Analysis of the feudal
system in its essential elcraeuts. They are three in number: 1. The
nature of territorial property; 2. Amalgamation of sovereignty and pro-
perty; 3. Hierarchical organizatiou of the feudal association — State of
territorial property from the ."Jth to the 10th century — Origin and meaning
of the word feodum — It is synonymous with heneficium — History of
benefices, from the 8th to tlie lOili century — Examination of the system
of Montesquieu concerning the legal gradation of the duration of beni'-
fices — Causes of the increase of the number of benefices — Almost all
landed property became feudal . . . p IT

llt)7699

VI CONTENTS.

THIRD LECTURE.

Of tlie amalgamation of sovereignty and property, tlie second characteristit
of the feudal system — True meaning of tliis fact — Its origin — It comes
neither from the Koman society nor from the German, band — Is it the
result of conquest only ? — Of the system of feudal publicists on this
subject — Two forms of society m Germany, the tribe and the band —
Social organization of the tribe — Domestic sovereignty is there distinct
from political sovereignty — Tvrofold origin of domestic sovereignty
among the ancient Gennans — It arose from family and from conquest —
What became of the organization of the German tribe, and especially ol
domestic sovereignty after the establishment of the Germans in Gaul —
What it retained of the family spirit gradually diminished ; what it
retained of conquest became dominant — Recapitulation and true character
of feudal sovereignty ... p. 38

FOURTH LECTURE.

Gimeral association of the possessors of fiefs among themselves ; third cha
racteristic of the feudal system — From the very nature of its elements
this association must have been weas and irregular; it, in fact, always
was so — Fallacy of the view which the apologists of this system trace
of the feudal hierarchy — Its incoherency and weakness were especially
great at the close of the lOth century — The formation of this hierarchy
from the 5th to the 10th century — Tliree systems of institutions are
seen together after the German invasion : free institutions, monarchical
institutions, aristocratical institutions — Comparative history of these
three systems — Decline of the two first — Triumph of the third, which
yet remains incomplete and disordered p. 5(5

FIFTH LECTURE.

Metiiod to be followed in the study of the feudal period — The simple fief is
the fundamental element, tlie integrant molecule of feudalism — The
simple fief contains : 1, the castle and its proprietors ; 2, the village ami
its inhabitants — Origin of feudal castles — Their miJtiplication in the
9th and 10th centuries — Causes of this — Efforts of the kings and
powerful suzerains to oppose it — Futility of these efforts — Character of
the castles of the 11th century — Interior life of the proprietors of fiefs —
Their isolation — Their idleness — Their incessant wars, expeditions, anu
adventures — Influence of the material circumstances of feudal habita-
tions upon the course of civilization — Development of domestic life,
condition of women, and of tlie spirit of family in the interior of castles

p. 7".

CONTENTS.

SIXTH LECTURE.

Efforts of the possessors of fiefs to people and animate the interior of the
castle — Means which present themselves for the attainment of this
end — Offices given in fief — The education of the sons of vassals in the
castle of the suzerain — Admission of the young man among the
warriors in ancient Germany — This fact is perpetuated after the in-
va I'on — Twofold origin of chivalry— False idea which is formed of it —
Chivalry arose simply and without design, in the interior of castles, and
in consequence either of the ancient German customs, or of the re-
lations of the suzerain with his vassals — Influence of religion and the
clergy over chivalry — Ceremonies of the admission of knights — Their
oaths — Influence of the imagination and poetry over chivalry — Its moral
character and importance under this point of view — As an institution, it
is vague and without coherence — Rapid decline of feudal chivalry — It
gives rise to the orders: 1. Of religious chivalry ; 2. Of courtly chivalry

p. 90

SEVENTH LECTURE.

riie state of the agricultural population, or the feudal village — Its condition
seemed for a long time stationary — Was it much changed hy the invasion
of the barbanaus and the establishment of tli« feudal system ? — Error of
the common opinion upon this subject — Necessity for studying the state
of the agricultural population in Gaul before the invasion, tmder the
Roman administration — Source of the study — Distinction between coloni
and slaves — Differences and resemblances of their condition — Relations of
the bond-labourers, 1, with the proprietors ; 2, with the government —
How a man became a bond-labourer — Historical origin of the class of
bond -labourers — Uncertainty of the ideas of M. de Saviguy — Conjectures

p. 1.21

EIGHTH LECTURE.

of the state of the agricultural population in Gaul from the 5tu to the Hth
century — It has not changed so much as is commonly supposed — Of the
two priucipal changes wliich it was to be expected would take place in
it, and which did, in point of fact, take place — Insurrections of the
peasants lu the 10th and 11th centuries — Continuance of the distinction
between the coloni and the serfs — Progress of the condition of the coloni
fiom the lltli to the 1 Itli centurv — Proofs p. 135

CONTENTS,

NINTH LECTURE.

Eelatious of tJie possessors of fiefs among themselves — Variety and com-
plexity of the feudal association considered in its whole — Necessity for
reducing it to its proper and essential elements — Eelations between the
suzerain and his vassals — Character of these relations — Homage, the
oath of fidelity, and investiture — Feudal duties — Feudal services — Mili-
tary service-^Judicial service — Aids — Some rights progressively acquired
by the suzerains — Independence of vassals who had acquitted themselves
of feudal services . .... p. lo'2

TENTH LECTURE.

Continuation of the ^iew of the organization of the feudal society — Kela
tions which the vassals of the same suzerain had among themselves —
Political guarantees of the feudal society — In what political guarantees
generally consist — Disputes among vassals — Disputes between a vassal
aud his suzerain — Feudal courts, and judgment by peers — Means of
securing the execution of judgments — Inefficiency of feudal guarantees
— Necessity under which each possessor of a fief was placed of protect-
ing and doing justice to himself — True cause of the extension aud long
duration of the judicial combat and of private wars .... p. 168

ELEVENTH LECTURE.

General character of the feudal society — Its good principles : 1. Necessity
of individual consent for the formation of the society ; 2. Simplicity
and notoriety of the conditions of the association ; 3. No new charges
or conditions without the consent of the individual ; -i. Intervention of
society in judgments ; 5. Right of resistance formally recognis d ;
0. Right of breaking through the association ; its limits — Vices of the
feudal society — Twofold element of every society — Weakness of tht
social principle in feudalism — Excessive predominance of iudividualitj
— From what causes — Consequences of these vices — Progress of the in-
equality of force among the possessors of fiefs — Progress of the in-
equality of rights — Decline of the intervention of society in judgments
— Origin of provosts and bailiffs — Formation of a cer'ain number of
petty royalties— Conclusion . . . . p. 183

CONTENTS. IX

TWELFTH LECTURE.

State of royalty at the end of the 10th century — Progressive debilitation o'
its various principles — Contradiction between the situation of riglit and
the situation of fact in Carlovingian royalty — Necessity of its fall — Cha
racter of the accession of Hugh Capet — Progress of the principle of
legitimacy — State of royalty under Eobert, Henry I., and Philip I. — Was
it as weak, as null as it is said to have been? — CaHses and limits of its
weakness — Uncertainty of its character and its principles — New character
of royalty under Louis VI. — It disengages itself from the past, and
places itself in harmony with the social state — Wars and government of
Louis VI. — Government of Suger under Louis VII. — State of royalty at
the death of Louis VII p. 200

THIRTEENTH LECTURE.

Condition and various characteristics of royalty at the accession of Philip
Augustus — State of the kingdom in point of territory — Possessions of
the kings of England in France — Relations of Pliilip Augustus with
Henry II., Richard Coeur de Lion, and John Lackland — Territorial ac-
quisitions of Philip Augustus — Provostries of the king — Progress of the
monarchical power — Etlbrts of Philip Augustus to rally round him the
great vassals, and to constitute of them a means of government — He
applies himself, at the same time, to separate royalty from feudalism —
The crown emancipates itself from the empire of the clergy — Legislative
labours of Philip Augustus — His efforts to advance material and moral
legislation — Effect of his reign on the mind of the people — Royalty be-
comes national — Manifestation of this result after the battle of Bovines,
and at the coronation of Louis VIII ji. 2"-23

FOUllTEENTH LECTURE.

Royalty under the reign of Saint Louis — Influence of his personal character
— His conduct witli regard to the territorial extent of the kingdom — His
acquisitions — His conduct towards the feudal society — His respect for
the rights of the seigneurs — True character of his labours against feu-
dalism— Extension of the judicial power of the king — Progress of legis-
lation and of parliament — Extension of the legislative power of the
king — Progress of tlio indepeiulence of royalty in ecclcsiiustical affairs
— Administration (if Louis within his domains — Sunniiiirv . . i>. '2iS

rt CONTENTS.

FIFTEENTH LECTURE.

'. tate of royalty after the reign of Saint Louis — In rigbt it was neither ab
solute nor limited — In fact, incessantly combated, and yet far supe-
rior to every other power — Its tendeuny to absolute power — This
tendency appeared under Philip le Bel — Influence of the personal cha-
racter of Philip le Bel — Various kinds of despotism — Progress of abso-
lute power in the legislation — Examination of the ordinances of Philip
le Bel — True characters of the composition and of the influence of na-
tional assemblies under his reign — Progi-ess of absolute power in judi-
cial matters — Struggle between the legists and the feudal aristocracy —
Extraordinary commissions — Progress of absolute power with regard to
taxes — Reaction of the feudal aristocracy against absolute power under
the three sons of Philip le Bel — Associations of resistance — Embarrass-
ment in the order of succession to the throne — Enfeeblement of royalty
at the end of the feudal epoch p. 204

SIXTEENTH LECTURE.

Of the third estate in France — Importance of its history — ft has been the
most active and decisive element of our civilization — Novelty of this
fact ; nothing resembling it had hitherto been found in the history of
the world — Its nationality; it was in France tliat the third estate took
its whole development — Important distinction between the third estate
and the borouglis — The formation of boroughs in the 11th and 12th
centuries — Extent and power of this movement — Various systems to
explain it — They are narrow and incomplete — Vaiiety of the origins of
the bourgeoisie at this epoch — 1. Towns in which the Eoman municipal
system sur\ived — 2. Cities and towns in progi-ess, although not erected
into boroughs — 3. Boroughs, properly so called — Combination of these
various elements for the formation of the third estate .... p. 289

SEVENTEENTH LECTURE.

Why it is important never to lose sight of the diversity of the origins of the
third estate — 1. Towns in which the Eoman municipal system was per-
petuated— Why the documents relating thereto are rare and incomplete
Perigueux — Bourges — 2. Towns which, without having been, pro-
perly speaking, erected into boroughs, received various privileges from
their lords — Orleans — Customs of Lorris in Gatinais — 3. Boroughs,
properly so called — Charter of Laon — True meaning of this charter and
of the communal revolution of the eleventh century — Birth of moderi;
legislation .... p. 3(W

CONTENTS.

EIGHTEENTH LECTURE.

SiibJ3ct of the lecture — The difference between the Roman municipal system
and that of the middle ages — Danger of the immobility of names —
1. Various origin of the Roman city and the modern borough ; 2. Di-
versity of their constitutions ; 3. Diversity of their history — Thence re-
sulted that the aristocratical principle predominated in the Roman city ;
the democratical spirit, in the modern borough — New proofs of this
fact p. 325

NINETEENTH LECTURE.

History of the third estate from the llth to the 14th century — Vicissitudes
of its situation — Rai)id decay of boroxighs, properly so called — By what
causes — 1. By the centralization of feudid powers — 2. By the patronage
of kings and great suzerains — 3. By the internal disorders of towns —
Decline of the borough of Laon — The third estate did not full at the
same time as the borough, on the contrary, it developed and strengthened
itself — History of the towns administered by the oflBcers of the king —
Influence of royal judges an A administrators over the formation and
progress of the third estate — What is to be thought of the communal
liberties and their results ? — Comparison of France and Holland — Con-
clusion of the courae . . p. -ino

Historical iLLUSTHAiioifH .

HISTORY

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE.

LECTURE THE FIRST.

Object of the course — Elements of national unity — They exist and beg^u to
be developed in France towards the end of the 10th century — Tlienca
dates French civilization — The feudal period will be the subject of this
course — It includes the ]]th, 12th, and 13th centuries, from Hugh Capet
to Philippe de Valois — Proof that these are the limits of the feudal
period — Plan of the course : History ; 1st, of society ; 2nd, of the human
mind, during the feudal period — The history of society resolves itself
into, 1st, history of civil society ; 2nd, history of religious societ)' — The
history of the human mind resolves itself into, 1st, history of learned
literature ; 2nd, history of national literature in the vulgar tongue — Im-
portance of the middle ages in the history of French civilization — The
present state of opinions concerning the middle ages — Is it true that
there is danger in historical impartiality and poetical sympathy for this
period ? — Utility of this study.

In commencing the last course, I was obliged to determine
its subject, and to explain the motives of my choice. At pre-
sent I have not anything of the kind to do. The subject ol
our study is known; the route is traced. I endeavoured to
place you in the presence of the origins of French civilization
under the two first races; I propose to follow it through all
its vicissitudes, in its long and glorious development up to
the eve of our own times. I now, therefore, again take up tlui
subject where we left it, that is to say at the end of the tenth
fentury, at the accession of the Capetians.

VOL. IIJ. B

X HISTORY or

As I told you in concluding the past course, it is there that
French civilization commences. Hitherto you will recollect,
we have spoken of Gaulish, Roman, Gallo-Roman, Frankish,
Gallo-Frankish, civilization; we were obliged to maki us-^. of
foreign names which did not belong to us, in order to express
with any fulness, a society without unity, without fixedness,
without entirety. Dating from the end of the tenth century,
there is no longer anything of this kind; it is nov/ with the
French, with French civilization, that we have to occupy our-
selves.

And yet it was at this very epoch that all national and poli-
tical unity was disappearing from our land. All books say this,
and all facts show it. It was the epoch when the feudal
system, that is to say, the dismemberment of the people and
of powei", entirely prevailed. At the eleventh century, the
soil which we call France was covered with petty nations and
petty sovereigns, almost strangers one to the other, almost in-
dependent of each other. Even the very shadow of a central
government, of a general nation, seemed to have disappeared.

How comes it that really French civilization and history
commences exactly at the moment when it was almost impos-
sible to discover a France?

It is because, in the life of nations, the external visible
unity, the unity of name and government, although important,
is not the first, the most real, not that which truly constitutes
a nation. There is a more profound, more powerful unity:
that which results, not from the identity of government and
destiny, but from the similarity of social elements, from the
similarity of institutions, manners, ideas, sentiments, languages;
the unity which resides in the men themselves whom the society
unites together, and not in the forms of their junction; moral
unity, in point of fact, far superior to political unity, and
which alone can give it a solid foundation.

Well, it is at the e!id of the tenth century that the cradle
of this at once unique and complex being, whicli has become
the French nation, is placed. She required many centuries
and long efforts to extricate herself, and to produce herself in
her simplicity and grandeur. Still, at this epoch, her elemenw
existed, and we begin to catch glimpses of the work of their
ievelopment. In the times which we studied in the last

CIVILIZATION IN PRANCE. 8

course, from the fifth to the tenth century, under Charle-
magne, for example, external political unity was often greater
and stronger than at the epoch with which we are about to
occupy ourselves. But if you go thoroughly into the matter,
into the moral state of the men themselves, you find there is
an utter absence of unity. The races are profoundly differ-
ent, and even hostile; the laws, traditions, manners, languages,
likewise differ and struggle; situations, social relations have
neither generality nor fixedness. At the end of the tenth
and at the commencement of the eleventh century, there was
no kind of political unity like that of Charlemagne, but races
began to amalgamate; diversity of laws according to origin
is no longer the principle of all legislation. Social situations
have acquired some fixedness ; institutions not the same, but
throughout analogous, the feudal institutions prevailed, or
nearly so, over all tlie land. In place of the radical, impe-
rishable diversity of the Latin language and the Germanic
languages, two languages began to be formed, the Roman
language of the soutli, and the Roman language of the north,
doubtless different, but still of the same origin, of the same
chdtacter, and destined one day to become amalgamated.
Diversity also began to be effaced from the soul of men, from
their moral existence. The German is less addicted to his
Germanic traditions and habits; he gradually detaches him-
self from the past to belong to his present situation. It is the
same with the Roman; he thinks less- of the ancient empire,
of its fall, and of the sentiments which it gave rise to in
him. Over conquerors and conquered, the new, actual facts,
which arc common to them, daily exercise more influence.
In a word, political unity is almost null, real diversity still
very great, and yet at.bottem there is more of true unity than
there has been for five centuries. We begin to catch glimpses
of the elements of a nation ; and the proof is, that from this
epoch tlie tendency of all these social elements to conjoin,
to assimilate and form themselves into great masses, that is
to say, the tendt-ncy towards national unity, and thence
towards {)olitical unity, becomes the dominant charsicteristic,
the great fact of the history of French civilization, tlie
general and constant fact around which all our study will
torn.

4 HISTORY OF

The development of this fact, the triumph of this tendencj,
has made the fortune of France. It is by this especially that
she has outstripped the other nations of the continent in the
career of civilization. Look at Spain, Italy, even Ger-
many: what is it that they want? They have progressed far
more slowly than France towards moral unity, towards the
formation into a single people. Even there where moral
unity has been formed, or nearly so, as in Italy and Germany,
Its transformation into political unity, the birth of a general
government, has been slackened or almost entirely stopped.
France, more happy, arrived more rapidly and more com-
pletely at that double unity, not the only principle, but the
only pledge of the strength and grandeur of nations. It was
at the end of the tenth century that it, so to speak, commenced
its progress towards this important result. It is, therefore,
from this epoch that French civilization really dates; it is there
that we may begin to study it under its true name.

The feudal period, that is, the period when the feudal system
was the dominant fact of our country, will be the subject of
the present course.

It is comprehended between Hugh Capet and Philippe de
Valois, that is, it embraces the eleventh, twelfth, and thir-
teenth centuries.

That these are the true limits, the career of the feudal
system, it is easy I think to establish.

The peculiar general character of feudalism, as I have
just repeated, and as every one knows, is the dismember-
ment of the people and of power into a multitude of petty
nations and petty sovereigns; the absence of any universal
nation, of any central government. Let us see the limits in
which this fact is contained. These limits will necessarily be
those of the feudal period.

We may, if I do not deceive myself, recognise them espe-
cially by three symptoms.

I. To what enemies did feudalism succumb? Who opposed
it in France? Two powers; royalty on the one hand, on the
other, the commons. By royalty a central government was
formed in France, by the commons was formed an universal
nation, which grouped itself around the central government

At the end of the tenth century, royalty and the commons
were not visible, or at all events scarcely visible. At the

CJVILIZATION IN iEANCE. (t

**)rcmencement of the fourteenth century, royalty was the
h'iad of ^he state, the commons were the body of the nation.
The two forces to which the feudal system was to succumb
had then attained, not, indeed, their entire development, but
a decided preponderance. By this symptom we may then
say that there the feudal period, properly so called, stops,
since the absence of any universal nation, and of all central
power, is its essential characteristic.

Here is a second symptom which assigns the same limits to
the feudal period.

From the tenth to the fourteenth century, wars, which
were then the principal event of history, have, at least the
greater part of them, the same characteristic. They are in-
ternal, civil wars, as it were in the bosom of feudalism itself.
It is a suzerain who endeavours to acquii'e the territoiy of
his vassals; vassals who dispute among themselves certain
portions of the territory. Such appear to us, with the excej)-
lion of the crusades, almost all the wars of Louis le Gros, of
Philip August, Saint Louis, and Philippe le Bel. It is
from the very nature of the feudal society that their causes
and effects arise.

With the fourteenth century the character of war changed.
Then began the foreign wars; no longer a vassal against suzerain,
or vassal against vassal, but nation against nation, government
against government. On the accession of Philippe de Valois,
the great wars between the French and the English broke
out — the claims of the kings of England, not upon any parti-
cular tief, but Uij)on the whole laml, and upon tlie throne of
France — and tliey continued up to Louis XL They weie no
longer feudal, but national wars ; a certain proof that the
feudal period stopped at this limit, that another society had
already commenced.

Lastly, if we address ourselves to a third kind of indication,
if we interrogate tlie great events which we are accustomed,
and with reason, to look upon as the result, as the expression of
feudal society, we shall lind that tliey are all included within
the epoch of wliich we speak. The crusades, tliat great
adventure of feudalism and its popular glory, finished, or
nearly finished, with Saint Louis and the thirteenth cfiitury;
we hear afterwards but a futile echo of them. Cliivuh-y,
that poetical daughter, that ideal, so to speak, of the feudal

b HISTORT 0»

system, is equally inclosed in the same limits. In the four-
teenth century it was on the decline, and a knight errant
already appears a ridiculous personage. Romantic and
chivalrous literature, the troubadours, the trouveres, in a
word, all the institutions, all the facts which may be looked
upon as the results, the companions of feudalism, alike
belong to the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries.
That, therefore, is evidently the feudal period; and when I
confine it to these limits, I do not adopt an arbitrary, purely
conventional classification; it is the fact.

Now, how shall we study this epoch? What method will
best make it known to us?

It will, I hope, be borne in mind, that I have regarded
civilization as the result of two great facts; the development,
on the one hand of society, on the other, of individual man.
I have therefore always been careful to retrace external and
internal civilization, the history of society and the history of
man, of human relations and of human ideas, political history
and intellectual history.

We shall follow the same method here, we shall examine
the feudal period from this twofold point of view.

From the political point of view, in confining ourselves to
the history of society, we shall find from the tenth to the
fourteenth century, as from the fifth to the tenth, two societies
closely bordering on each other, dovetailed, as it were, into
one another, yet essentially distinct: the civil society and the
religious society, the church and the state; we shall study
them separately, as we have hitherto done.

Civil society is to be considered, first, in the facts which
constitute it, and which show us what it has been; secondly,
in the legislative and political movements which emanate
from it, and upon which its character is imprinted.

The three great facts of the feudal period, the three facts
whose nature and relations comprehend the history of civili-
zation during these three centuries, are — 1, the possessors
of fiefs, the feudal association itself; 2, above and by the side
of the feudal association, in intimate relation with it, and yet
reposing upon other principles, and applying itself to create
a distinct existence, royalty; 3, below and by the side of
the feudal association, also in intimate relation with it, and
yet also reposing upon other principles, and .abouring to

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. /

separate itself, the commons. The history of these three
facts, and of their reciprocal action is, it this epoch, the his-
tory of civil society.

With regard to the written monuments that remain to us,
there are four principal ones : two collections of laws which
modern learning, wrongly I think, would call codes; and two
works of jurisconsults. The legislative monuments are —
1. The collection of the ordinances of the kings of France,
and especially the establissements of Saint Louis. 2. His
assises of the Frank kingdom of Jerusalem, drawn up by
order of Godefry de Bouillon, which reproduce the image of
the feudal society more completely and more faithfully than
any other document.

The two works of jurisconsults are — 1. The Coutume de
Beauvaisis, by Beaumanoir. 2. The Traite de Vancienne
Jurisprudence des Frangais; ou Conseils a un Ami, by Pierre
de Fontaines.

I shall study with you these monuments of the feudal legis-
lation as I have studied the barbarian laws and capitularies,
by carefully analysing them, and attempting to thoroughly
comprehend their contents, and to exactly understand their
nature.

From civil society we shall pass to religious society; we
shall consider it, as we have already done, I. In itself, in its
peculiar and internal organization. 2. In its relations with
civil society, with the state. 3. Finally, in its relations with
the external government of the universal church — that is,
with papacy.

Tlie liistory of society, if I do not deceive myself, will thus
be completed; we shall then enter into the history of tlio
human mind. At this epoch it resides in two great facts,
two distinct literatures: 1. A learned literature, written in
Latin, addressed solely to the learned classes, lay or ecclesias-
tical, and which contains the theolugy and philosophy of the
time. 2. A national, popular literature, entirely in the vulgar
tongue, addressed to the whole community, particularly to
idlers and to the lower classes. Whosoever neglects either
of these two facts, whoever does not thoroughly understand
these two literatures, who does not see them marching abreast,
rarely close to each other, rarely acting upon one another,
but both powerful and holding an important place, who doea

8 HISTORY OF

not see all this, will have but an incomplete and false idea of
the intellectual history of this epoch, of the state and progress
of mind.

Such, in its whole, is the plan of the present course.

Here, most assuredly, is a vast field opened to our study.
There is here enough long to excite and nourish learned
curiosity. But is so great an epoch of our higtory — is France
in the rudest crisis of her development — in a word, the middle
ages, are they with us a mere matter of learning, a mere
object of curiosity? Have we not the most universal and
pressing interest in thoroughly understanding it? Has the
past no other value attached to it than for erudition? has it
become totally foreign to the present, to our life?

Two facts, if I mistake not, two contemporary visible facts,
prove that such is not the case.

The imaginatioi at the present day is evidently gratified
in carrying itself back towards this epoch. Its traditions,
its manners, its adventures, its monuments, have an attraction
for the public which cannot be mistaken. We may, upon
this subject, interrogate letters and the arts; we may open
the histories, romance, poems of our time; we may enter the
furniture and curiosity shops; everywhere we shall see the
middle ages cultivated, reproduced, occupying the thought,
amusing the taste of that portion of the public which has
time to spare for its intellectual wants and pleasures.

At the same time there is manifested, on the part of some
enlightened and honourable men, sincere friends to the learn-
ing and progress of humanity, an increasing aversion towards
this epoch and all which recals it. In their eyes, those who
there seek inspirations, or merely poetical pleasure, carry
literature back towards barbarism; in their eyes, those who,
from a political point of view, and amidst an enormous mass
of error and of evil, seek to find in it anything of good, those,
whether they wish it or not, favour the system of despotism
and privilege. These unrelenting enemies of the middle
ages deplore the blindness of the public who can take any
pleasure in going back, merely in imagination, amidst those
barbarous ages, and seem to predict, if this despotism con-
tinues, the return of all the absurdities, of all the evils, which
then weighed upon nations.

This clearly pro\ es tliai the middle ages are quite other

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 9

than a matter of learning to us; that they correspond to
interests more real, more direct than those of historical erudi-
tion and criticism, to sentiments more general, more full of
life than that of mere curiosity.

How can we be surprised at this? The twofold fact which
I spoke of is exactly the result, and as it were a new form of
the two essential characteristics of the middle ages, the two
facts by which that epoch has held so great a place in the
history of our civilization, and influenced posterior ages so
powerfully.

On the one hand, it is impossible to overlook the fact that
there is the cradle of modern societies and manners. Thence
date — 1. Modern languages, and especially our own. 2. Mo-
dern literatures, precisely in all that there is in them of the
national, the original, of the foreign to all mere learning, to
11 imitation of other times, of other countries. 3. The
greater portion of modern monuments, monuments in which,
for many centuries, the people have assembled, and still con-
tinue to assemble, churches, palaces, town-halls, works of art
and public utility of every kind. 4. Almost all historical fami-
lies, families who have played a part and placed tlieir name
in the various phases of our destiny. 5. A large number of
national events, important in themselves, and for a long time
popular, the crusades, chivalry; in a word, almost everything
wliich for centuries has filled and agitated the imagination of
the French people.

This is evidently the heroic age of modern nations, among
others, of France. What more natural than its jwetical afflu-
ence and attraction?

By the side of this fact, however, we encounter another no
less incontestable: the social state of the middle ages was con-
stantly insupportable and odious, and especially so in France.
Never did the cradle of a nation inspire it with such antipa-
thy; the feudal system, its institutions and principles, never
obtained that unhesitating adhesion, the result of habit, which
nations have often given to the very worst systems of social
organization. France constantly struggled to escajie from
them, to abolish tliem. Whosoever dealt them a blow, kings,
jurisconsults, the church, was sjinctioned and beranie jiopular;
despotism itself, when it seemed a means of deliverance from
them, was acc.'pted as a benefit.

10 HISTORY C9

The eigliteenth century and the French revolution have
been for us the last phase, the definitive expression of this
fact of our history. When they broke forth, the social state
of the middle ages had long been changed, enervated, dis-
solved. Yet it was against its consequences and recollections
that, in the popular mind and intention, this great shock was
more especially accomplished. The society which then pe-
rished, was the society which the Germanic invasion had
created in the west, and of which feudalism was the first and
essential form. It was, in truth, no longer in existence: yet
it was against it that the revolution was directed.

But precisely because of this fact, precisely because the
eighteenth century and the revolution were the definitive
explosion of the national antipathy to the social state of the
middle ages, two things were inevitably destined to happen,
and in fact did happen: 1. In their violent efforts against the
memory and remains of this epoch, the eighteenth century
and the revolution would necessarily fail in impartiality towards
it, and would not recognise the good which might be met with
in it; and it would in like manner overlook its poetical cha-
racter, its merit, and its attractions as the cradle of certain
elements of the national life. The epochs in which the
critical spirit dominates, that is to say, those Avhich occupy
themselves more especially with examining and demolishing,
generally understand but little of the poetical times, those
times when man complacently gives himself to the impulsion
of his manners and the facts which surround him. They un-
derstand more especially little of what there is of the true and
poetical in the times against wdiich they make war. Open
the writings of the eighteenth century, those at least which
really have the character of the epoch, and contributed to
the great revolution then accomplished; you will see that the
human mind there shows itself very little sensible of the
poetical merit of any social state much differing from the type
which they then conceived and followed, especially of the
poetical merit of the rude and unrefined times, and, among
those times, of the middle ages. The Essai svr Ics mamrs et
lesprit des nations is in this way the most faithful image of
the general disposition of the age: look there for the history
of the middle ages: you will see that Voltaire incessantly
applied himself to the task of oxiracting all that is (^rossJ,

CIVILIZATION IN FKANCE, 11

sbfiurd, odious, calamitous, in this epoch. Hi was right,
thoroughly right in the definitive judgment which he gave
of it, and in his efforts to abolish its remains. But that is all
that he sees of it; he thinks only of judging and abolishing,
in his historical writings, that is to say, in his works of
polemical criticism; for Voltaire has done other things than
criticism. Voltaire was also a poet, and when he gave him-
self up to his imagination, to his poetical instincts, he found
impressions greatly differing from his judgment. He has
spoken of the middle ages elsewhere than in the Essai sur
les mceurs et Vesprit des nations, and how has he spoken of it?

" Oh ! I'heureux temps que celui de ces fables,
Des bons demons, des esprits familiers,
Des farfadets, aux mortels secourables !
On ecoutait tous ces fails admirables
Dans son chateau, pres d'un large foyer.
Le pere et I'oncle, et la mere et la fiUe,
Et les voisins, et toute la famille,
Ouvraient I'oreille a monsieur I'aumonier,
Qui leur faisait des contes de sorcier.
On a banni les demons et les fees ;
Sous la raison les graces etoulFees
Livrent nos coeurs a I'insipidite ;
Le raisonner tristement s'accredite ;
On court, helas ! apres la verite :
Ah ! croyez moi, I'erreur a son merite."

Voltaire is wrong to call the poetical side of these old times
errcur; Poetry there doubtless associated herself with many
errors; but in herself she was true, although of a truth very
different from philosophical truth, and she answered to very
legitimate wants of human nature. This incidental observa-
tion, however, is of but little importance; wliat is necessary to
be remarked, is the singular contrast between Voltaire the
poet, and Voltaire the critic. The poet acutely feels for the
middle ages impressions to which the critic shows himself an
entire stranger; the one deplores the loss of those impressions
which the other applies himself to destroy: nothing, surely,
better manifests that want of political impartiality and poeti-
cal sympathy in the eighteenth century, of which I just no^f
spoke.

12 HISTORY OF

We are now in the reaction against the tendency of the age
which preceded us. This fact is evidenced in the direction
now taken, at least for the most part, by historical studies,
by works of general literature following the public taste,
and also in the indignation of the exclusive partisans of the
eighteenth century. Is this indignation legitimate? Is the
danger denounced from this reaction so great? is there any
danger at all?

In a literary point of view I shall not absolutely deny it. I
would not say that there is not some exaggeration, something
of mania in this return of the imagination towards the middle
ages, and that good sense and good taste have not a little
suffered from it. The reaction, followed with much talent, ap-
pears to me, upon the whole, a groping rather than a regenera-
tion. In my opinion, it proceeds from very distinguished men,
sometimes sincerely inspired, but who often deviate in seeking
a good vein, ratlier than from people who have found one, and
are working it with confidence. But in truth, in the actual
state of society and mind, the evil cannot become very grave.
Are not publicity and criticism always at hand in the literary
W'orld as well as in the political world, and always ready to
render everywhere the same services, to warn, restrain, to
combat, in fine to prevent us from falling under the exclusive
domination of a coterie or system? They do not spare the
new school; and the public, the genuine and general public,
while receiving it with gentleness, does not seem disposed to
become subjected by it. It judges it, and sometimes even
rebukes it rather roughly. Nothing, therefon^ seems to nie
to indicate that barbarism is about to resume sway over the
national taste.

Besides, we must take life where life manifests itselfj
the wind, from whatever quarter it blows; talent, wherever it
has pleased Heaven to bestow it. For we need above all things
in the literary world talent and life. The worst that can
happen to us here is immobility and sterility.

Is danger to political impartiality the character of the
reaction which they deplore? This must be absolutely denied.
Impartiality will never be a popular tendency, the error ot
the masses; they are governed by simple, exclusive ideas and
passions; there is no fear of their ever judging too favourably
of the middle ages and their social state. Present interests,

CrVir-KATlON IN FRANCE. 13

national traditions in this respect preserve, if not all their
potency, at least sufficient influence to prevent all excess.
The impartiality which is spoken of will scarcely penetrate
below the regions of science and of philosophical discussion.

And what is it in these regions themselves, and among
the very men who most pique themselves on it? Does it
impel them in any way towards the doctrines of the middle
ages? to any approbation of their institutions — of their social
state? Not in the least degree. The principles upon which
modem societies rest, the progress and the requirements
of reason and of human liberty, have certainly not firmer
more zealous defenders, than the partisans of historical im-
partiality; tliey are first in the breach, and more exposed
than any others to the blows of their enemies. They have
no esteem for the old forms, the fanatic and tyrannical classi-
fication of feudal France, the work of force, which ages and
enormous labours have had such difficulty in reforming.
What they claim is a full and free judgment of this past of
the country. They do not believe that it was absolutely
destitute of virtue, liberty, or reason, nor that we are entitled
to contemn it for its errors and fallings off" in a career in
which, even in the present day, after such progress, so many
victories, we are ourselves advancing so laboriously.

There is evidently therein no danger either for the liberty
of the human mind, or for the good organization of society.

Might there not be, on the other hand, great advantages in
this historical impartiality, this poetical sympathy for ancient
France ?

And first, is it nothing to have a source of emotions
and pleasures opened to the imagination? All this long
epoch, all this old history, in which one liitherto saw nothing
but absurdity and barbarism, becomes for us rich in great
memories, in noble adventures, in events and sentiments
in which we feel a vivid interest. It is a domain restored to
that need of emotion, of sympathy, which, thanks to God,
nothing can stifle in our nature. The imagination plays an
immense part in the life of men and of nations. In order to
occupy it, to satisfy it, an actual energetic passion is neces-
sary, like that which animated the eighteenth century and
the revolution, a rich and varied spectacle. The present
jdlone, the present without passion, the calm and regular pr«r.

14 HISTOllY OF

sent, does not suffice for the human soul; it feels narrow and
poor in it; it desires more extension, more variety. Hence
the importance and the charm of the past, of national tradi-
tions, of all that portion of the life of nations in which ima-
gination wanders and freely enjoys itself, amidst a space far
more vast than actual life. Nations may one moment, under
the influence of a violent crisis, deny their past — even curse
it; they cannot forget it, nor long or absolutely detach them-
selves from it. On a certain occasion, in one of the ephemeral
parliaments held in England under Cromwell, in that which
took the name of one of its members, a ridiculous personage,
in the Barebone parliament, a fanatic arose, and demanded
that in all the offices, in all public establishments, they should
destroy the archives, the records, all the written monuments of
old England. This was an excess of that fever which some-
times seizes nations, amidst the most useful, the most glorious
regenerations; Cromwell, more sensible, had the proposition
rejected. Is it to be sup[)osed that it would long have had the
assent of England, that it would truly have attained its end?

In my opinion, the school of the eighteenth century has
more than once committed this mistake of not comprehending
the whole of the part which imagination plays in the life of
man and of society. It has attacked, cried down, on the one
hand, everything ancient, on the other, all which assumed to
be eternal, history and religion: that is, it has seemed to dis-
pute, to wish to take from men tlie past and the future, in order
to concentrate them in the present. The mistake explains
itself, even excuses itself by the ardour of the struggle tluiu
on foot, and by the empire of the ])assion of tlie moment,
which satisfied those recpiirements of emotion and of imagina-
tion, imperishable in luiuian nature. But it is no less serious,
and of serious consecpienee. It were easy to show tlie proof
and effiicts of this in a thousand details of our contem})ora-
neous history.

It lias, moreover, been made matter of complaint, and with
reason, that our history was not national, that we v/ere in
want of associations, of popular traditions. To this fact some
of the faults of our literature, and even of our character have
been imputed. Should it then be extended beyond these
natural limits? Is it to be regretted that the past should
sgain become something for us, tlxat we should again take
some interest in it?

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 13

[n a political point of view, and in an entirely positive
aim, this were a valuable advantage. The power of associa-
tions in fixing and fertilizing institutions is very great.
Our institutions are beneficial and powerful; they rest upon
truly national interests, upon ideas which have penetrated
deeply into minds. Still they are young; they do not claim
the authority of a long experience, at all events not of a
long national experience. It was in the name of reason, of
philosophy, that tiiey first appeared: they took birth in doc-
trines: a noble origin, but for some time subject to the uncer-
tainties, the vicissitudes of the human mind. What more
useful than to make them thus strike root in the past; to
unite the principles and guarantees of our social order to
principles half seen, to guarantees sought in the same path
through ages? Facts are at present popular; facts have
favour and credit. Well, let the institutions, the ideas which
are dear to us, be strongly established in the bosom of facts,
of the facts of all time; let the trace of them be everywhere
found; let them everywhere reappear in our history. They
will thence derive force, and we ourselves dignity; for a na
tion has higher esteem for itself, and has greater pride in
itself, when it can thus, in a long series of ages, prolong its
destiny and its sentiments.

Lastly, another advantage, an advantage of an entirely dif-
ferent nature, but no less considerable, must result to us from
impartiality towards the middle ages, and from an attentive
and familiar contemplation of that epoch.

That the social reform which is brought about in our times,
under our eyes, is immense, no man of sense can deny. Never
were human relations regulated with more justice, never has
the result been a more general well-being.

Not only is social reform great, but I am convinced that a
correspondent moral reform has also been accomplislied; that,
perhaps, at no epoch has there been, upon the whole, so much
propriety in human life, so many men living regularly, that
never has less public force been necessary to repress individual
wills. Practical morality, I am convinced, hjvs made almost
as much progress as the well-being and the prosperity of the
country.

But under another point of view we have, I think, much
to gain, and we are justly reproachable. We have lived for

16 HISTOttV OF

fifty yoar3 under the influence of ger.«ral ideas, more and
more accredited and powerful, under the weight of formi-
dable, almost indescribable events. Thence has resulted a
certain weakness, a certain effeminacy in minds and in cha-
racters. Individual wills and convictions want energy and
confidence in themselves. They think with a common
opinion, they obey a general impulse, they give way to an
external necessity. Whether to resist or to act, each has
but little idea of his own strength, little confidence in his
.wn thoughts. The individuality, in a word, the inward
and personal energy of man, is weak and timid. Amidst
the progress of general liberty, men seem to have lost the
proud sentiment of their own liberty.

Such were not the middle ages; the social condition of
those ages was deplorable; human morality very inferior,
according to what is told us, to that of our times. But in
men, individuality was strong — will, energetic.

There were then few general ideas which governed all
minds, few events Avhich, in all parts of the territory, in all
situations, weighed upon characters. The individual dis-
played himself upon his own account, according to his own
inclination, irregularly, and with confidence; the moral
nature of man appeared here and there with all its ambition,
all its energy. A spectacle not only dramatic and attractive,
but instructive and useful; which offers us nothing to regret,
nothing to imitate, but much to learn from, were it only by
constantly recalling our attention to that wherein we are de-
ficient, by showing us what a man may do when he knows
how to believe and to will.

Such mei-its certainly will justify the care which we shall
take in our study; and it will, I hope, be seen, that in being
just, fully just to\vards this great epoch, there is for us ua
dann;er and some benefit.

CrVILIZATlON IN FRANCE. 17

SECOND LECTURE.

2ieeeGsity for studying the progressive formation of the feudal system — It is
ofleu forgotten that social facts form themselves but slowly, and in
forming themselves undergo many vicissitudes — Analysis of the feudal
system in its essential elements. They are three in number: 1. The
nature of territorial property ; 2. Amalgamation of sovereignty and pro-
perty ; 3. Hierarchical organization of the feudal association — State of
territorial property from the 5th to the 10th century — Origin and meaniug
of the word feodum — It is synonymous with beneficiuni — History of
benefices, from the 8th to the 10th century — Examination of the system
of Montesquieu concerning the legal gradation of the duration of bene-
fices— Causes of the increase of the number of benefices — Almost all
lauded property became feudal.

It has been shown that the feudal period embraces the
eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. Before entering
upon it, before studying it in itself and according to the
plan which I have drawn out, it is necessary that we should
have some distinct idea of the origins of feudalism; it is ne-
cessary to follow it, and to present it to our minds in all
the various phases of its progressive formation, from the fifth
to the tenth century.

I intentionally say, its progressive formation. No great
fact, no social state, makes its appearance comi)lete and at once:
it is formed slowly, successively; it is the result of a multi-
tude of dilferent iacts, of different dates and origins, which
modify and combine themselv(!S in a thousand ways before
constituting a whole presenting itself in a clear and sys-
tematic form, receiving a special name and standing through
a long life.

This is so simple, so evident a truth, that, at first sight, it
geems useless to call it to mind; it is, however, necessary to do

YOL. HI. C

Jg HISTORY 07

80, for it has been and is constantly forgotten. An histjrieal
epoch is generally studied when it has ceased, a social^ con-
dition when it has disappeared. It is, then, in their entirety,
under their complete and definitive form that that epoch
and that condition are presented to the mind of the ob-
Rftrver or the historian. He is easily led to suppose that it
has always been thus; he easily forgets that those facts,
which he contemplates in all their development, commenced,
increased, and while increasing underwent numerous meta-
morphoses; and he proposes to see, and everywhere seeks them,
such r.s he knew^ and conceived them at the time of their full
maturity.

Numerous and various errors arise from this inclina-
tion, in the history even of beings whose unity and whose
permanence is the greatest and most visible in the history
of men. Why are there so many contradictions and un-
certainties concerning the character and moral destinies of
IMahomet, of Cromwell, or of Napoleon? Why those pro-
blems concerning their sincerity or hypocrisy, their egoism
or patriotism? Because people want to see them, as it were,
simultaneously, and as having co-existent in them dispositioTis
and ideas which were successively developed; because they
forget that, without losing their essential identity, they greatly
and constantly changed; that the vicissitudes of their ex-
ternal destiny coi-responded to internal revolutions, often
unseen by their cuntemporaries, but real and powerful. It
tlipy followed them step by step, from their first appear-
arice in the world until their death, if they were present
at that secret work of their moral nature amidst the mobility
and activity of their life, they would perceive many of those
incoherences, those absurdities Which surprise them, disap-
j)ear, or at least becom.? attenuated; and then only would
tliey truly know and understand them.

If it be thus in tlie history of individual beings, the most
simple of all, and whose duration is so short, with how much
more reason is it in the liistory of societies, of those general
facts, so vast, so complex, and which extend throjgh so
many centuries! It is here especially that there is danger
of overlooking the variety of origins, the complication and
slowness of formation. We have a striking example of ^hia
ia the matter which occupis us. Few historical Dro-

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 19

bloms have been more differently and eagerly debated than
that as to when and how the feudal system commenced. To
speak only of French scholars and publicists, Chantereau-
Lefevre, Salvaing, Brussel, de Boulainvilliers, Dubos, Mably,
Montesquieu, and many others: each forms a different idea of
it. Whence arises this diversity? It is that they have
almost all proposed to find the feudal system entire even in
its very cradle, to find it such as they see it is at the epoch of
its full development. Feudalism has, as it were, entered at
once into their mind; and it is in this condition, at this stage
of its history, that they have everywhere sought it. And as,
'notwithstanding, each of them has applied himself moi-e par-
ticularly to such and such a characteristic of the feudal
system, and has made it to consist in one particular element
rather than another, they have been led into immensely dif-
ferent ideas of the epoch and mode of its formation; ideas
which may be easily rectifiea and reconciled as soon as
people will consent not to forget that feudalism took
five centuries in forming, and that its numerous elements,
during this long epoch, belong to very different elements and
origins.

It is according to this idea, and never losing sight of it,
that I shall endeavour to trace the history of its progressive
formation, rapidly and as a preparation to the study df
feudalism itself.

To succeed in this, it is necessary — first, to determine tlie
principal facts, the essential elements of this social condition;
I mean the facts which properly constitute it, and distinguish
it from all others. Secondly, to follow these facts through
their successive transformations, each isolately and in itself,
and in the junctions and combinations which at the end of live
centuries resulted in feudalism.

The essential facts, the constituent elements of the feudal
system, may, I tliink, be reduced to three.

1. The particular nature of territorial property, real, full,
hcreditar}', and yet derived from a superior, imposing certain
personal obligations on its possessor, under pain of forfeiture,
in a word, wanting in that coni])lete inde[)en(lence which is
now its characteristic.

2. The amalgamation of sovereignty with property, I
mean the attribution to the proprietor of the soil over all tha

c2

20 HISTORY OF

inhabitants of that soil, of the whole or nearly the whole of
those rights which constitute what we now call sovereignty,
and which are now possessed only by the government, the
public power.

3. The hierarchical system of legislative, judicial, military
institutions, which united the possessors of fiefs among them-
selves, and formed them into a general society.

These, if I am not mistaken, are the truly essential and
constitutive facts of feudalism. It would be easy to resolve
it into a larger number of elements, to assign to it a greater
number of characteristics; but these, I think, are the prin-
cipal, and contain all the others. I shall therefore confine
myself to them, and sum them up by saying, that properly to
comprehend the progressive development of feudalism,we have
to study: first, the history of territorial property, that is, the
state of lands; secondly, the history of sovereignty and of the
social state, that is, the state of persons; thirdly, the history
of the political system, that is, the state of institutions.

I enter at once into the matter; the history of territorial
property will now occupy us.

At the end of the tenth century, when feudalism was de-
finitively constituted, its territorial element, as you know,
bore the name oi fief {feodum, feudum). A writer replete
with sense and learning, Brussel, in his Exameii de I'usage
general des Fiefs aux 11, 13, et 14 siecles, says, that the
word fi(f (feoduin) did not originally mean the land itself,
tlie body of tlie domain, but only what in feudal language is
called the tejwre of the land, that is, its relation of dependence
towards such or such a suzerain:

" Tims," says he, " wlien king Louis ie Jeune notifies by
a charter of the year 1167, that count Henry of Cliampagne
has granted the_/i'V/of Savegny to Bartliolomew, bisliop of
Beauvais, it is only to be understood from this, that count
Henry had granted tlie dependence of Savegny to tlie bishop
of B 'auvais; so that this land which had hitherto been held
immediately from the count of Champagne was thenceforward
only to hold of him as a sub-fief."

I think that Brussel is mistaken. It is very improbable
thot the name of feudal property meant at first only the
quality, the attribute of that property, and not the thing itself.
"VVhen the first lands which became iiefs were given it wi.3

CIVILIZATION TN FRANCE. 21

not suzerainty alone which was conferred; the donors evidently
gave the land itself. At a later period, when the feudal
system and its ideas had gained some firmness and develop-
ment, then they might have distinguished the tenure of tlie
domain, have given one apart from the other, and designat(!d
it by a particular word. It may be that at this epoch the
word fiefyffji?, often used for the tenure, independently of the
body of the land. But such could not have been the primi-
tive meaning oi feodum; the domain and the tenure were surely
originally confounded in language as in fact.

However this may be, the word is only found at a late
period in the documents of our history. It appears for the
first time in a charter of Charles le Gros, in 884. It is there
repeated three times, and almost at the same epoch it is also
met with elsewhere. Its etymology is uncertain; many have
been assigned to it. I shall point out but two of them, as
those alone which I consider probable. According to some
(and this is the opinion of most of the French jurisconsults,
of Cujas among others), the word feodum is of Latin origin;
it comes from the word fides, and means the land in consi-
deration of which people were bound to fidelity towards a
suzerain. According to others, and especially according to
German writers, feodum is of German origin, and comes from
two ancient words, of which one has disappeared from the
German language's, while the other still exists in many, par-
ticularly in the Knglish, from the word fc, fee, reward, re-
compence, and from the radical od, property, goods, posses-
sion; so that feodum means a property given in rccompence,
by way of pay or reward.

The Germanic origin seems to me far more probable than
the Latin origin: first, because of the very construction of
the word, and next, because that, at the time when it was
introduced into our territory, it was from Germany that
it came; lastly, because, in our ancient Latin documents,
this kind of property bears a difierent name — that of bc/iC'
ficium. The word bcneficium very frequently occurs in
our historical documents from the iiith to the tenth century,
and these evidently indicate the same condition of territorial
property wliich, at the end of the eleventh century, took the
name oi' feodum. For a long time after this epoch, the two
words are synonymous; so that in the ver^' charter referred

22 HISTORY OF

to, of Charles le Gros, down to a charter of the emperor
Frederic I., of 1162, feodum and benejicium are used indif-
ferently.

In order, therefore, to the study of the history of the
feoda from the lifth to the tenth century, it is necessary to
look at that of the heneficia. What we say of benefices will
apply to fiefs, because the two words, at different dates, are
the expression of the same fact.

From the earliest times of our history, immediately after
the invasion and establishment of the Germans upon Gallic
soil, we find benefices appear. This kind of territorial
property is contradistinguished from another, which bears
the name of alodium. The word alod, alodium, means an
estate which the possessor holds of no one, which imposed no
obligation upon him towards any one.

Tiiere is reason to suppose that the first freeholds were
lands which, under various forms, and without general or
systematic division, were appropriated amongst themselves
by the conquering Germans, Franks, Burgundians, or Visi-
goths, at tlie time of their establisliment. These were
entirely independent; they were gamed by conquest, by lot,
not from a superior. They were called alod, that is to say,
according to some, lot, chance ; according to others, full,
independent property, (Al-od.)

The word heiicficium, on the contrary, meant from its origin
(it is on the very face of it) an estate received from a superior
by way of recompence, of favour, and wliich required certain
duties and services towards him. You know that the German
chiefs, to attract or attach tlieir companions to them, made
them presents of arms, of horses, supported them and main-
tained them in tlieir train. The gifts of estates, the bene-
fices, succeeded, or at least were added to presents of move-
ables. But thence there was to result, and in fact soon did
result, a considerable change in tlie relations between the
chief and his companions. The presents of arms, horses,
banquets, retained tlie companions around the chief, and
made them lead a life in common. Tlie gifts of estates, on
the contrary, were an infallible cause of separation. Among
the men to whom tlieir ciiiefs gave benefices, many soon
wished to establish themselves upon those benefices, to lire

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 23

also upon their own estates, there to become in their turn the
centre of a small society. Thus, by their very nature, the
new gifts of the chief to his companions dispersed the band,
and changed the principles as- well as the forms of the society.

There was a second difference, fertile in results: the quan-
tity of arms, horses, in a word, of personal presents, which a
chief might make to his men was unlimited. It was a matter ot
pillage; a new expedition always procured the means of giving.
It could not be so with presents of estates. There was doubt-
less much to share in the Roman empire, but still the mine was
not inexhaustible; and when a chief had given away the lands
of a country where he was fixed, he had nothing more to
give, in order to gain other companions, unless by constantly
recommencing the wandering life, by constantly changing
residence and country, a habit which gradually disappeared
Thence a twofold fact is everywhere visible, from the fifth
to the ninth century. On the one hand, the constant eiforts
of the givers of benefices to resume them when it suited them,
and to make them a means of acquiring other companions;
on the other, the equally constant effort of the beneficiaries
to insure themselves the full and unalterable possession of the
estates, and to free themselves from their obligations towards
the chief from whom they held them, but with whom they no
longer lived, and whose whole fate they no longer shared.

From this twofold effort there resulted a continual insta-
bility in properties of this kind. Some resumed them,
others retained them by force, and all accused each other of
usurpation.

Tills was the fact; but what was the right? what was the
legal condition of benefices, and of the tie formed between
the givers and the receivers? Let us see the system of
most political historians, especially of Montesquieu, Robert-
son, and Mably.

They think the benefices were: 1, entirely revocable; the
giver could take them back when he pleased; 2, temporary,
conceded for a fixed time, a year, five years, ten years; 3, for
life, granted during the lite of the beneliciary; 4, lastly,
hereditary. Arbitrary revocability, tenijiorary concession, life
possession, and hereditary property, such, in their opinions,
are the four conditions througli which beneficiary property

24 HISTORY OP

passe^l from the fifth to the tenth century; such was the pro*
gression of facts from the conquest to the complete establisli-
ment of feudalism.

I think this system is alike controverted by historical tes-
timonies and by moral probabilities. And first, how can we
conceive to ourselves the absolute, arbitrary revocability of
benefices. In the expression alone, there is something repug-
nant to the very nature of human relations. Unless those
relations be the work of force, as is the case between master
and slave, the prisoner of war and the conqueror, it is not
probable, it is not possible, that all the advantage, all the
right should belong to only one of the interested parties.
How could a free man, a warrior, who voluntarily united him-
self to a chief, have subjected himself to this condition, that
the chief might do as he pleased with regard to him, and, for
example, take from him to-morrow, without motive', of his
mere whim, the domain which he has given him to-day? In
the voluntary relations of free creatures, whatever the in-
equality may be, there is always a certain reciprocity, certain
mutual conditions; a priori, entire and arbitrary revocability,
cannot have been, at any epoch, the legal and recognised state
of benefices.

Historical testimonies agree with moral probabilities. Let
us see in what terms Montesquieu describes the system; and
upon what text he founds it :

" It cannot be doubted but that at first fiefs were re-
vocable. We see in Gregory of Tours that there was taken
from Sunegisile and Galloman, all which they held from
the fisc, and that they had only left to them what they
held in property.' Gontran, raising his nephew Childebert
to the throne, had a secret conference with him, and pointed
out to him those to whom he slioukl give fiefs and those from
whom he should take them away.^ In a formula of Marculf,
the king gives in exchange, not only benefices which his
son held, but also those which anotlier had held.^ The law
of the Lombards contradistinguishes benefices from property.*
Historians, formula;, the codes of different barbarous nations,

» L. ix., c. 38. » L. vii., c. 3:3. ^ l. i., f. 30

« L. iii., tit. 8, 33.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCP. 25

all tne monuments which remain to us. are unanimouft.
Lastly, those who wrote the Book of Fiefs,' inform us that
at first the loids could withdraw them at will, then they
were assured for a year, and afterwards they were given fok-
life."2

With the exception of the last authority, that of the Book
of Fiefs, of which I shall immediately speak, it is evident
that all these texts prove a fact, and not a law, the actual,
not the legal condition of benefices. Doubtless the king,
or any giver of benefices who found himself more powerful
than the receiver, took back his gifts when he felt the desire
or need.

The instability, the violent struggle was incessant : but
that it was the legal state of this kind of property, that the
possessors of fiefs acknowledged the right of the givers to take
them back when they pleased, there is no evidence to show
On the contrary, we find the beneficiaries everywhere exclaim-
ing against the iniquity of such spoliation, and maintaining
that the benefices should only be taken from them when
they, on their side, were wanting in the promised faith, when
they had been unfaithful towards the patron of whom they
held them. On condition of the fidelity of the beneficiary,
the possession of the benefice should be stable and peacable:
that is the law, the moral rule established in minds. 1 will
select a few texts out of a hundred:

" Let all which has been given to a church, to the priests,
or to any other person, by the munificence of the said princes

of glorious memory, rest fixedly with them.""^

" If any land be taken from any one, without fault o?i his

part, let it be returned to him."*

"Charles the Great suffered no lord, from any impulse of

anger, to withdraw his benefices from his vassal without

reason."^

" We will that our faithful hold as settled that no person

henceforward, of whatever rank or condition he be, shall be

' L. i., tit. 1. " Esprit dcs Lais, 1. xxx., c. 10.

' Balu/.e, Jlfcueil dcs Cnpitiihtircs, vol. i., col. 8. Ordonnancs ol
Clotaire, 1st or '.ind.

♦ Bal.. vol. i., col. U; Treaty of Aiuldot, in r)87.

* Vie (/<,' Charlcmufjnv, by Egiiihard.

26 HISTOKY OF

robbed or despoiled of his benefices by our arbitrary will, CT
by the artifice or unjust avidity of any other person without
a just judgment dictated by equity and reason."'

With regard to the Book of Fiefs, drawn up at a far poste-
rior epoch, from the twelfth to the thirteenth century, and by
the jurisconsults of the time, it most probably committed
the same error as Montesquieu : it converted the fact into a
law.

The very first step, then, of that systematic progression
which it is said the beneficiary property observed in its de-
velopment, bears no inquiry. 1 pass- to the second. Did it
for some time assume the legal form of a concession with a
fixed term, a kind of bailment or farming?

Unless I am mistaken, there is something in the veiy
nature of such a concession which is repugnant to a social
state so irregular and violent as that of the times of which we
speak. Contracts for a fixed term, for precise conditions,
and of short duration, are delicate combinations, difficult to
get observed, which can only be put in practice in advanced
and well regulated societies, and where there exists a power
capable of enforcing their execution. If w^e look closely into
the civil life of barbaric nations, or nations bordering upon
barbarism, if we run our eye over the Formula? of ISIarculf,
almost all the agreements which we find there are either of a
prompt, immediate execution, or concluded for perpetuity, or
at least for life. We find very few agreements for a limited
time; such agreements are more complicated, and they would
be deficient in guarantees. Guarantees also would have been
wanting to temporary benefices; and, the term of concession
arrived, the giver would have had great difficulty in regaining
possession of his domain.

We however find, from the sixth to the ninth century,
benefices which appear temporary. Their origin, I think,
was this:

In the Roman legislation, the gratuitous concession of the
usufruct of a property for a limited, and generally a short
time, was called precariiim. After the fall of the empire,
the churches often leased out their properties for a fixed
rent, by a contract also called prccarium, the term of which

' Capit. df Charles le Chaiive, in 844 , Bal., vol. ii., col. 5.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 27

was commonly one year. In some instances, doubtless to
insure the protection or divert the hostility of a neighbour-
ing power, a church gratuitously conceded to him this tem-
j)orary enjoyment of some domain. In some instances, also,
the concessionary, availing himself of his power, did not pay
the agreed rent, and yet retained the concession. Undoubtedly
the use or abuse of these precaria, or temporary benefices of
church property, were frequent enough; for, in the course of
the seventh century, we find the kings and mayors of the
palace employing their credit, or rather their authority, with
the churches, to obtain usufructs of this kind for their clients:
" At the recommendation of the illustrious Ebroin, mayor of
the palace, the said John obtained from the monastery of
St. Denis the domain called Taherniaciim, by precarious
tenure."' When Charles Martel seized a portion of the
domains of the church to distribute them among his warriors,
the church exclaimed against the sacrilege, the spoliation, and
she had good right so to do. Pepin, become chief of the
Franks, needed to reconcile himself with the church; she de-
manded her domains. But how to return them to her? It
would be necessary to dispossess men of whom Pepin had
even more need than he had of -the church, and who would
more efficaciously defend themselves. To extricate himself
from this embarrassment, Pepin and his brother Carloman
decreed the i'ollowing capitulary:

" With the consent of the servants of God and of the
Christian people, and because of the wars which threaten us,
and the attacks of nations which surround us, we have decided
that, for the maintenance of our warriors, and with the help
of the indulgence of God, we shall retain for some time, as
vrecaria, and subject to the payment of a rent, a portion of
the properties of the churches; on this condition, that each
year there shall be paid to the i)roprietary church or monas-
tery one solidus, that is to say, twelve denlers for each farm;
and that if he who enjoys the said property die, the church
shall re-enter into possession. If we are constrained to it by
necessity and so order it, the precariuin shall be renewed,
and a second shall be drawn up. But let them heed that
the churches or monasteries whose properties shall be thus

' Recucil des Ilistoriens de France, vol. v., p. 701,

28 HISTORY OF

lent in precario do not suffer want: if that happens, let the
church and the house of God be again put in full possession
of their property."'

Here you perceive between the cliurch and the new pos-
sessors of her domains there is a kind of transference placed
under the guarantee of the king. Pepin indeed, and his
first successors, took much trouble to make it observed; their
capitularies incessantly order men to pay the rent due to the
churches-, or to give up the domains, or to renew the precaria.
Most of these domains, as you may suppose, were never given
up, and the rent was very irregularly paid. Thence, how-
ever, arose temporary benefices, lands held for a fixed time,
generally for five years. But this fact cantiot be considered
as a legal state of beneficiary property in general, as one of
the degrees through which it passed. It is rather an accident,
a special form of certain benefices; and a very unimportant
form, for the conditions which it imposed were scarcely ever
respected.

From being temporary, 14; is said, benefices became of life
duration: this is their third degree. It is far more than a
degree in their history — it is their veritable, primitive,
habitual state, the common character of this kind of conces-
sion. It was thus willed by the veiy nature of the rela-
tions which benefices were destined to perpetuate. Before
the invasion, when the Germans wandered upon the Roman
frontiers, the relation between the chief and the companions
was purely personal. Tiie companion assuredly engaged
neither his family nor his race; he engaged only liimselt'.
After the establishment, and when the Germans had passed
from the wandering life to the state of proprietors, it still
continued the same; the tie between the giver and the
beneficiary Avas still considered personal and for life; the
benefice must have been so too. Most of the documents of
the epoch, in fact, expressly say as much, or take it for
granted. I shall cit(; but a few texts of various dates, from
the sixth to the ninth century; they will place the matter
beyond doubt.

In 585, " Wandelin, who had brought up the young kinor,

' Capit. du Roi Carloman, iu 7-18 ; Bal., vol. i., col. 148.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. .29

Childebert, died; all the property which he had received
from the fisc returned to the fisc." '

In 660, under Theodoric, king of Austrasia, " after the
death of Warratun, who had enjoyed it, the domain called
Latiniacum returns to our fisc." '^

In 694, under Childebert IL, " the domain called Naprini-
acum, which had been ceded to the illustrious Pannichius, re-
turned to our fisc after his death."^

" Let those who hold a benefice from us be careful to im-
prove it." *

" "Whoever holds a benefice from us must take care, as
much as may be done with the aid of God, that none of the
slaves which form part of it die from hunger, and must not
sell the products of the soil on his own account, until he has
provided for their subsistence." ^

" In 889, king Eudes conferred a domain upon Ricabod, his
vassal, in benefice and usufruct, with this clause, that if
Ricabod had a son, the benefice should pass to that son, but
only for his life."*^

Neither, then, is this a crisis of the development of bene-
ficiary property, a degree through which it passed; it was its
general and primitive condition.

At all epochs, however, amidst life benefices we find
hereditary benefices. There is no reason to be surprised at
this; and the so prompt tendency to hereditary possession which
manifests itself in the history of benefices is not to be solely
attributed to the avidity of the possessors: it arose from the
very nature of territorial possession. Succession was its
normal, almost necessary state, tlie end towards which it
tended, even fi'om its birth. Out of many reasons, I shall
mention but two. From the time that a man possesses and im-
proves an estate, whatever the manner of his jiossession or ot
Ills improvement, lie employs upon it means wliicli he does not
draw from the soil, but from himself; by tlie labours which
he spends upon it, by tlie buildings with which he covers it,
he adds a certain value to the estate, and, to speak in the

' Gregoire dc Tour'', 1. viii., c. 23.

* Mabillon, dc lie Diplo-matica. 1. vi., p. -171.

» Mabillon. p. -HCk

■• Captt. df Ch(ir!mta(/iir, in H]:'! ; Bal., t. i., col. •'"lOT.

« Ibid., a. 791 ; i3ul.,"t. i., col. '.^O-i. « -Mubilloii, ♦// sup., f. ^66

30 HISTORY OF

present language of political economy, he invests therein a
certain capital, which, if he at any time leaves, he cannot
entirely nor conveniently carry away — a capital which
becomes more or less incorporated with the -soil, and which
cannot be entirely separated from it. Thence arises, and by
the instincts of reason and justice, a certain natural tendency
of all territorial property to become hereditary; a tendency
especially powerful when society, still rude, knows not how to
estimate the value which the possessor who is leaving it has
added to the soil, and to indemnify him by other means.

Another cause concurred to the same effect. Except in ex-
traordinary states of society, man cannot be constantly moving
about and leading a wandering life in the country which he calls
his native land; it is a need, a moral inclination Avith him
to fix himself somewhere, to plant himself in a certain place:
in the bosom of the political country a domestic country is
necessary to him, to which he may attach himself, where he
may establish his family. It is therefore the constant effort of
the cultivator, of the possessor, to become perpetual pro-
prietor.

Accordingly, by its very nature, and independently of all
external circumstance, beneficiary property tended to become
hereditary. This tendency, in fact, manifests itself even at the
very origin of. benefices, and at all epoclis, it sometimes attained
its end. The treaty of Andelot, concluded in 587, between
Gontran and Childebert II., in speaking of the beneficiaries
of queen Clotilde, sets forth:

" Let the lands which it pleases the queen to confer upon
any one belong to him in perpetuity, and at no time be taken
from him."'

The Formula? of Marculf contain tlie following, whicli
proves that hereditary concession, as early as the end of the
seventh century, was a common practice.

" We have conceded to the illustrious the domain

called . We order, by tlie present decree, which is

always to endure, that he shall keep the said domain in per-
petuity, shall possess it as proprietor, and shall leave posses-
sion of it to his descendants, or to whom he will.'"-

Dating from Louis le Debonnaire, concessions of this kind

* Ba]., vol. {., col. 13. 2 L. i., b. 14.

OIVILIZ'ATION IN FRANCE. 31

bfcame frequent; examples abound in the diplomas of this
prince and of Charles le Chauve. At length the latter, in
877, formally recognises the hereditability of benefices, and,
at the end of the ninth century, this was their common and
prevalent condition; as in the sixth and seventh centuries the
occupation for life had been the general fact.

Still, even at the ninth century, and although hereditary
right prevailed, it was not yet an evident law, nor was it
regarded as indubitable. The following is a fact Avhich will
clearly show what the state of mind was in this respect:

In 795, Charlemagne had given to a man named John,
who had conquered the Saracens in the country of Barcelona,
a domain called Pontes, situated near Narbonne, " in order
that the said John and his descendants may enjoy it without
trouble or rent, as long as they remain faithful to us and to
our sons." In 814, Charlemagne died; in 815, the same
John presented himself to Louis le Debonnaire with the
hei'editary donation which he held from Charlemagne, and
solicited its confirmation. Louis confirmed it, and added other
land, " to the end that the said John, his sons, and their
posterity, may enjoy it in virtue of our gift." In 844, the
emperor Louis and the beneficiary John, are dead; Teut-
fried, son of John, presents himself to Charles le Chauve,
with the two anterior gifts, asks him to confirm them anew,
and Charles does so, " to the end that thou and thy posterity
possess their property without any rent."

Thus, despite the hereditary right of the title, whenever
the beneficiary or the giver died, the possessor of the bene-
fice thought it necessary that he should be confirmed in his
possession; so strongly was the primitive idea of the per-
sonality of this relation and the rigfit which resulted IVoni it,
engraved upon minds.'

At the end of the tenth century, when we enter truly into
the feudal period, we no longer find anything of the kind;
the right of fiefs, inheritance, is no longer called into doubt
by any one, it has no longer any necil of confirmation.

As I said, historical testimonies agree with moral proba-
bilities. Beneficiary property, from the fifth to the tenth
century, did not pass through four successive and regular

' Essai sur FHistoirc de France, p. 145.

32 HISTORY OP

States — arbitrary revocability, temporary concession, life-
long, and hereditary concession. These four states are met
with at all epochs. The primitive predominance of life con-
cession, and the constant tendency to inheritance which in the
end triumphed, these only are the general conclusions which
may be deduced from monuments, the true characters of the
transition from benefices to fiefs.

At the same time that this transition was brought about,
and beneficiary property became hereditary and stable, it
also became general — that is, territorial property almost
everywhere took this form. At first, you will recollect, there
was a large number of freeholds, that is to say, properties
entirely independent, which were not held from any one, and
which owed nothing to any one. From the fifth to the tenth
century, freehold property, without entirely disappearing,
became gradually less extensive, , and the beneficiary condi-
tion became the common condition of territorial property.
The following are the principal causes of this: —

It must not be supposed that when the barbarians seized
upon the Roman world, they divided the territory into lots
more or less considerable, and that each, taking one for him-
self, established liimself upon it. Nothing of the kind hap-
pened. The chiefs, the men of importance, appropriated a
large extent of land to themselves, and most of their com-
panions, their men, continued to live with them in their
houses, always attached to their person. Freemen, Franks.
Burgundians, &c., living upon the estates of others, is a fact
which is met with at every step in the monuments of the
sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries.

But the inclination and desire for territorial proi)erty were
not long in spreading. In })roportion as the habits of the
wandering life left them, a greater number of men wished
to become proprietors. Besides, money was rare ; land, so to
speak, was the most common, tlie most disposable coin; it
was employed to repay all sorts of services. The possessors of
large domains distributed them among their companions by
way of payment. We read, in the capitularies of Charle-
magne.

" Let any steward (villicus) of one of our domains, who
possesses a benefice, send a substitute into our domaiu tc

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 33

overlook in his stead the works and all the care ol our
ki:d." '

" Let those of the keepers of our horces (poledrarii), who
are free men, and possess benefices in the locality of their
employment, live upon the product of their benefices." ^

And every great proprietor, ecclesiastic or layman, Egin-
hard or Charlemagne, paid in this way most of the free men
whom he employed. Thence arose the rapid division of landed
property, and the multitude of petty benefices.

A second cause, usurpation, also greatly increased their
number. Powerful chiefs, who had taken possession of a
vast territory, had little means of actually occupying and
preserving it from invasion. It was easy for neighbours, for
the first comer, to establish himself upon it, and to appro-
priate to himself such and such part of it. It so happened
in many places. In the anonymous life of Louis le Debon-
naire, we read:

" In 715, Charlemagne, sending back his son Louis into
Aquitaine, asked him how it happened that, being a king, he
was so parsimonious as to offer nothing to any one, not even his
blessing, unless it was asked of him. Louis informed his
father that the great men of the kingdom occupying them-
selves only with their own interests, and neglecting the
public interests, the royal domains were everywhere con-
verted into private properties; hence it happened that he
himself was king only in name, and in want almost of every-
tliing. Charlemagne wishing to remedy this evil, but fear-
ing that his son would lose somewhat of the affection of
the great men, if he were to take again through wisdom
what he had allowed them to usurp through improvidence,
sent liis own messengers into Aquitaine, Willbert, afterwards
archbishop of Kouen, and count Richard, inspectors of tho
royal domains, and ordered them to procure the restoration
to the king of the domains which had formerly belonged to
him, wliieh was done."^

And when, in 846, the bishops gave advice to Charles le
Chauve, as to the best means of elevating his dignity and
power :

' Capit. ofCharlrmagne, de Viliix ; Bel., vol i. col. .'333.
• Ibid., c. 'V:i8. ' Historiciis de France, t. iv., p. 00.

VOL. Ill D

34 HISTORY <>i»

" Many public domains," say they to him, " have been
taken from you, some by force, and some by fraud; and
because men have made false reports, and unjust demands
of you, they have retained them by way either of benefices,
or freeholds. It appears to us useful and necessary that you
should send into the countries of your kingdom, firm and
faithful messengers, taken from each order; they shall care-
fully draw up a list of the estates which, in the time of
your father and grandfather, belonged to the royal domain,
and of those which formed the benefices of vassals; they shall
examine what each now withholds of them, and shall render a
true account thereof to you. When you find that there is
reason, utility, justice, or sincerity, whether in the donation
or in the taking possession, things shall remain in their pre-
sent state. But when you see that there is unreasonableness,
or rather fraud, then, with the counsel of your faithful, re-
form this evil in such a manner that reason, prudence, or
justice be not overlook(;d, and tliat at the same time your
dignity be not debased, nor reduced by necessity to that
which is unbecoming it. Your house cannot be filled witli
servants to do their duties, if you have not the means of
recompensing their merits, or of alleviating their poverty."'

The greater part of tlie lands thus usurped certainly did
not re-enter intu the domain of the first possessor, king or
subject. It was too difiicult to dispossess the usurpers ; but
they undertook to hold them as benefices, and to observe the
obligations attending them. A new, and I think very in-
fiuential cause, of the extension of beneficiary property.

There were also many deserted, uncultivated lands; men
driven from their dwellings, or still leading a wandering lili-,
or monks, esrablislied themselves upon them and cultivuteil
them. When they had become valuable, some powerful
neighbour often demanded them, in order afterwards to con-
cede them, by way of benefices, to those who occupied them.

Lastly, a foui tli cause powerfully contributed to make the
ijeneficiary condition the cuinmon condition of territorial pro-
}-K;rty; by a p.ractice known under the name of recommenda-
tion, numerous frtdiolds were converted into benefices. The
proprietiK of a freehold prex'Uted himself before some r.eigh-

' J5al., \u]. ii., col. 31.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 35

hour, some powerful man, whom lie wished to select as a
patron, and holding in his hand either a clod of turf, or a
branch of a tree, he ceded to him his freehold, which he im-
mediately resumed by way of benefice, to enjoy according
to the rules and duties, but also with the privileges of tljis
new condition.

This practice was allied with the ancient German manners,
with the primitive relation of chief and companions. Then
also free men recommended themselves to another man, tliat
is, they selected a chief for themselves. But this was an
entirely personal and perfectly free relation. When it pleased
him, the companion quitted his chief and took another; th(!
engagement entered into between them was purely mortil,
and rested on their will alone. Immediately after the terri-
torial establishment, the same liberty continued to exist; they
could recommend themselves, that is to say, they could select
for a patron whom they wished, and might change him at
their will. Still, in proportion as society became a little
strengthened, attempts were made to introduce some regu-
larity into these proceedings and relations. The law of tlit.'
Visigoths declares:

" If any one has given arms, or aught else, to a man whom
he receives into his patronage, let those gifts remain to liini
who received them. If the latter choose another patron, let
him be free to recommend himself to whom he wills; this
cannot be interdicted to a free man, for he belongs to himself;
but let him return to the patron from whom he separates nil
which he has received from him."'

And we read in a capitulary of Pepin, son of Charleinagnr,
and king of Italy

" If any one, occupying the portion of land which has
fallen to him, choose another lord, whether the count, or any
other man, let him have lull liberty to leave liim; but let him
not retain or carry away any of the things which he possesses,
and let all revert to the domain of his first lord.'"'^

Matters soon proceeded still farther. Men were in the tran-
sition from the wandering life to the sedentary life. It was
above all things necessary to put an end to the fluctuation, tlie

' Lavs of l/ir TisiijoUix, 1. v.. tit. 0, c. 1.
* Captt. de (.'iKulcmaijiie, in ^\'\ ; l!al , vol. i., col. olO.
D 2

36 HISTORY OF

disorder of situations; in this direction tended the effort oi
Buperior men who aimed at the progression of society. Charle-
magne undertook to determine, on the one hand, under what
circumstance the client might quit his patron; and on the
other, to impose upon all free men the necessity of recom-
mending themselves to a patron, that is to say, of placing
themselves under the authority and responsibility of a supe-
rior. We read in his capitularies:

" Let no man who has received the value of a solidus from
his lord quit him, unless his lord has sought to kill him, or to
strike him with a stick, or to dishonour his wife or daughter,
or to despoil him of his heritage.'' '

" If any free man quit his lord against the will of the latter,
and go into the kingdom of another, let not the king receive
him into his patronage, and not allow his men to receive
him."2

" Let no one buy a horse, a beast of burden, an ox, or any-
thing else, without knowing him who sells it, or of what
country he is, where he lives, and who is his lord."^

In 858, the bishops wrote to Louis le Germanique: " We
bishops, sacred to the Lord, we are not, like the laity, obliged
to recommend ourselves to any patron."'*

Charlemagne did not obtain all he wished; for a long time
ftill an extreme fluctuation pervaded this class of relations.
Yet his genius was not mistaken as to the true need of the
time, his labours had ever in view the natural course of
things. The necessity and fixedness of the recommendation
of persons and lands prevailed more and more. ]\Iany free-
hold proprietors were weak, not in a state to defend them-
selves; they had need of a protector; others became weary
of their isolation: free and masters, it is true, in their domain,
they had no tie, no influence beyond it; they held no place
in that hierarchy of beneficiaries which was become the
general society. They wished to enter into it, and to par-
tici{)ate in the movement of the period. Thus was brought
about the metamorphosis of the greater part of the freeholds
into benefices; a metamorphosis less complete in the South

1 Capit. dc Pepin, king of Italy, in 705 ; Bal., vol. i., col. 597.

' Capit. He CharlenKirjiie, in H(JG ; Bal., t. i., col. 443.

' Ciipit. of tlie vear ^()(i, vol. i., col. 400.

♦ Ibid., vol. i.. col. 118.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 37

6f France, where the feudal system did not pervade all things,
and where many freeholds continued to exist, but which was
not the less general, and which made the beneficiary con-
dition the common condition of territorial property.

Such was the state in which it found itself at the close of
the tenth century, after going through the vicissitudes which
I have attempted to trace; and not only did most lands be-
come fiefs at this epoch, but the feudal character gradually
penetrated into all kinds of properties. At that time almost
everything was given in fief: the gruerie or forest jurisdic-
tion; the right of hunting therein; a share in the peage
(toll-money,) or in the rouage (wine-toll,) of a place; the
convoy or escort of merchants going to fairs; the office of
judge in the palace of the prince or high lord; the mint-
offices in those of his towns where money was coined; the
letting of the places in which fairs were held; the houses
where the public stoves were; the common ovens of towns;
lastly, down to the swarms of bees which might be found in
tbrests.' The whole civil order, in a word, became feudaL
^'e shall see the same revolution in the political order.

' Uiact Giii^ral dee Fi^«, by Brusse?, t. i., p. 4A.

HISTORY OP

THIRD LECTURE.

Of the amalgamation of sovereignty and property, the second characteristic
of the feudal system — True meaning of this fact — Its origin — It comes
neither from tlie Roman society nor from the German band — Is it the
result of conquest only ? — Of the system of feudal publicists on this

subject Two forms of society in Germany, the tribe and the band —

Social organization of the tribe — Domestic sovereignty is there distinct
from political sovereignty — Twofold origin of domestic sovereignty
among the ancient Germans — It arose from family and from conquest —
AVliat became of the organization of the Gei-man tribe, and especially of
domestic sovereignty after the establishment of the Germans in Gaul —
What it retained of the family spirit gradually diminished ; what it
retained of conquest became dominant — Recapitulation and true charactei-
Of feudal sovereignty.

Wk have studied the first of the great tacts which consti-
tute and characterise the feudal system; I mean the special
nature of landed property, in its progressive development
from the fifth to the tenth century. I now approach the
second of these facts, the amalgamation of sovereignty and
{)roperty.

It is first of all necessary to come to an understanding as to
tlie meaning of these words, and as to the limits of the fac*
itself Our business here is solely with the sovereignty of
the possessor of the fief in his domains, and over their inlia-
hitants. Beyond tlie fief, and in his relations with other pos-
.•sessors of fiefs, superior or inferior, and whatever the inequality
between them, the lord was not a sovereign. No one in this
association possessed the sovereignty. There other principles
and other forms prevailed, which we shall study in treating
oi' the tliird characteristic of the feudal system, that is to say,
tlie hierarcliical organization of the general society which the
possessors of fiefs formed among themselves.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 39

When I speak of the amalgamation of sovereignty and of
property, I repeat tliat I speak solely of the sovereignty of
the possessor of the fief within his own domains, and over
their inhabitants not themselves possessors of fiefs.

The fact thus limited, its certainty is incontestable. At
the eleventh century, feudalism once well established, the
possessor of the fief, great or small, possessed all the rights
of sovereignty in his domains. No external or distant
power gave laws there, established taxes, or administered
justice; the proprietor alone possessed all tliis power.

Such at least, in principle and in the common thought,
was feudal right. This right was often overlooked, then
disputed, and lastly usurped by the superior and powerful
lords, among others by the kings. It did not the less exist,
nor was it the less claimed as primitive and fundamental.
Wiien the publicist friends of feudalism complain that the
sovereignty of the simple lords was usurped by great barons,
and that of the great barons by kings, they are quite accurate;
such was the case. Originally, in the right, in the spirit of
the system, each lord exercised the legislative, judicial, and
military powers in his domains; he made war, coined money,
&c. ; in a word, he was a sovereign.

Nothing of the kind existed before the full development of
the feudal system immediately after the invasion, in the sixth
and seventh centuries. We then see tlie germ, the first
rudiments of feudal sovereignty; but by its side, and even
above it, there still exist imperial royalty, military royalty,
the Roman administration, the assemblies and jurisdiction of
free men. Various {)owers and systems coexisted and
struggled with each other. The sovereignty was not con-
centred within each fief, and in the hands of its possessor.

How was the fact brought about from the filth to the tenth
century? How were all other sovereignties abolished, or at
least eflTaced, in order to leave only tliat of the lord within
his domain and over its inliabitants?

Assuredly it was not from Konian society tliat this fact
could have taken its origin, for that contained nothing re-
sembling it. So far from sovereignty there being inherent
in ]iro})erty, and disseminated, as here, over tlie face <it
the country, it was not even politically divided; it resided
wholly and comjiletely in the centre of the empire, and in

40 HISTOEl' OF

the hands of the emperor. The emperor alone made laws,
imposed taxes, possessed the jurisdiction, regulated war
and peace, in fact governed, either of himself or by his dele-
gates. The remains of the municipal system still visible in
cities, consisted of some administrative privileges, and in a
certain degree of independence, which did not extend to the
limits of sovereignty. A master, agents, and subjects — such
was the entire social organization of the Roman empire,
always excepting slaves, who remained under the domestic
jurisdiction.

It is evidently not from the bosom of Roman society that
feudal sovereignty could have taken birth.

Nor could it have arisen from the German bands which
invaded the Roman empire. There nothing resembling the
amalgamation of sovereignty and power can be met with;
for property (I mean landed property), is incompatible with
the wandering life, and with regard to persons, the chief of
such a band possessed no sovereignty over his companions;
he had no right to give them laws, to tax them, or of himself
to administer justice to thera. There reigned common deli-
beration, personal independence, and a great equality of rights,
although the principle of an aristocratical society germinated
there, and at a later period was to develop itself.

Did the amalgamation of sovereignty and property take
rise from conquest alone? and did the conquerors divide
the territory and its inhabitants between them, to reign
as sovereign each in his portion, in the sole right of the
strongest?

This is what many publicists have believed and maintained.
Correctly speaking, in trutli. this is the idea which constitutes
the basis of the system of all the defenders of the feudal regime,
of M. de Boulainvilliers, for example. They do not formally
express it; they do not say openly that force alone founded the
sovereignty of the possessors of fiefs; but this is their prin-
ciple, the only possible principle of their theory. The soil had
been conquered, and Avith tlie soil, the inhabitants; thence the
amalgamation of sovereignty and property. Both of them
passed, and legitimately passed, to the bravest. Unless M.
de Boulainvilliers takes this fact for granted, the whole of
his system falls to the ground.

In fact as in right, M. de Boulainvilliers and the publi-

CIVILIZATION IN FnANCE. 41

cists of tliis school are mistaken. The amalgamation of
sovereignty and property, that great characteristic of the
feudal system, was not so simple, so purely material, so brutal,
thus to speak, a fact so foreign both to the organization of the
two societies which the invasion brought into contact, the
Roman society and the German society, or to the general
principles of social organization.

Let us seek its true origin; you will see, I think, that it is
more complex, more remote, than the simple right of con-
quest.

When I spoke, in the last course, of ancient Germany, I
distinguished the two societies, or rather the two modes of
social organization, diftering in their principles and their re-
sults, wiiich were visible there; on the one hand, the tribe or
horde, and on the other, the band.

The tribe was a sedentary society, formed of neighbouring
])roprietcrs, living on the produce of their lands and their
herds.

The band was a wandering society, composed of warriors
united around a chief, either for some special expedition, or
to seek fortune at a distance, and living by pillage.

That the-se two societies co-existed among the Germans,
and were essentially distinct, Cajsar. Tacitus, Ammianus
Marcellinus, all the monuments, all the traditions of ancient
Geimaiiy prove to us. Most of the nations mentioned by
Tacitus, whose names fill his treatise Upon the Manners of the
Germans, are tribes or confederations of tribes. The greater
part of the invasions whicli ended in the destruction of the
Roman empire, especially tlie first, were effected by wander-
ing bands, who had quitted the German tribes to seek booty
and adventures.

Tiie ascendancy of the chief over his companions formed
the band, and pressed it around him. This was its origin. It
was governed by common deliberation; personal indepen-
dence and warlike equality played a great part in it.

The organization of the tribe was less irregular and less
siniplc.

Its primitive element, its political unity, to speak in the
language of publicists, was not tlic individual, the warrior,
but the family, the chief of the family. The tribe, or the
portion of the tribe which inhabited the same territory, was

42 HISTORY OF

composed of families, of the proprietary heads of families
established near each other. The proprietary iieads of
families were its true citizens, the cives optirno jure of the
llomans.

The dwellings of the families of the German tribe were
not contiguous, and at a distance from the lands to be culti-
vated, as they are in our towns and villages; each chief of a
family was established amidst his own lands; his family, and
all who cultivated them with him, whether free or not, rela-
tions, labourers, or slaves, Avere estabhshed on them like him-
self, dispersed here and there, like their dwellings, over the
face of the domains. The domains of the different chiefs of
the family were adjacent, but not their dwellings.

It is in this way that the villages of the Indian tribes are
still constructed in North America; in Europe, most of the
villages of Corsica, and still nearer to us, at our very door, a
large number of the villages of Normandy. There also the
dwellings are not contiguous; each farmer, each small pro-
prietor, lives in the midst of his fields, in an inclosure, called
masure, mansura, dwelling, the mansus of our ancient docu
ments.

I dwell upon these circumstances, because they arise from
the social organization ot the tribe, and assist its proper com-
prehension. The general assembly of the tribe was formed
of all the proprietary heads of families. They met, under
the direction of the most aged, {grau, grav, the count, be-
come at a later period, the lord,) to discuss together of common
affairs, to administer justice upon important occasions, to
occupy themselves with religious ceremonies in which the
whole tribe was interested, 8fc. The political sovereignty
belonged to this assembly.

By j)olitical sovereignty, I mean the government of the
general affairs of the tribe. To that, in fact, the jurisdiction
of the assembly was confined; it did not penetrate into the
domains of the chief of the family; with him no authority
had a right to interfere. By title of proprietor and chief of
the family, he alone was sovereign there.

In the domains of the ))ropi"ietary head of a family, and
under his authority, lived: 1, his family, properly so called,
his children and their families, grouped around him; 2, tlie
labourers who cultivated his lands, some free, others enjoying

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 43

only a half-freedom. These Coloni held certain portions of
his domains from the chief of the family, and cultivated
them on their own account, subject to a certain ground-
rent. They did not by this acquire any right of property over
these lands; yet they and their children established them-
selves there; they possessed and cultivated them hereditarily.
Between them and the proprietary head of the family there
were formed those ties which rest upon no title, confer no
legal right, and nevertheless are true ties, a moral element of
society; 3, after the bond-labourers came the slaves, properly
so called, employed either in the house or to cultivate, for the
chiefs of the family, those lands which he had not ceded to
any one, and which generally lay immediately around his
habitation.

Such was the extent of the family, and, so to speak, the
contents of the domain. All this internal population, of very
different conditions, was placed under the jurisdiction of the
proprietary head of the I'amily; no public power interfered;
ever// man teas master in his oivn house ; such was already the
maxim of the ancient German society. Proprietor and
magistrate, the chief of the family was even priest, it appears,
for that portion of domestic worship which could subsist at
that epoch.

What was the origin of this organization of the tribes in
Germany? Should we see in it a first step, and, in some mea-
sure, an anticipated repetition of what happened at the sixth
century, after the establishment of the Germans upon the
Koman territory — that is to say, the result of a conquest?
These proprietary chiefs of families, are they conquerors come
from afar, and who have seized the soil and its inhabi-
tants? Those labourers who cultivate the soil on payment of a
rent, and under the authority of the proprietor, are thev the
conquered, dispossessed entirely or in part, and reduced to
an inferior condition?

Or is this an example of the social organization which haa
been called the patriarchal system, which arose among pas-
toral and agricultural nations, from the progressive extension
of the natural laniily and from the agricultural life, of wi<ich
the annals of the East, especially tliose of the Arabs and the
H(!bn;ws, offer the model; which at every step remind us of the
riarrativesof the Bible, and which also appeared, at least under

44 HISTORY OF

Its most essennal features, in the bosom of the Roman re-
public, in the situation of the pater famiUas, at once pro-
prietor, magistrate, and priest, in the midst of his domain, of
his children, and of his slaves?

This last explanation is that which most of the German
writers have adopted and maintain. Passionate admirers of
the ancient institutions, of the ancient manners of their
country, they find in this organization of the tribes, not a
complete and regular model, but all the good principles of the
social system. In the family, the domestic magistracy; be-
yond the family, political liberty; the chiefs of the family
governing the inferior classes by the ascendancy of j)roperty
and position, and then regulating in common the affairs oi
the tribe; is not this, say they, the best union of power and
liberty? What system better respects the natural elements,
the necessary conditions of the social order? Can we see
there the woi'k of conquest and of force? Must we not, on
the contrary, there recognise the simple and spontaneous
development of human relations?

I, for many reasons, cannot entirely adopt this system.

And, first, the Germans appear to me to carry into their
researches and ideas upon this subject a disposition of mind
which 1 must characterise with some precision, for, unless I
am mistaken, it exercises a great influence over them.

When, under some broad point of view, or under some
essential relation, a social state appears to them good and
beautiful, they conceive for it an exclusive admiration and
sympathy. They are generally inclined to admire, and to be
overcome with passion; the imperfections, the interruptions,
the bad side of things, strike them but little. Singular con-
trast! In the purely intellectual sphere, in the research for
and combination of ideas, no nation has more extension of
mind, more philosophical impartiality. When the question
is of facts which address themselves to the imagination, which
arouse moral emotions, they easily fall into prejudices and
narrow views; their imagination then wants fidelity, truth;
they are without poetical impartiality — in fact, they do not
see things from all points of view, and such as they
really are.

This disposition has often governed them in the study of
tncient Germany, of its origins, its national manners. What

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 45

they found there great, moral, truly liberal, has struck them,
hiis filled them with enthusiasm; and here their inquiry has
stopped; to this has their imagination been limited. It is
with these elements only that they have reconstructei their
primitive society.

There is a second cause of error. Most of the national
documents which the Germans make use of in order to study
the ancient Germanic institutions, are of an epoch far pos-
terior to that which occupies them, far posterior to the
second, third, fourth, and fifth centuries. Before the con-
version of Germany to Christianity — that is to say, before
the eighth century — there existed no really national monu-
ments, for then the German languages were not written.
Of these times there only remain vague, incomplete traditions,
preserved by writers of a period far less remote. Till then,
we know the Germans only through Latin writers, or
through the western chroniclers; there are consequently many
anachronisms in the picture which the Germans trace of the
ancient social state of their country. They refer to the third
and fourth centuries facts derived from monuments of the
ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries. I do not say that there
is not in these monuments some revelation, some echo of the
ancient Germanic society; but these inferences from premises
antecedent to them three, four, five, and six centuries, are
extremely delicate and difficult. We run great risk of de-
ceiving ourselves in such inductions, und when we undertake
this work with an exclusive and passionate turn of imagina-
tion, the chance of error becomes infinitely greater.

Lastly, numerous positive texts, Ca;sar, Tacitus, Ammianus
Marcellinus, attest that before the great invjision, between the
Rhine, the Elbe, and the Danube, nations of the same race
and of different race often expelled, enslaved, exterminated
one another, and that the organization of the ancient German
tribe, especially the situation of the agricultural lal)ourcrs,
was more than once the result of conquest. 1 have already
had occasion, in our last course, to point out some of these
texts;' I shall here repeat the most explicit of them:

" The slaves in general," says Tacitus, " are not arranged
in their several employments in household afiairs, as is the

' Lecture VII. toI. i.

46 HISTORY OK

practice at Rome; each has his separate habitation or home.
The master considers him as an agi'arian dependent, Avho is
obliged to furnish, by way of rent, a certain quantity of
grain, of cattle, or of wearing apparel. The slave does this,
and there his servitude ends. All domestic matters are
managed by the master's own wife and children. To punish
a slave with stripes, to load him with chains, or condemn
him to hard labour, is unusual; tliey kill their slaves some-
times, not out of ordinary severity or discipline, but from
violence or sudden impulse, as they would kill an enemy."

" In the neighbourhood of the Teucteres were formerly the
Bructeres; it is said, however, that now the Chamaves and
the Angrivarians possess the district, having, in concert with
the adjoining tribes, expelled and entirely extirpated the
ancient inhabitants."

" The Marcomanians are the most eminent for their
strength and military glory; the very territory they occupy
is the reward of their valour, they having dispossessed its
former owners, the Boians.'"'

Go through the treatise On the Manners of the Germatis —
at every step you will find phrases and wox'ds which indicate
the same fact.

In the social state of ancient Germany, and especially in
that of the sedentary and agricultural tribe, I therefore believe
tlie share of conquest, of force, much greater than the German
historians generally suppose it to be. I believe the domestic
sovereignty of the chief of the proprietary lamily was much
more tyrannical, the conditions of the labourers much worse
than they imagine. This, in my opinion, is indicated not
only by moral probabilities, not only by the Latin writers
whom I have just spoken oi", but down to the national docu-
ments which tlie Germans call to the support of their ideas;
among others, by all the wrecks of the ancient Germanic
poetry. I regret that I have not time to dwell upon this.
It would, I think, be easy to prove how far their pictures of
their ancient condition is from the truth.

vStill, having brought all these restrictions to bear upon
the favourite system of the Germans in this matter, I think
with them, that the organization of the German tribe, and

» De Monh Gtim., <-.. 20, :W, 12.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 47

the relations of the various classes of the inhabitants, is
not wholly attributable to conquest, to force. The sove-
reignty of the proprietary chief of the family, in his domain?,
was not exclusively that of the conqueror over the conquered,
of the master over the slaves or demi-slaves; there was, in
fact, something of the patriarchal system; the family, its re-
lations, its habits, its sentiments, were, in part at least, the
source of this state of society.

And first, the mere fact that this is a general opinion in
Germany, a public belief, prevalent in all classes, is at once
a strong presumption 'that it was so. A nation does not
deceive itself to such a degree as to its origins, and the feel-
ing with which they inspire it. That antipathy wiiich we
elsewhere encounter towards the ancient social state of the
country, does not exist in Germany. The first relations be-
tween the superior and inferior classes, between proprietors
and cultivators, have not left those mournful traditions, those
unhappy recollections, with which our history is filled. The
German population has not constantly struggled to escape
from its origins, to abolish its old institutions. There is,
then, evidently something besides conquest and tyranny.

The common opinion is right, it is conformable Avith facts.
The general invasion of the country by foreigners, the
struggle of races, the struggle of languages, the profound
hostility of social situations, nothing, or scarcely anything of
all this was found in Germany, at least in a great part of
Germany. The feudal system was established there, played
an important part there, and still weighs heavily upon the
l^eople, althougii less so than elsewhere. There was at all
times nuiny free and proprietary peasants, many independent
properties, not in the least fettered with the bonds of
feudalism.

We thei^ifore cannot refuse to recognise in the organiza-
tion of the ancient German tribe, and chiefly in the domestic
sovereignty of tiie proprietary chief of the famil}-, another
origin than conquest, another character, a character more
moral, more free than that of force. This origin is tiie
patriarchal .system, of a system analogous to it; this charactc^r
is that of the life of the family. Very proljably, the German
tribe was originally the development, the extension of one and
the same fan)ily; yary probably a large portion of tie inha-

48 HISTORY OP

bitants of the domaui, many of these hereditary labourers,
subject to a rent, were relations of the proprietary chief ol' the
family. There was herein, very probably, somewhat of that
social organization which has long subsisted in the clans of
the Scotch Highlands, and the septs of Ireland; an or-
ganization which the novels of Sir Walter Scott have ren-
dered familiar to all minds; which, at the first glance, and
judging from external appearances, resembles the feudal
system, but is still radically different, for it evidently arose
from the family; it perpetuates its ties through centuries, and
maintains affectionate sentiments in spite of the profound in-
equality of social conditions; it has rights recognised and
respected, where political guarantees are entirely wanting; in
fine, morality and liberty in a system where, without this origin
and its influence, there would have been only oppression and
degradation.

Such, also, was doubtless the influence which, in the Ger-
manic tribe, had introduced something of the relations and
manners of the clan.

From these details there result, if I mistake not, two great
facts:

1. In the German tribe, the sovereignty, as to all the ge-
neral affairs of the tribe, belonged to the assembly of the
proprietary chiefs of the families; as to all which passed in
the interior of such domain, to the chief of the family
himself; that is to say, that there was a political, collective
sovereignty, and a sovereignty domestic, individual, and in-
herent to property.

2. The domestic sovereignty of proprietors had a twofold
origin, a twofold character. On the one hand, the ties and
habits of the family; the proprietary chief was a chief of the
flan, surrounded by his relations, whatever might be the
llistance of relationship and the diversity of condition; on tlie
other hand, conquest and force: there also had been portions
of territory occupied at the sword's point, conquered, dispos-
sessed, and reduced to servitude or nearly so.

Thus, in this organization of the ancient Germanic tribe,
/liere are seen the three great social systems, the three great
origins of sovereignty: first, the association among equal and
free men, where political sovereignty is developed; secondly,
the primitive natural association, tliat of the family, where thw

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 49

sole and patriarchal sovereignty prevails; thirdly, the com-
pulsory association, the result of conquest, and sutj'eet to
despotic sovereignty.

Upon the narrow and obscure theatre of the tribe of the
Cherusci or of the Hermundures, or other such, there existed
then, as early as the third century, all the essential principles,
all the great forms of human society.

Let us now transport ourselves to the sixth century,
after the invasion, between the Rhine, the ocean, the Py-
renees, and the Alps, and let us see what necessarily hap-
pened then.

And first, it was not the German tribes, but the baud
which went into the Gallo-Roman territory, seized upon it,
and established itself there. Of the two original societies
of G'U'many, that which was not resident, but wandering,
whose basis was the individual, not the family, and which
was devoted, not to an agricultural life, but to warfare; this
became one of the primitive elements of our civilization.

In Germany^ it was the agricultural tribe, among us it
was the warlike band, which is seen at the cradle of
society.

Once established, it is true, once impelled to quit the
wandering for the sedentary life, and pillage for property,
the Germanic band must have wished to reproduce the insti-
tutions, the liabits of its native country; the organization of
the tribe must have been the source, the model of the system
which it attempted to adopt.

This, in fact, was what happened. We see the German
band, in proportion as it fixes itself upon our territory,
attempting to transplant thither the social condition which
I have just described, more especially that twofold sove-
reignty: political, in general affairs, belonging to tlie assembly
of the chiefs of the family; domestic, in the interior of the
domains of each proprietary chief of a family, and exercised
by him alone.

15ut what changes must the change of situaiion and
of external circumstances have introduced into the new
society?

Let us first see what political sovereignty became.

In Germany, the tribe was generally established upon o
VOL. ui. K

^0 HisTORV or

contracted territory. The tribes reciprocally confined and
narrowed themselves, surrounding themselves, as Cajsar says,
with vast deserts, for better security. The chiefs of families
lived near to one another, and could easily meet to treat of
their common affairs. The sovereignty of the general
assembly was natural and possible.

After the invasion into the empire an immense territory
was thrown open to the expeditions and eager avidity of the
conquerors. Tiiey dispersed themselves throughout it in
every direction. The chief of them occupied vast domains.
They were too far from each other to meet often, and delibe-
rate in common. The political sovereignty of the general
assembly became impracticable, was doomed to perish, and,
in fact, did perish, giving place to another system, to that
hierarchical organization of proprietors, of which I shall speak,
in discussing the feudal association and its institutions.

Tlie domestic sovereignty, that of the proprietary chief of
tlie family over the inhabitants of his domains, had equal
alterations to undergo.

It was not witli his relations, with his clan alone, that the
German cliief liad effected his conquests, and fsund himselt
established in his new domains. The band which had fol-
lowed him was composed of warriors of various families of
the tribe, often men of different tribes. Tacitus expressly
says as much: " If the tribe in which they were born becomes
torpid ill tiie laziness of a long peace, the pi-incipal among
the young men go to seek nations who are engaged* in war;
i'or I'epose is unknown to this people; the warriors acquire
celei)rity only in the midst of danger, and it is only by war,
by enterprises, that they can preserve a sufficient trooj) of
companions." '

The ties between the chief and his companions were thus
often the ties of war, not of family. Hence arose a great
change in the character of their relations in the new estab-
lisl)ment. There was no longer that community of habits,
traditions, s".ntiments, which might exist in Germany among
tlie proprietfiry chiefs and tlie labourers of their domains; in
its place was tlie comradeship of warriors, a principle of asso-
ciation which was far less strong, far less powerful, far less
moral.

CIMLIZATION IN FRANCE. 51

The proprietary chief, moreover, found himself, in Gaul,
gurrouitded by a foreign, hostile population, of diflerent race,
language, manners, and from wliom he had incessantly to
guard himself. The Roman Gauls were still the inhabitants,
the cultivators of his domains; while in Germany the greater
l)jirt were Germans like himself. A new and powerful cause
of weakness in that patriai'chal character, which domestic
sovereignty had in Germany.

In his new settlement he v»'as not long surrounded even by
those of his countrymen who had formed part, if not of his
family, at least of his band. Yet, as I have already had occasion
to say several times, this band broke not up immediately into
individuals, eager to separate, and to go and inhabit each
his own domain. The principal chiefs occupied vast terri-
tories, and many of their companions continued to live with
them in their homes. Accordingly we find in the docu-
'nents of the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, and even
later, a great number of free men, of German origin, and
designated under the names oi arimanni, erimanni, herimanni,
iiermanni, among the Lombards,' and of rachimburgi, rathim-
burgi, regiinburgi^ '^ among the Franks. Many German

' The arimaniu mcessantly recnr in tlie Lombard laws, nud in tlie Itnhiin
inonumeiits, from the 7th to the 12th century. Tlieir name is written cn-
iiKiuiii, eremaiDii, hnritnaiuii, haremaimi, lu-rimannif hcn)ianni, variations
more especially arising from the dilficulty of writing the Teutonic sounds ;
a;ul all leads us to sujipose that the 6-V' ;•/««« i, named in many acts, of which
many refer to tlie i)th centuiy, are no others than the arinuuini or lunnmiiii ;
so that the national name of the Germans would have no other origin than
that of herimanni, free men. People differ as to the etymohigy of this latter
word: according to some, it comes from /u'cr, (amiy, war,) and the Iticr-
maiini ore waiTiors ; according to others, it comes from chrv, (honour,) and
means free men jtnr excellence, citizens invested with all the rights ui
poliiical liberty, the cives o;)//h)'» ;'i.rc of the llomau law. This latter ex-
planation is adopted by Mier ( OsnuJirxitkische Gesc/urclite, in the preface
el pussini.) nJid by M. de Savignv. — History of the lioman Lair, &c.. vol. i..

l>. JGO. i:r.

'■' The ra( hiinhitriii, often mentioned in the Salic law, are so also in man\
formulae of the tim\ and even in acts of the lOth century : the variation? (f
orthograjihy are still more numerous than for the /irimanni ; we find, raeliiin-
Inirqi. r(ilhinihur(ji, raeimhunii, racinehinyi. reri/nehiir(/i. nieiinbiirdi, re(jim-
hiinii,riii)iihiiriii. Most of the learned derive t]iis word from racha, (cause, pro-
ecss,) or from reeht. ( right, justice.) which wouM exclusively repieseni the
rnrhiml'Ur'ii uudi-r tlie cliaracler of iuiipes. M de Sa\igiiy tliinks. w lib the
reU-brntcJ bisinii^in MuUer, that it comes from the ai5cie;it Teutonic word,

52 HISTORY OP

writers, M. de Savigny among others, bar i thought to re-
cognise, under these names, a condition, a particular class,
the ancient free men and independent proprietors, the true
citizens of the German tribe before the invasion ; and
they have thence inferred the prolonged continuation of the
ancient social organization of the Germans in thtiir new
country. I think they are mistaken. I have carefully
examined this question in my Essais sur VHistoire de France,
I shall here quote my words; 1 have no reason to change
them:

" The names of arimanni and o( rachimburgi are evidently
applied to free men; they mean even (as everything leads us
to suppose) the free men in general, the acting citizens.
The Lombard arimanni sit in courts or public assemblies in
quality of judges, march to war under the orders of the count,
appear as witnesses in civil actions; the Frank rachimburgi
exercise the same right.

" It is equally certain that these words do not mean magis-
trates, men invested with special functions, judicial or other-
wise, and distinct, by this title, from the rest of the citizens.
In numerous documents, the arimanni are mentioned as
witnesses, or simple warriors; the same name is given to the
free citizens of towns. The Frank rachimburgi also appear
«'hen there is no public function to fill; the word rachimburgi
is often translated by that of io?ii homines. Everything shows
that these names are applied to free men, to citizens in general,
and not to any special magistrate, to any public power.

" But these freemen, these ahrimans, these rachimburgs,
were they distinct from the lends or beneficiaries, as from
slaves? Did they form a class of independent citizens, united
only among themselves and to the state, whose social condition,
in a word, was other than that of the men who, under tlie
name of recommended, leudes, faithful, antrustians, or vassals^
had entered into a particular association, and lived in the
dependence and under the protection of a superior?

" The monuments and facts alleged even by the defenders
of this opinion prove that it is ill founded, and that the leudes,

rek, (great, powerful,) which forms the termination of so many German
proper names, anil occurs again in rcich (rich) ; so that the rachimburgi,
called also hani hdviiiirs, would be merely powerful, notable men, the 7'icos
Stomhns of the Spaniards. — Ilisturi/ of the Roman Lau\ &c.,vol. i., p. 184.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE, 53

the vassals of a lord, were called ahrimans or racliimburgs, as
much as if veritable citizens alone were spoken of, men who
were strangers to all individual independence.

" A man comes to place himself under the faith of the king,
declares himself his faithful, his vassal} he comes, says the
formula, cum arimannia sua — that is to say, followed by his
warriors. Here, then, are ahrimans who are already leudes,
the vassals of a man, and about to become the arriere-vassals
of the king. They do not the IcoS remain ahrimans — that is
to say, free men, for that is all that this word means; it in-
dicates liberty in general, and not a social condition distinct
from that of the leudes, of the vassals.

" In a diploma of the tenth century, the emperor, Otho I.
gives a fortress to a convent, ' with all the freemen, commonly
called ahrimans.' In the eleventh century, the emperor
Ilenry IV. made a similar donation to a monastery, and the
ahrimans who inhabit the domain are here also included.
Concessions of this kind were long comnwn; many documents
prove it, and a council of the tenth century forbade counts
' to give the ahrimans of their counties in benefice to their
men.' In fact, the counts, originally at least, had no right
by that title only to dispose of the lands of their county, nor
of the freemen who inhabited it. It was for the latter them-
selves to choosj the superior to whom they wished to be
attached.

" The quality of ahriman, therefore, did not exclude that of
Icude, of vassal; alirimans were the leudes of the man upon
whose lands tliey lived, and when these lands were given in
benefice tlicy became tlie leudes of the new beneficiary.

"I do not find any texts with regard to the racliimburgs,
where it is evident that tliis denomination was apjjlied to
leudes as well as to men absolutely free. Often employed in
the Salic law, it is more rare than that of ahriinan in the
monuments of i)<)steri()r ages; but all things authorise us to
form the same judgment as to the meaning of this term that we
see formed upon analogous terms. Both the one and the other
mean men free and in possession of the rights attendant upon
liberty, but not a particular elass of citizens placed in a con-
dition distinct on the on(> hand from tliat of slaves, and ob
the otiier from that of the leudes, or vassals."'

« Essins surrihstimt <//• France, p. Q3T— 241.

54 HISTORY OK

Not only did the ahrimans, the rachimburgs, not form a
class distinct on the one hand from that of the bond labourei^,
or slaves, on the other from that of the leudes, or vassals, but
they could not fail soon to range themselves under one or
other of these two conditions. How, in the house with, and
by the side of, a chief who had become a great proprietor,
and who was in possession of a thousand means of influence,
and whose superiority increased daily, how, I say, could they
long preserve that equality, that independence, which the
companions of the same band formerly enjoyed? It is evi-
dent that it could not be. Those freemen who after the in-
vasion still lived for some time with their chief, before long
were divided into two classes; some received benefices, and,
become proprietors in their turn, entered into the feudal
association, with which we shall occupy ourselves at a later
stage of our progress; the others, always fixed within the
interior of the domains of their ancient chief, fell either into
an entirely servile condition, or else into that of labourers
cultivating a part of the land, liable to certain payments or
rents.

You see what must result from this sovereignty of the
ancient Germanic tribe which I have just described. In the
new territorial establishment, it experienced a profound altera-
tion; it lost its character of the family; it could not con-
tinue to attach itself to the common sentiments, to those tra-
ditions, those ties of parentage which, in ancient Germany,
united the proprietary head of the family with most of the
inhabitants of his domains. This element of the organiza-
tion of the Germanic tribe disappeared, or nearly so, when it
•vas transplanted into Gaul. The element which became
dominant was that of conquest, of force; and its predominance
was the necessary result of the situation in which the pro-
prietary heads of families found themselves in Gaul, a situ-
ation radically different from that in which they wei'e placed
in Germany.

Thus, tliis fusion of sovereignty and power, which we have
remarked as one of the great characteristics of the feudal
system, was not, properly speaking, new; it was not the
result of conquest only; an analogous fact existed in Ger-
many, in the heart of the German tribe: there also the pro-
prietary head of the family was sovereign witliin his domains;

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. DO

there also took place the fusion of sovereignty and property.
But in Germany this fusion was accomplished under the in-
fluence of two principles; on the one hand, under the influence
of the spirit of family, of the organization of clan; on the
other, under the influence of conquest, of force. These two
principles had, in the domestic sovereignty of the proprietary
chief of the family in Germany, parts altogether unequal and
which it would be difficult to estimate. In Gaul, the share
of the patriarchal system, of the organization of the clan,
became greatly impaired; that of conquest, of force, on the con-
trary took a great development, and became, if not the only, at
least the dominant principle of that fusion of sovereignty
and property which is, I repeat, one of the great character-
istics of the feudal system.

There is therefore nothing, or at least nothing important
to conclude from this fact in Germany, with regard to this fact
in our country. I do not say that there is nothing remaining
among us of the ancient German habits; I do not say tluit
the spirit of the family, the idea that all the inhabitants i:f
one domain, of one territory, are connected in some moral
relations, and in a kind of parentage, had no influence in
the PVench f(;udal system. I only say that this influence
was very confined, very inferior to that of conquest.

Such, if I mistake not, was the transformation of this fact
from the fourth to the tenth century. Thus, on its re-
moval from Germany did it become wholly different in our
country. In our next lecture we shall occupy oui-selves M'ith
the third characteristic of the feudal system, that is to say,
tlie relations of the possessors of fiefs among themselves, and
the hierarchical organization of their society in itself.

56 HISTORY OF

-h

FOURTH LECTURE.

General association of the possessors of iiefe among themselves ; third cha-
racteristic of the feudal system — From the very nature of its elements
this association must have heen weak and irregular — It, in fact, always
was so — Fallacy of the view which the apologists of this system trace
of the feudal hierarchy — Its incoherency and weakness were especially
gi-eat at the close of the 10th century — The formation of this hierarcliy
from the 5th to the 10th century — Three systems of institutions are
seen together after the German invasion : free institutions, monarchical
institutions, aristocratical institutions — Comparative history of these
three systems — Decline of the two first — Triumph of the third, which
yet remains incomplete and disordered.

The two first characteristics of the feudal system, the special
nature of landed property, and the fusion of sovereignty and
property in each fief, we are well acquainted with. We know
how they were formed; we have seen them take birth and
grow, from the fifth to the tenth century. Let us now leave
the interior of the fief, let us examine the relations of the
possessors of fiefs among themselves, the progressive de-
velopment of the organization which united them, or rather
which was reputed to unite them in one and the same
society. This, as you know, is the third of the great facts
which constitute the feudal system.

I said the organization which was reputed to unite them:
the union, in fact, of the possessors of fiefs among them-
selves, their organization into a general society was far more
a principle than a fact, far more nominal than real. The
very nature of the elements of such an association lead us to
])resnme this. What is the tie, the cement of a great society?
It is the need which one of the partial, local associations whicli
compose it has of the others; the necessity in which they are
placed of having recourse to one another, in order to exen-
cise their rights, for the accomplishment of the various publil

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 57

fiinctions, for legislation, for the administration of justice, ot
finances, of war, &c. If each family, each town, each ter-
ritorial circumscription finds within itself, in its own bosom,
everything of which it has any need in a political point of
view; if it forms a complete, petty state, which has nothing
to receive from elsewhere, nothihg to give elsewhere, it will
not adhere to other families, to other towns, to other local
circumscriptions; there would be no society between them.
The dispersion of sovereignty and government into the
various parts, among the different members of the state,
that it is which constitutes the state; that is, the external
tie of general society, which brings and retains together its
elements.

Now, the fusion of sovereignty and property, and its con-
centration within the domain, in the hands of its possessor,
had exactly the efiect of isolating the proprietor of the fief
from other similar proprietors; each fief formed, as it were, a
small, complete state, whose inhabitants had nothing, or almost
nothing, to seek beyond it, which suflaced to itself, in matters
of legislation, administration, of justice, taxes, war, &c. Iiv
a society formed of such elements, it was an inevitable con-
sequence that the general tie should be weak, rarely felt,
easily broken. The possessors of fiefs had. it is true, com-
mon affairs, reciprocal rights and duties. There was, more-
over, the inclination natural to man, of continually extending
his relations, of aggrandizing, of animating his social ex-
istence more and more, of constantly seeking, as it were, new
citizens, and new ties with them. In fine, at the epoch with
which we occupy ourselves, the Christian church, a society
always one, and strongly constituted, incessantly laboured to
introduce something of its unity, its entirety, into the civil
society; and this work was not fruitless. But it is not the
less evident that, from the nature of its elements, an<l espe-
cially from the fusion of sovereignty and propert}', from the
almost entire localisation of power, if such a term be allowed,
the general apsociation of the possessors of fiefs must have
had very little compactness, very little activity; that but very
little entirety or unity could have prevailed in it.

And sucli, in fact, was the case; history fully confirms
the inductions drawn from the very nature of this social state.
Its aj)ologists have aj)plied themselves to the bringing pronu-

58 HISTORY OV

nently forward the reciprocal rights and duties of the possessors
of fiefs; they have vaunted the skilful gradation of the ties
which united them among themselves, from the weakest to
the most powerful, in such a way that none were isolated,
and yet that each remained free and master of himself. Ac-
cording to them, the independence of individuals was never
more happily reconciled with the harmony of the whole. A
chimerical idea, a purely logical hypothesis! Douitless, in
principle, the possessors of fiefs were united to each other, and
their hierarchical association appears skilfully organized. But
in fact, this organization was never real and efficacious; feu-
dalism could never draw from its bosom a principle of order
and unity sufficient to form a general, and, however little,
regulated society. Its elements, that is to say, the possessors
of fiefs, were always in a state of disunion and war among
themselves, continually obliged to have recourse to force, be-
cause no supreme, truly public, power was present to maintain
between them justice and peace, that is, society; and to create
such a power, to fuse all its scattered and even hostile
elements into a single and true society, it was necessary to
have recourse to other principles, to other institutions, to in-
stitutions and principles foreign and even hostile to the feudal
system. As you already know, it was by royalty on the one)
hand, and on the other by the idea of the nation in general,
and of its riglitS; that political unity has prevailed among us,
that the State has been constituted; and it was always at the
ex{)ense of the possessors of fiefs by the weakening and pro-
gressive abolition of the feudal system, that we have ap-
proached this end.

It, therefore, must not be expected that we shall find that
systematical and general organization of the possessors
of fiefs among themselves, which I have pointed out as
the third great characteristic of the feudal system, clearly
and entirely realized in facts. The character belongs to
it, and distinguishes it from every other social state; but
it has never had its full development, its efficacious and
reaular application; the feudal hierarchy has never been
really constituted, has not lived according to the rules and
forms which the publicists assign to it. The special nature
of landed property, the fusion of sovereignty and property, are
simple, evident facts, which are shown in history, just as they
are conceived in theory. But the feudal society in its entirety

CIVILIZATION IN FKANCE, 59

is an imaginary edifice, constructed after the event in the
minds of learned men, and the materials only of which have
existed in our territory, always unconnected and imperfect.

If such was its state during the course of the feudal period,
how much more must it have been so at the commencement
of tins period, towards the end of the tenth century. Feudal-
ism had then scarcely arisen out of the chaos of barbarism;
it was arising from it as a kind of pis-aller, as the system
nearest allied to that which was coming to a close, as the sole
form which the growing society could take. The incoherence,
the want of entirety, would necessarily be much greater than
at a later period. The feudal association would be still farther
removed from that state of unity, of regularity, which it
never attained. The close of the tenth and the commence-
ment of the eleventh century, are, in fact, iu the feudal
epoch, the period when feudalism appeared most disordered,
the most destitute of general organization. We there seethe
possessors of fiefs forming themselves into an infinity of small
groups, of which some count, duke, or mere seigneur, became
the chief, according to the chances of place or events, remain-
ing almost strangers to each other. Sometimes these local
associations seemed to preserve relations among themselves, to
adhere to a common centre; but we soon find that this appear-
ance is fallacious. We see, for example, the name of the
king of France still inscribed by such or such a lord of Aqui-
tainc at the head of his acts, but it is the name of a king
already dead; they render homage to royalty, but are igno-
rant as to who is its actual depositary. At nc epoch was the
parcelling out of territory among tlie possessors of fiefs so
great, and their independence so complete; at no epoch had
the liierarchical tie which should have united them so little
reality.

In studying, therefore, from the fifth to the tenth century,
the progressive formation of this third characteristic of the
feudal system, we shall not arrive at results so prompt, so
positive, as in the study of the two first. We shall not oee
the i'eudal organization appear, and clearly develop itself be-
fore our ey(is, as was the case with regard to the s^iecial na-
ture of landed property, and the amalgamation of sovereignty
and property; we shall see -but the germs, we shall witness
only the first eftbrts at formation of that system which was
never thoroughly perfected; we shall encounter here and there

60 HlSTORTf OF

upon our own soil, the materials of that edifice which was
never regularly constructed, or, more correctly speaking, we
shall see every other social edifice fall, every other system
vanish. From the fifth to the tenth century, no principle of
social and political unity was able to preserve or acquire the
empire; all those which formerly prevailed were conquered,
abolished; and it was above their ruins that the rude and in-
complete attempts at feudal organization appeared. It is,
therefore, less the progressive formation of the general asso-
ciation, of the possessors of fiefs, than the progressive de-
struction of every other great social system, which I shall en-
deavour to retrace.

Immediately after the invasion and establishment of the
Germans in Gaul, three principles of social organization, three
systems of institutions co-exist and are present together: 1,
the system of free institutions; 2, the system of aristocratical
institutions; 3, the system of monarchical institutions.

The system of free institutions has its origin: 1st, in Ger-
many, in the general assembly of the proprietary chiefs of
family of the tribe, and in the common deliberation and per-
sonal independence of the warriors who formed the band: 2nd,
in Gaul, in the remains of the municipal system, in the heart
of cities.

The system of aristocratical institutions has its origin: 1st,
in Germany, in the domestic sovereignty of the proprietary
chiefs of family, and in the patronage of the chief of the band
over his companions: 2nd, in Gaul, in the very unequal sub-
division of landed property, concentrated in the hands of a
small number of great proprietors, and in their domination of
the mass of the population, labourers or slaves, who cultivate
their domains, or serve them in their houses.

The system of monarchical institutions has its origin : 1 st,
in Germany, in military royalty, that is to say, the command
of the chief of the band, and in the religious character in-
herent to certain families: 2nd, in Gaul, in the traditions of
the Roman empire, and in the doctrines of the Cliristian
church.

These are the three great systems of institutions, tlie three
principles essentially different, which the fall of the empire and
the German invasion brought into the presence of each other.
and which were to concur in the formation of the new society.

What were, from the iifth to the tenth century, the desti-

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 61

niPS of these three systems each in itself, and in their amal-
gamation?

Let us first speak of the system of free institutions.

It perpetuates and manifests itself from the fifth to the tenth
century: 1st, in the local assemblies, where the conquerors
established in various parts of the territory assembled, and
together discussed their affairs; 2nd, in the general assemblies
of the nation; 3rd, in the remains of the municipal system,
in the heart of cities:

That the local assemblies of the ancient Germans called
trials^ in their language, and placita in Latin, continued after
the invasion, cannot be doubted; the text of their laws give
evidence of it at every step. The following are some in-
stances:

" If any one convened to the mal does not repair thither, let
him be condemned to pay 15 solidi, unless he has been kept
back by some lawful impediment." ^

" If any one has need of witnesses in order that they may
give testimony at the mal^ he who has need of them must
convene them."^

" Let the assembly (convetitus) be according to ancient cus-
tom in each hundred, before the count or his envoy, and
before the hundred-man." ^

" Let the court (placitum) take place every Saturday, or
such day as shall please the count, or the hundred-man, in
every week, when there is but little tranquillity in the pro-
vince: when there is greater tranquillity, let the assembly
take place every Ibrtnight in each hundred, as it is ordered
here above." ^

" Let the court be held every calend, or every foi-tnight if
necessary, to incjuire into causes, in order that peace may
reign in the provinces."''

These assemblies were composed of all the free men settled
in the territorial circumscription; all had not only the rights
but were obliged to repair thither.

' From tlie iincipiit German word, mn/t/, which signifies viretiny, asscmhiy
and is still found in nuuiy words, as mahhct, teiiast, time of meeting;
mahlsfiitt, [iliice wheie tlie tribuuiil meets, &c.

' Salic Law, t. 1, c. 1, b. l(j.

* Law of the liip , t. I.e. 1, t. Ixvi., c. i.. Sec.

* Law of the Allein., t. xxxvi., e. I. Ibidem, c. 2.

* Law of the Boiwes, t. xv., c. '

62 HISTORY OF

" If any free man neglect to come to the court, and do not
present himself to the count, or to his delegate, or to the
hundred-man, let him be condemned to pay 15 soUdi. Let
no person, whether vassal of the duke or of the count, or
otherwise, neglect to come to the court, to the end that the
poor may not be prevented from prosecuting their causes." ^

"Let all free men meet on the days fixed, where the judge
shall direct, and let no person dare omit coming to the court.
Let all who live in the county, whether vassal of the king or
duke, or any other, come to the court, and let him who shall
neglect to come be condemned to pay 15 solidi."^

It is not easy to enumerate the attributes, the occupations
of these assemblies, for they discussed everything in them, all
the common interests of the men who were assembled at them ;
but their principal business was to administer justice: all
causes, all disputes were carried thither, to be submitted to
the decision of free and notable men, of the rachimhurgs,
whose duty it was to declare, to show what was the law.

'' If any rachimburgs sitting in any mal have not declared
the law, Avlien a cause shall have been debated between two
persons, he who prosecutes the cause must say to them three
times, ' Tell us the Salic law;' if they will not say it, he
who prosecutes the cause must say to them again, ' I require
you to declare the law between my adversary and me.' The
ilay being named for this purpose, seven of these rachimburgs
shall each pay nine sols. If they do not then choose to
declare the law .... nor give assurance of payment, then
let a second day be appointed them, and then let each of them
be condemned to pay 15 sols." ^

" If any one is prosecuting his cause, and the rachimburgs
have not chosen to declare the Ilipuarian law between the
parties, then let him against whom they have pronounced an
adverse sentence, say, ' I summon you to tell me the law'
Let tliose who have not chosen to declare it, and have after-
wards been convicted of it, each of them pay 15 sols fine." ^

"If any one gain his cause in tlie mal and by law . . . the
rachimburgs must explain to liim the law by which the cause
hiis been decided. The [)laiiitifr must act according to law,

> T^aw of the AUem., t. xxxvi., c. 4.

* T,aw of the ]5oiares, t. xv.^ c 1.

» Salic hiv.-, t. Ix. •* Law of ihe I'.ip., t. Iv.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCK. 03

invite the officer to go to the house of the other, in order to
tuke of his goods what he legally owes in respect of the
cause."'

Not only did they administer justice in the mals, not only
did they deliberate there upon common affairs, but most civil
allairs, most contracts were there completed, and thence only
acquired the publicity, the authenticity which it is the duty
of the notaries and public officers to give them in the present
day:

" If any one sell anything to another, and if the buyer wish
to have an act of sale, he must demand it in full mal, imme-
diately put down the price, receiving the articles, and tlien
let the act be written. If the article be of little value, let
the act be attested by seven witnesses; if of much value, by
twelve.'"'^

Such was the state of local assemblies in the first ages
following the invasion; they were not long so real and genuine
as the texts seem to indicate. You may observe that, ac-
cording to these very texts, it was more especially among the
Germans still established upon the frontiers, or even in the
interior of Germany, that the national mals appear active
and frequent. The laws of the Germans, of the Boiares, of
the llipuarian Franks, speak of them more frequently and in
a more authoritative tone than those of the Salian Franks,
further advanced into the interior of Gaul, and amidst the
Konian population. There, indeed, the local mals soon full
into disus(;, into such disuse that, at the end of the Carlo-
vingian race, the local chiefs, counts, viscounts, or others,
convoked them in order to have the right of lining the free
men who did not attend them. A capitulary ol' Louis le
Debonnaire is entitled:

" Of vicars and hundred-men who, more out of cuj)idity
than to administer justice, frequently hold courts and thus
trouble the people too much." ^

And Charlrmagne, in order to remedy this abuse, had
already reduced to three a year, the number of those local
courts which tlu; first barbarous laws convoked every month,
every fortnight, or even every week.

' Siilic T.iiw, tit. X. « Law of the lUp., t. lix.. c. L

» Bui., i., 1. collli. U]7.

64 dlSTORY OF

" With regard to the local courts which free men are to
attend, the decrees of our father must be observed; namely,
that only three general courts are to be held in the year, and
that no person shall be forced to attend them, except the
accused or the accuser, or him who is called to give evidenca
With regard to other courts held by hundred men, let none
be convoked to them, except him who pleads, him who judges,
and him who gives evidence."*

Who were these judges who were bound to attend local
assemblies, when most free men were exempt from them?
The scabini, or sheriffs, the real magistrates, charged by the
prince with administering justice, instead of the citizens, who
refused the burden. That is the true meaning of the word
scabini (in German schoeffen, judges;) which many writers
have confounded with the rachimburgi of the Salic law; and
this innovation of Charlemagne suffices to prove into what
decay the ancient local vials, that is to say, the system of free
institutions applied to civil life, had fallen at this period:

" Let no person be convoked to the court, but the plaintiff
and the defendant in each cause, except seven scabini, who
must be present at all hearings."^

With much stronger reason, the same decay would strike
this system in the political sphere, in the general assemblies
of the nation. Among men living at a distance from one
another, and who had no longer the same interests, and the
same destiny, these great meetings became difficult and arti-
ficial. Accordingly, the champs de Mars, the placita gene-
ralia, became more and more rare and futile under the Mero-
vingians. In the earliest ages we still frequently meet with
them, because the warriors often made new expeditions in
common; the band still met to attempt new adventures.
Gradually, as the sedentary life prevailed, the general assem-
blies disappeared, qnd those which bear the name are of an
entirely different nature; they have no longer either one or
the other of these two characteristics. Sometimes they are
solemn meetings, where people came, in virtue of an ancient
custom, to bring to the chief or king presents which form a
part of his wealth; sometimes the kings, after having struggled

« Capit. oj Louis le Dehon., in 819 ; Bal., t. i., col. 616.
• Capit. of Charlemagne, iu 803 ; Bal., t. 1., col. 1394 — 465.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 65

•gainst their leudes, their beneficiaries, the one to resume,
the other to retain their fees, entered into a negotiation with
them, which led to meetings of which the name calls to
mind the ancient national assemblies, but which, in fact, are
only conferences, congresses, where great proprietors, petty
sovereigns, discuss their interests and arrange their disputes.
Such were, in 587, the assembly which concluded the treaty
of Andelot; in 615, under Clotaire II. that of Paris, whence
issued the ordinance which bears its name, and many other
meetings in no way national, in no way resembling the
assembly of the tribe, or the German band, but which were
yet called placita gcneral'ut.

With the first Carlovingians, the general assemblies re-
newed their primitive character, the military character. The
establishment of the second race was, as you know, up to a
certain {)oint, a second invasion of Western Gaul by the Ger-
man bands. We accordingly see these bands meet periodi-
cally to prosecute their expeditions furtlier, and to secure
their conquests by new ones. This was the predominant
feature of the Champs-de-Mars, become the Champs-de-Mai of
Pepin le Bref. We meet under his reign with more than ten
great meetings of this kind. Under Charlemagne they are still
more frequent, and their character assumes higher dignity.
They are no longer mere military meetings, great national
reviews. Charlemagne made them a means of government.
Most of you, I think, remember what I said in the last course
upon this subject, and the fragments which I quoted from the
small treatise of Ilincmar, De Ordine I'alatii, where he
gives a detailed account of these assemblies, of their compo-
sition, and of their labours. Charlemagne convoked almost
all his agents, and, to si)eak the language of our times, the
functionaries of bis empire, dukes, counts, viscounts, vicars,
hundred -men, scabini, i<cc. His object was to learn through
them what was passing around, to communicate ids wishes to
them, to discipline tliem to his will, and thus to introduce
Bome entirety, some order, into that immense and incessantlv
agitated b<jdy, of which he claimed to be the soul. Thesn,
assuredly, are not the ancient assemblies of the German war-
riors, those assemblies where personal independence prevailed,
and where Clovis was constrained to allow each to take hia
jhare of the booty.

VOL, u;. -,

66 HISTORY OP

Under Louis le Debonnaire, the placita generalia are still
frequent, but disorder and war penetrate them, and make
instruments of them. Under Charles le Chauve, they resume
the characteristic of which I have just spoken; they are no
longer anything but conferences, congresses, where the king
struggles with greater or less success against vassals who iso-
late themselves more and more, and whom he can neither
retain nor repress. After Charles le Chauve, and towards
the close of the Carlovingian race, even these congresses
ceased. Sovereignty decidedly became local; royalty had no
longer even the simple claim to figure as the centre of the
state. To the ancient national assemblies the feudal courts
were about to succeed, the assembly of the vassals around the
sovereign.

With regard to the wrecks of the Roman municipal system,
the third element of the free institutions of this epoch, I shall
not repeat what I have already said in our last course; nor
shall 1 anticipate what I shall have to say when we are occu-
pied with the regeneration of the commons. I confine myself
to calling to mind, that the curia, its rights and institutions,
have never disappeared from our territory, especially in the
south of Gaul, and that we may equally attest their decay
and their perpetuity from the fifth to the tenth century.

Such was the fate of the system of free institutions in this
long interval. You see that all its principles grew more and
more enervated, that all its means of action were broken. Had
the monarchical institutions any better fortune?

I have said tliat among the Germans royalty had a twofold
origin; that it was military and religious.

As being military, royalty was elective; a famous chief
proclaimed an expedition to draw around him companions;
he had no right, no coercive means; w^hoever chose came;
warriors rallied round a chief of their choice; he was their
king while it pleased them to follow him: this was election, if
not according to political forms, at least in its principle and
its liberty.

In as much as it was religious, royalty was hereditary; for
the religious character was the property, so to speak, of cer-
tain families descended from heroes, from national demi-gods,
from Odin, fuisco. &c. : and this character could be neither
lost nor transferred. There is scarcely any Germanic natioa

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 67

in which we do not meet with these royal families; the Gothic
and Anglo-Saxon princes descend from Odin; among the
Franks, the Merovingians, in virtue of an analogous origin,
alone wear long hair.

In passing over the Roman soil, Germanic royalty there
found other principles, other elements which were profoundly
to modify its character; there imperial royalty dominated,
an institution specially symbolical, and a symbol purely poli-
tical. The emperor had succeeded to the Roman people; as
the representative of the Roman people, he appropriated its
rights, its majesty; by this title he called himself sove-
reign. Imperial royalty was the personification of the repub-
lic; and as Louis XIV. said, VEtat c^est mot, the successoi
of Augustus might say, The Roman people, it is I.

Beside imperial royalty arose Christian royalty, also a sym-
bolical institution, but a symbol of a different nature, a sym-
bol purely religious. The king, according to Christian ideas,
was the delegate and representative of the Divinity. I just
now spoke of the religious origin of barbarous royalty: it
had, however, nothing symbolical about it; the families which
passed for the descendants of the national demi-gods were
thus invested with a positive and personal character. Id
Christian royalty, on the contrary, there is nothing personal
or positive; it is a type, an image of the in\isible and only
sovereign Being.

Thus, under a twofold point of view, Roman royalty
essentially differed from barbarous royalty ; political or
religious, this was a personal prerogative; political or religious,
that was a pure symbol, a social fiction.

Such, so to speak, are the four origins of modern royalty,
the four principles which, after the invasion, sought to com-
bine in its production. "We see then labour commence under
the Merovingians. The IVank kings are, and wish to remain,
chiefs of warriors — at the same time they take advantage of
their barbaric religious descent; they adopt the Roman maxims,
and endeavour to stand forth as tlie representatives of the
state; in fine, they call themselves, and ma'ke the clergy call
them, the images and representatives of God upon earth.

For minds so rude and simple as those of the barbarians of
the sixth century, these notions and combinations were too
complicated. They were, accordingly, not successful; and
f2

68 HISTORY Op-

Merovingian royalty — precisely, if I mistake not, by reason
of the uncertainty of its character and of its basis — soon fell
into complete decay. When it began to reappear with
vigour in the person of the Carlovingians, it had undergone
a great metamorphosis. The first Carlovingians were pure
military chiefs. In the eyes of their German countrymen,
they had none of that religious character with which the
family of the long-haired kings was invested. Neither Pepin
de Herstall nor Charles Martel in any way gave themselves
out as the descendants of Odin, or other Germanic demi-gods;
they were simply great proprietors and chiefs of warriors.
Germanic royalty, then, reappeared at this time with the
military character only. Every one knows how eagerly
Pepin sought to add to it the Christian religious character.
A stranger to all the traditions, to all the religious creeds of
ancient Germany, he desired to support himself by new
religious creeds, already far more powerful. Charlemagne
went still further; he undertook again to give the character
of imperial royalty to Prankish royalty, to again make it a
political symbol, himself to resume the rank of representative
of the state which the lioman emperors occupied. And he
laboured at this by the most efficacious means; not by the sole
pomp of ceremonies and language, but by really resuscitating
the imperial pow-er, the Roman administration, and that
omnipresence, as it were, of royalty, at all parts of the earth,
which, amidst the universal decline, had constituted the whole
strength of that great despotism.

This is the true characteristic of the government of
Charlemagne. I shall not repeat here what I said concern-
ing it in the last course; but some exti-acts from his capitu-
laries will show how carefully he was occupied with all
things, desired to know everytliing, to be everywhere, either
in person or by his delegates — in fine, to present himself to
the minds of the people as the universal mover and souice
of the entire government.

" Let the counts and their vicars be well acquainted with
tlie law, to the end that no judge may decide unjustly in
their piesunce, nor unduly alter tlie law."'

" V^'o will and order that our counts do not remit the

■ Vaint. of Cliarlemagne, iu i?!):j ; 13al., torn. I, col. 390,

CIVILIZATION IN FEANCIE. 69

pitting of their courts, nor abridge them unduly, in order to
give themselves to the chase or to other pleasures."'

" Let no count hold his courts unless he be fasting, and of
composed mind."^

" Let each bishop, each abbot, each count, have a good
registrar, and let not the scribes write in an illegible
manner.""'

" We will, that with regard to the jurisdiction and affairs
which have hitherto belonged to the counts, our envoys shall
aaquit themselves of their mission four times in the year: in
winter, in the month of January; in spring, in the month of
April; in summer, in the month of July; and in autumn, in
the month of October. Each time, they shall hold courts where
the counts of the neighbouring counties shall meet."*

" Each time that one of our envoys shall observe in hi
legation that anything happens otherwise than as we have
ordered it, not only shall he take care to reform it, but he
shall give us a detailed account of the abuses which he may
discover." ^

" Let our envoys select, in each place, scabini, advocates and
notaries, and on their return let them bring us their names
in writing."*"

" Whenever they find bad vicars, advocates, or hundred-
men, let them be removed, and others selected who know
how and are willing to judge affairs according to equity. If
they find a corrupt count, let them inform us of the same." ^

" We will that each of our envoys carefully watch that
each of the men whom we have charged witla the govern-
ment of our peoj)le, acquit himself justly of his office, in a
manner agreeable to God, honourable to us, and useful to our
subjects. Let the said envoys, therefore, make a point of
knowing if the orders contained in the capitularies which
we transmitted to them last year, are executed according to
the will of God and our own. We will tliat in the middle of
the month of May, our envoys, each in his legation, convoke
in one place all the bisliops, abbots, our vassals, our advo-
cates, vicars, abbesses, as well as the representatives of all

' Year 807 ; Bal., torn, i., col. V,)'i. « Year 80;t ; ibid., col. 30^.

» Year80o; ibid., col. -iU.

♦ Year 812 ; ibid., col. 4!i;!. Ibid. « Year 803 ; ibid., col. 303

' Bal., I. i., c. 39C, jeiu- ^0^) ; ibid., c. -iCO.

70 HISTOEY OF

the lords whom any imperious necessity prevents repaiiing
thither themselves; and it" it be more convenient, especially with
a view to the poor people, that this meeting he held in two or
three different places instead of one, let it be so. Let each
count bring thither his vicars, his hundred-men, and also
three or four of his most notable sheriffs. In this assembly,
let them first occupy themselves with the state of the
Christian religion, and the condition of the ecclesiastical
order. Then let our envoys inform themselves, from all pre-
sent, of the manner in which each acquits himself of the
employment which we have confided to him; let them learn
if concord reigns among our officers, and whether they
mutually give each other help in their functions. Let them
make this inquiry with the most careful diligence, and in
such a way that we may from them know the truth of all
things; and if they learn that in any place there is an affair,
the decision of which requires their presence, let them repair
thither, and regulate it in virtue of our authority." ^

Surely, nothing less resembles barbaric royalty than such
a mode of government; nothing more forcibly calls to mind
the spirit and administration of the empire; of that power
which represented the state, and acted almost alone in the
state. That is the system which, without being thoroughly
aware of it, without having reconstructed its theory, Charle-
magne laboured to restore; and he knew very well what
was the principal obstacle to this enterprise; he knew very
well that the rising feudal system, the independence and
the rights of propi-ietary beneficiaries in their domains, the
fusion of sovereignty and property, were the most dangerous
enemies of that sovereignty and administrative royalty to
which he aspired. Accordingly, he struggled incessantly
against these enemies, and endeavoured to restrain and to
divide the power of the proprietors as much as in him lay.

" He never," says the monk of Saint Gall, " confided the
administration of more than one county to his counts, except
it were those which were situated on the frontiers, or in the
neighbourhood of barbarians. He never, unless impelled by
really powerful motives, conceded to a bishop, in benefice, an

» Capit. of Louis le Dcbou.. in 823. He but rej^ats nhat CLa:lemagn«
ir.escribed Bal., t 1. col. 04.9

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 71

abbey or church of the royal domain; and wher. his counsel-
lors or favourites asked him why he acted thus, he answered
them: ' With this property or that farm, with this little abbey
or that church, I acquire the faith of a vassal as good, even
better than this bishop or that count.' " '

He did more; he attempted to pierce through, if I may so
express myself, all private properties, in order to enter into
direct relations with all the inhabitants of his empire. I will
explain myself. He only communicated with the mass of the
population through the intermediation of the possessors of
freeholds or fees, each sovereign in his domains, and chief of
the free men, or coloni, or serfs who inhabited them. Charle-
magne desired that an oath of fidelity, directed and personal,
should be given him by all freemen, as to the real and
true sovereign of the state. We find in the formulae of Mar-
culf, the following letter from him:

" To the count . With tlie consent of the high men

of our realm, we have ordered that our glorious son

shall reign in the kingdom of . Consequently, we

order that in all cities, villages, and castles, you convoke and
cause to meet in convenient places all your inhabitants,
whether Franks, Romans, or any other nation; to the end

that in the presence of the illustrious , our envoy,

Avhom we send to you for this purpose, they all swear fidelity
and loyal attachment to our son and to us, whether by the
holy places, or by such other holy pledge as we transmit to
you for that purpose." ^

When he had bei'u crowned emperor,

" He ordered that every man in his kingdom, layman or
ecclesiastic, who had already sworn fidelity to him under the
name of king, should renew the same promise to liim as
Caisar; and tliat all those who had not yet taken the said
oath should take it, down to the age of twelve."-'

Lastly, we read in a capitulary of tlie year 80o:

" Let none swear fidelity to any other than to us and to his
lord for our utility and that of his lord."*

" Such a system evidently tended to free royalty from all
feudal relations; to found its empire beyond the hierarchy

' Bt'cufil dfs Hinlnricns de Frniici', t. v. p. I!.

« Marcul^f. 1. i., f. iO. ' Bid., t. 1., col. 3G3. ♦ Ibid., col. 425=

72 HISTORY OF

of persons and lands; in fine, to render it everywhere present,
everywhere powerful, in virtue of the public power and by
its own right. The attempt succeeded while Charlemagne
presided over it. His successors undertook to continue it,
that is to say, they ordered what he had done. The demand
of the universal oath reappeared in their acts, and even sur-
vived their impotence; but it was no longer any more than a
futile form. The relations between free men and the king,
and his personal power over them, became daily weiikened.
The obligation of fidelity was no longer real, except between
the vassal and his lord. It was to the lords that Charles le
Chauve addressed himself, in order to repress the disorders
committed on their lands; it was through their authority that
he brought his own to bear. He had no direct influence;
and although he menaced the lords with making them respon-
sible for the crimes of their men, if they did not prevent or
punish them, it is clear that the feudal hierarchy had regained
independence with the empire, and that the attempt of
Charlemagne to free royalty from it had failed by the effect of
the general course of things and the incapacity of his
successors." ^

At the close of the tenth century then, the system of monar-
chical institutions had succeeded no better than the system of
free institutions in taking possession of society, and intro-
ducing unity and rule into it. All its laws were shaken, all
its means of action enervated or inapplicable. The religious
character of ancient German royalty had disappeared; the
heroic origin of such or such a family was forgotten, as well
as many of tlie traditions of the barbaric life. It had equally lost
its primitive military character; the band no longer existed; the
wandering and common lii'e had ceased; most of the warriors
were established in their own domains. The political cha-
racter of imperial royalty was incom{)atible with the new
society; there was no longer sovereignty, no longer national
majesty, no longer any state in general; how could there be a
symbol, a representative of that which no longer existed?
The religious Christian character of royalty alone preserved
any reality, any influence, and that was but weak and rare;
lay proprietors scarcely heeded it; the tumult of their life

' Ussais sur I'lIUtoire de France, p. lOo — U'O.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 73

and the needs of personal independence alone occupied their
minds; the bishops and great abbots themselves cared but
little about it ; they also had become proprietors of fiefs,
had assumed the interests and habits of such, and had but
little atfection towards ideas which in no way accorded with
their temporal position. All the bases, I repeat, of the system
of monarchical institutions, as well as of the system of free in-
stitutions, were shaken, all its vital principles had lost their
energy.

Ir was entirely diiferent with the system of aristocratical
institutions. Instead of declining, they were progressing. To
be convinced of this, it is only necessary to observe what the
elements, whether German or Roman, which constituted it had
become. They were all strengthened and developed.

And first, as you have already seen, the domestic sove-
reignty of the German proprietary chief of the family Avas
transplanted into Gaul; it even became there more complete
and more absolute, because the spirit of family which had
formerly been associated with it there had disappeared, and
the fact of conquest, of force, had become almost its only base.
Accordingly, this first aristocratical element of ancient Ger-
man society became strengthened instead of weakened, in
the new social state.

The second, that is to say, the patronage of the chief of the
band over his companions, had experienced the same fate; it
had changed its form; to the ascendancy of the warrior had
succeeded the rights of the suzerain over his vassals. But
this metamorphosis of relations had given far more energy
and solidity to the aristocratical principle that it previously
contained. On the one hand, inequality was developed;
the possessors of fiefs were far more unequal among them-
selves than the warriors; on tiie other, in the ancient band,
the companions living together, supported one another, and
in common controlled the power of the chief When they
had entered into the condition of proprietors, each found him-
self isolated, and the superior, tlie suzerain, had far greater
facilities for subduing them. A new progress of the aristo-
cratical system.

With regard to the subdivision of landed property, I think
it underwent considerable and rather aristocratical change; it
divided itself. Without doubt, the feudal system had thia

niSTORV OF

effect at first. At the close of the tenth century, at the com-
mencement of the feudal period, there were many more landed
proprietors in Gaul than at the fall of the empire. The ter-
ritory was divided into smaller lotfj, more especially into more
varied lots; the fiefs were much more different, more unequal,
than the domains of the great Gallo-Roman proprietors had
been; in this respect, therefore, the aristocratical principle
was a little weakened; but assuredly the distribution of landed
property was still sufficiently unequal, the land concentrated
into a sufficiently limited number of hands, to found a very
aristocratic system.

You see, therefore, that while the system of free institu-
tions and that of monarchical institutions were declining, the
system of aristocratical institutions, on the contrary, saAV its
bases strengthen, its principles gain vigour. It had not
acquired, it had not given to society in general, a regular
form, unity, or entirety; it never will attain that. But, it
evidently prevailed; it alone was likely to live, if I may use
the expression, alone capable of subduing men, and of giving
to other social principles time to regain breath, to reappear one
day with better success.

Thus was feudal society prepared, thus was it progressively
formed, from the fifth to the tenth century. "We have
attempted to discover its origins, to follow it in its earliest
developments. It now subsists, it covers our land. We shali
henceforward study it in itself, and in its maturity.

CIVIUZATiON IN FRANCE.

75

FIFTH LECTURE.

RTothod to be followed in the study of tlie feudal period — The s mple fief id
the fundamental element, the integrant molecule of feudalism — The
simple fief contains : 1, the castle and its proprietors ; 2, the village and
its inhabitants — Origin of feudal castles — Their multiplication in the
9t.h and 10th centuries — Causes of this — Efforts of the kings and
powerful suzerains to oppose it — Futility of these efforts — Character of
the castles of the 11th centtiry — Interior life of the proprietors of fiefs —
Their isolation — Their idleness — Their incessant wars, expeditions, and
adventures — Influence of the material circumstances of feudal habita-
tions upon tlie course of civilization — Development of domestic life,
condition of women, and of tlie spirit of family in the interior of castles.

We now approach the special object of this course. "We
are about to study feudal society in itself, during the period
which especially belongs to it, from the time when it may be
regarded as truly formed, down to the time when France es-
caped from it, and passed under the empire of other j)nnci-
ples, of other institutions; that is, during the eleventh, twelfth,
and thirteenth centuries.

I desire to follow in their entirety the destinies of feudalism
during these three centuries. I would wisli not to parcel it
out, but to keep it constantly entire under your eyes, and
make you thus see its successive transibrmatioiis at a single
glance. This would be its true history', tin? only faithful
image of the reality. Unfortunately, this cannot be. In
order to study, the human mind is forced to divide, to
analyze; it learns nothing uidess it be successively and in
parts. It is then the work of the miagination and of the
reason to reeonstruct the demolished editice, to resuscitate the
being destroyed by the scientific scalpel. But it is al)se)lutely

.b HISTORY OF

necessary to pass through this dissection and its progress;
the weakness of the human mind so orders it.

I have ah'eady pointed out the chissitication of our researches
upon feudal society. I have said that on the one hand we shall
study the social state, and on the other, the intellectual state:
in the social state, the civil and the religious society; in the
intellectual state, the learned literature, and the popular lite-
rature. It is, therefore, with the history of civil society in
the feudal period, that we must commence.

Here also we have need to divide, to classify, to study sepa-
rately; the matter is too vast and too complicated, to allow of it
being comprehended all complete and at a single grasp.

Let us at least endeavour to discover and to follow out the
least artificial method, that which will the least mutilate facts,
which will best respect their integrity and concatenation; the
most living method, as it were, the one most neighbouring on
reality.

If I mistake not, it is the following:

At the end of the tenth century, feudal society was defini-
tively formed; it had attained the plenitude of its existence;
it covered and possessed our territory. What was its funda-
mental element, its poHtical unity? AYhat, so to speak (I
have already made use of this expression), what was the pri-
mitive feudal molecule, that which could not be broken with-
out the feudal character being abolished?

It is evidently the simple fief, the domain possessed by
way of fief, by a lord who exercises over the inhabitants that
sovereignty inherent, as you know, to property.

It is therefore with the simple fief, considered in itself, that
we shall conmience our study. We shall first apply ourselves
to the proper understanding of this fundamental element of
feudalism.

What does the mere, simple fief contain, reduced to its last
expression? Wliat is there to study in its inclosure?

First, the possessor himself ol' the fief, his situation and his
life, that is to say, the castle; tlien the inhabitant of the fief,
not possessors, mere cultivators of the domain, and subject to
the proprietor, that is to say, the village.

These are evidently the two objects to -which our attention
is called in the study of the simple fief. It is necessary that
ive should thoroughly know what was the coadition and des-

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 77

tiny, from the eleventh to the fourteenth century — 1, of the
feudal castle and its proprietors; 2, of the feudal village and
its inhabitants. When we shall have actually lived in the in-
terior of the fief, when we shall really have been present at
what passed there, at the revolutions which were accom})lished
in it, we shall leave it in order to seek the ties which united
togetlier the fiefs disseminated throughout the territory; to be
present at the relations, whether between suzerains and vassals,
or between vassals among themselves. We shall then study
the general association of the possessors of fiefs under the
various relations which constitute the political order, that is,
in its legislative, military, judicial, and other institutions. We
shall endeavour thoroughly to discern: I, what principles,
what ideas presided at these institutions, what were the ra-
tional foundations, the political doctrines of feudalism; 2, what
the feudal institutions really were, no longer in principle, and
conceived systematically, but actually and in application; 3,
finally, what results must have been produced, and in fact
were produced, whether by the political doctrines, or by the
practical institutions of feudalism, for the development of
civilization in general.

There feudal society seems to stop. Do we not now
know all its elements? is not all its organization unveiled
to us? It essentially consists in the hierarchical association
of the possessors of fiefs, and in their sovereignty over the
inhabitants of their domains. This known, is not all known?
have we not arrived at the term of the career which we had
to go over?

Certainly not: feudal society, properly so called, even in
its triumph, was not, at this epoch, the entire civil society.
As I have already had occasion to observe, other elements
nre there encountered, of another origin and of another
character; elements which took {)lace in feudalism, but which
were never completely incorporated with it, which have
alwavs secretly combated it. and ended by triuni{)liing over
it: these are, royalty and the towns. Royalty was both
within and without feudalism: j'eiidal in certain jioints of
Its situation, in some of its rights, it borrowed from
others, other principles, other social facts, imt only foreign
but hostile to feudalism. It was so also with towns ;
they reconstituted themselves within the bos(Uu of feudal

78 HISTORY OF

society, to a certain degree assimilating themselves to it;
but they were also attached to other principles, to other
facts; and, upon the whole, the difference was greater than
the assimilation, as the event has proved.

When, then, Ave shall have studied feudalism in itself, it will
still remain for us to study two other elements of civil society
at the same epoch, royalty and the towns. "We shall study, on
the one hand, what, in their feudal character, they had iit
common with feudalism; on the other, how they were sepa-
rated from it, in their peculiar and distinct character

All these elements of civil society thus properly known,
we shall endeavour to bring them face to face, to unravel the
play of their relations; to fix the true physiognomy, and the
principal revolutions of the whole which they formed.

Such will be our progress in the study of civil society
in France, during the feudal period. Let us immediately ap-
proach it, let us enter, and confine ourselves to the simple fief.

Let us first occupy ourselves with its possessor; let us
study the situation and the life of the sovereign of this little
state, the interior of the castle which contained him, and his
people.

The single word castle awakes the idea of feudal society;
it seems to rise up before us. Nothing can be more natural.
These castles which covered our soil, and the ruins of which
are still scattered about, it is feudalism which constructed
them; their elevation was, so to speak, the declaration of its
triumph. Nothing of the kind existed on the Gallo-Roman
soil. Before the German invasion, the great proprietors
lived either in cities, or in beautiful houses, agreeably situated
near cities, or in rich ))lains upon the banks of rivers. In
the country districts, properly so called, were dispersed the
vill(B, a species of farms, great buildings serving for the im-
provement of estates, and for the dwelling of the labourers
or serfs who cultivated them.

Such Avas the distribution and habitation of the various
classes, Avhich the Germanic nations found in Gaul at the
time of the invasion.

It must not be supposed that they disliked and vv^ere eager
to change it; that they immediately sought the mountains.
steep and savage places, in order to construct ncAV and
entirely different dwellings. They first established them-

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 79

selves in the habitations of the Gallo-Romans, whether in the
cities, or in the villce, amidst the country districts and the
agricultural population, and rather in the latter dwellings,
whose situation was more conformable to their national
habits. Accordingly the vill(B, of which constant mention is
made under the first race, were the same, or almost the same,
as they had been before the invasion; that is to say, they
were the centre of improvement and habitation of great
domains, buildings scattered throughout the country districts,
where barbarians and Romans, conquerors and conquered,
masters, free men, labourers, slaves, lived together.

Still a change soon became visible. The invasion con-
tinued; disorder and pillage were incessantly renewed; the
inhabitants of the country districts, of ancient or new origin,
had need to guard themselves, and incessantly keep on the
defensive. We find the villce gradually becoming surrounded
by moats, ramparts of earth, with some appearances of forti-
fications. Hence arises a pretended etymology of the word
villa, which we read in the Glossan/ of Du Cange thus:

Villa dicitur a vallis, quasi vallata, en quod vallata sit
solum vallatione vallorum, et non munitione muronim. Inde
villanus.

The etymology is incorrect; the word villa is far anterior
to the epoch when the inhabitants of this kind of dwellings
had need to surround them with moats or ramparts; the
word is commonly derived from vehilln, vehere, which pro-
bably means the place where tlie agricultural carts were
made. But whatever may be its merit, the mere etymology
of the word is not the less a remarkable fact; it proves that
the villce were not long before they were in a measure forti-
fied.

There is another ciroumstance wliich prevents all doubt of
this; in certain parts of France, in Normandy, Picardy, he,
the names of many castles terminate witli ville, Frondcville,
Aboville, Mcreville, ho..; and many of tliese castles are not
situated, as most feudal castles properly so oalltd were, in
Bteep, isolated places, but amidst rich plains, in valleys upon
the site which the villce doubtless formerly oocu|)ied: a sure
sign that more than one Anglo-Roman villa in fortifying itself,
and after many vicissitudes, ended by being metamorphosed
into a castle.

8C HISTORY OF

As for the rest, even before the invasion was consum-
mated, and in order to resist its disorders, to escape its dan-
gers, the population of the country districts had begun, in
many places, to seek refuge in the heights, in places difficult
of access, and to surround them with fortifications. We read
in the life of St. Nicet, bishop of Treves, written by Fortu-
nat, bishop of Poictiers:

" In going through these districts, Nicet, that apostolic
man, that good pastor, constructed there for his flock a pio-
tecting fold: he surrounded the hill with thirty towers, which
enclosed it on all sides, and thus raised an edifice where for-
merly was a forest."^

I might quote many analogous examples. Is not this evi-
dently a first attempt of that choice of places, and of that kind
of constructions, which were adopted at a later period for
feudal castles?

In the dreadful anarchy of the following centuries, the
causes w^hich had impelled the population to seek such places
of refuge, and to surround them with fortifications, became
more and more pressing; it was necessary for it to fly from
places easy of access; to fortify its dwelling. And not only
did men thus seek security, they also found in it a means of
abandoning themselves without fear to depredation, and to
secure to themselves its fruits. Among the conquerors, many
still led a life of hunting and pillage; they were forced to
have a receptacle where they might shut themselves up after
an expedition, repel the vengeance of their adversaries, resist
the magistrates who attempted to maintain any order in the
country. Such was the aim which originally caused the con-
struction of many of the feudal castles. It was more espe-
cially after the death of Charlemagne, under the reigns of
Louis le Debonnaire and Charles le Chauve, that we find the
country covered with these haunts; they even became so
numerous and so formidable, tliat Charles le Chauve, despite
his weakness, and for the sake of the public order, as well as
of his own authority, thought it his duty to attempt to
destroy them. We read in the capitularies drawn up at
Pistes in 864:

"We will and expressly order that, whosoever in thes^i

' Forlun. Carni , 1. iii., c. 12.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 81

times shall, without our consent, have constructed castles, for-
tifications, and embankments (haias), shall entirely destroy
them between this and the latter end of August; seeing that
the neighbours and inhabitants have suffered much uneasiness
and many depredations from them; and if any one refuse
to demolish these works, let the counts, in whose counties
they have been constructed, themselves cause them to be de-
molished; and if any one resist them, let them immediately
inform us. And if the counts neglect to obey us . in this, let
them know that, according to what is written in these capi-
tularies, and in those of our predecessors, we shall order
them to our presence, and we shall ourselves establish in
their counties men who can and will cause our orders to
be executed."'

The tone and precision of the injunctions addressed to all
the royal officers, prove the importance which was attached to
the matter; but Charles le Chauve was evidently not in a
condition to accomplisn such a work. We do not find that
this capitulary had any effect, and his successors do not even
claim its execution. Accordingly, the number of castles
went on increasing under the last Carlovingians with extra-
ordinary rapidity. Still the struggle did not cease between
those wliose interest it was to prevent, and those who felt the
need of raising buildings of this kind: we find it protracted
to the eleventli, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. And it
was not merely between the king and the possessors of fiefs
that it subsisted, it also broke out among the possessors of
fiefs themselves. It was not a mere question, in fact, of the
maintenance of public order in the whf>le territory, nor of a
duty or interest of royalty. Every suzerain saw with dis-
pleasure his vassal constructing a castle on his fief, for the
vassal tlius insured himself a powerful means of independence
and resistance. Local wars then became longer and more
fierce, the castle served for aggression as well as for de-
fence, and the powerful, who desired alone to have them,
like the weak who had none at all, greatly feared to see
them constructed around them. There was here, accordingly,
a subject for continual complaints and protest. About li>e
year 1020, and on a similar occasion, Fulbert, bishoj' «if

' Cap. :\f Charles Ic Chaarr. at l'i~tis. iu ^I'll ; Bill., vol. .1., cjI. i J'i.
VOL. III. O

82 HI3T0RT OF

Clxartres, wrote to king Robert a letter which I shall quote
entire, because it gives a clear and lively idea of the import-
ance which such a dispute must have had:

" " To his lord Robert, his most gracious king, whom Ful-
bert, humble bishop of Chartres, prays may remain
in the grace of the King of kings.

" We return thanks to your goodness for that you have
lately sent us a messenger charged with rejoicing us by bringing
news of your good health, and to instruct your majesty of the
condition of our affairs, after having demanded from us an
account thereof. We then wrote to you concerning the
evils done to our church by viscount Geoffrey, of Chateaudun,
who shows sufficiently, and even more than enough, that he
has no respect for God or your excellence, for he rebuilt the
castle of Galardon, formerly destroyed by you; and upon this
occasion we may say. See! the evil comes from the east upon
our church; and lo! again he dares to undertake the building
of another castle at lUiers, in the midst of the domains of
Saint Mary, concerning which we may well say, and also in
good truth. See! the evil comes from the west. Now, there-
fore, forced to write to you by reason of these evils, we
bring complaint to your mercy, and ask help and counsel of
it; for in this calamity we have received neither aid nor
consolation from your son Hugh. Accordingly, penetrated
to the depths of our heart with a lively grief, we have
already manifested it to such a degree, that, according to our
order, our bells, accustomed to announce our joy and glad-
ness, have ceased to sound, as the more to show our sadness;
and divine service, which, up to the present time, and by the
grace of God, we have been accustomed to celebrate with
great rejoicing of heart and mouth, is no longer celebrated,
except in a lamentable manner, with a low voice, and almost
in silence.

" Thus, therefore, on our knees we implore your pity, with
tears of heart and mind, save the holy church of the Mother
of God, of which you have willed that we your faithful
should be the chief, however unworthy we be thereof;
succour those who from you alone, after God, expect their
consolation and comfort in the evils with which they are so
heavily laden. Consider of tlie means of delivering us from

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 83

these sufferings, and of converting our sadness into joy;
Bummon the count Eudes,^ and enjoin him sharply, in the
name of your royal authority, that he should, in all sincerity,
give the necessary orders to have destroyed, or that he him-
self destroy these constructions of diabolical inspiration, for
the love of God, and by fidelity towards you, in honour of
the holy Mary, and by affection for us, who are always her
faithful. If neither you nor he put an end to this evil, which
keeps everything in our country in confusion, what will re-
main for us to do, but to formally interdict the celebration of
all divine service throughout our bishopric? and for ourselves,
alas! although greatly against our will, and constrained only
by the severest necessity, to exile ourselves to some place,
being unable any longer to see with our eyes, or to suffer the
oppression of the holy church of God. To the end that we
may not be forced to come to this extremity, we again im-
plore your pity with lamentable voice; for God keep us from
seeing ourselves constrained to banish ourselves far from you, to
have to confess to a foreign king or emperor that you would
not or could not defend the bride of Christ, the holy church
confided to our care I"

Assuredly, the construction of the castles of Galardon and
Eliers must have appeared a grave fact, for it to cause a
bishop, in the mere hope of making its gravity felt, to silence
the bells of his church, and have divine service almost sus-
pended. The successors of Fulbert, in the bishopric of
Chartres, took a different course; they fortified the episeoi)al
house, and were in their turn obliged to demolish their forti-
fications. We read, in a charter granted to Yves, bishop of
Chartres, by Stephen, count of Chartres and of Blois, who
died in 1101, the following clause:

" If any future bishop cause to be constructed, in the said
episcopal house, a tower or ramparts, let that tower and those
ramparts alone be demolished, and let the hou!«e itself remain
standing, with its dependencies."^

Doubtless, between Fulbert and Yves, some bishop of
Chartres had added such works to his house, and count
Stephen wished to prevent their being renewed.

' GeoiTrey was vassal of Eudes II., count of Chartres, and the latter wfis
the vasKiil of the king.

* Martenne, Jmplis. Collect., t. i., p. C21.
G 2

84 HISTORY OK

The lords who each held fiefs, often had quarrels among
them, arising from the construction of castles, whether withir
the fief, or on the frontiers of neighbouring fiefs.

" In 1 228, Guy, count of Forest and Nevers, and Thibaut,
count of Champagne, were at war with one another, because
of fortresses which they had respectively caused to be con-
structed upon the borders of their counties of Champagne and
Nevers. This war having lasted for a long period, the two
counts put it to the arbitration of the cardinal legate, who
then gave his judgment as umpire, by which it Avas said that
so long as Guy, count of Forest, should hold the county of
Nevers, the fortresses which were on the confines of the
county of Champagne, and on those of the county of Nevers,
should subsist, and that they might even be fenced around
with new works, provided, however, that it was only to the
distance of the shot of a cross-bow; but that the counts could
not make new fortresses on the same borders, nor suifer others
to make them." ^

And in 1160, under the reign of Louis le Jeune, a charter
of his brother Robert, count of Dreux, is expressed in the
following terms:

" I, Robert, count, brother of the king of France, make
known to all present and to come, that there was a certain
contest between Henry, count of Champagne and Brie, and
myself, concerning a certain house which is called Savegny,
and a part of which I fortified by a moat of two outlets.
The affair has been arranged as follows, namely: that what is
already fortified by a moat of two outlets, shall so remain,
but that the remainder shall be fortified with a moat of one
outlet only, and a fence without battlements.

" If I make war against the said count, or against any
other, I shall immediately give him up the said house. I have
guaranteed it to him on my faith and by hostages, and he has
promised me that he will keep t!ie said house, with the ponds
and mills, in good faith and without ill design; and that he
will immediately return it to me, the war being finished."^

It would be easy to multiply this example of the resistance,
or more correctly speaking, various resistances, which, down

' Olu^^el, Vsnge dca Fiefs, t. i., p. 3b8
« Ibid., p. 3bvi, uote b.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE, 85

to the middle of the thirteenth century, the construction of
castles had to surmount.

It did surmount them, as it happens with everything which
is the v?ork of necessity. At this epoch, there was war
everywhere; everywhere would necessarily be also the monu-
ments of war, the means of making it and repelling it. Not
only were strong castles constructed, but all things were
made into fortifications, haunts, or defensive habitations.
Towards the end of the eleventh century, we find, at Nimes,
an association called Le$ Chevaliers des Arenes. When the
meaning of this is sought, we find that they were knights
who had taken up their abode in the Roman amphitheatre,
tlic Arenes still remaining in the present day. It was easy
to fortify them: they were strong in themselves. These
knights established themselves in them, and intrenched them-
selves therein when necessary, and this is not an isolated
fact; most of the ancient circusses, the arena of Aries, as
well as that of Niraes, have been put to the same use, and
occupied for some time as a castle. It was not necessary to
be a knight, or even a layman, in order to act thus, and to
live amidst fortifications. Monasteries, churches also forti-
fied themselves; they were surrounded by towers, ramparts,
and moats; they were assiduously guarded, and long sieges
were sustained by them. The burghers did like the nobles;
towns were fortified. War so constantly menaced them,
that, in many of them, a child was kept, at a fixed post and
by way of sentinel, in the bell tower of the church, to observe
what passed at a distance, and to announce the approach of
an enemy. Moreover, the enemy was within the walls, in
tiie neighbouring street, in the intermediate house; war might
break out, in fact did break out, between one quarter and
another, from door to door, and fortifications, like wiir, pene-
trated everywhere. Eacli street had its barriers, each house
its tower, its loop-hole, its platform, in the fourteenth cen-
tury.

" Rhodcz was divided into two parts, surrounded with ram
parts and towers. One was calicMl tlie city, the other the
borough; the inhabitants of the city and those of the borough
made war witli each otlicr from time to time; and even when
they were at peace, they shut the gates of their nielosure
every night, and were more particular in setting the watch

86 HISTORY OP

upon the walls which separated them, than upon those which
protected the town on the side towards tlie country."'

And many other towns, among others Limoges, Auch,
Perigueux, Angouleme, Meaux, were the same, or almost the
same, as Rhodez.

"Would you have a somewhat exact idea of what a castle
was, not exactly at the epoch which occupies us, but at a
rather posterior epoch? I shall borrow its description from
a very recent work, and which as yet is not even finished; a
work which, in my opinion, is often deficient in a due senti-
ment of the ancient times, and in moral truth, but which,
concerning the actual state of society in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, concerning the employment of time, man-
ners, and domestic, industrial, agricultural life, &c., contains
very complete information, collected with a great deal of
learning, and well arranged. I speak of the Histoire des
Fran^ais des divers Etats pendant les cinq denders Siecles,
by M. A. Monteil, the first four volumes of which are pub-
lished. The author describes, in the following terms, the
castle of Montbazori, near Tours, in the fourteenth century.

" First, imagine to yourself a superb position, a steep
mountain, bristling with rocks, furrowed with ravines and
precipices; upon the declivity is the castle. The small
houses which surround it set off its grandeur; the Indre
seems to turn aside with respect; it forms a large semicircle
at its feet.

" This castle must be seen when, at sunrise, the outward
galleries glimmer with the armour of the sentinels, and the
towers are shown all brilliant with their large, new gratings.
Those high buildings must be seen, which fill those who de-
fend them with courage, and with fear those who should be
tempted to attack them,

" The door presents itself all covered with heads of boars or
wolves, flanked with turrets, and crowned with a high guard-
house. Enter, there are throe inclosures, three moats, three
drawbridges to pass. You find yourself in a large, square
court, where are cisterns, and on the right and left the stables,
hen-houses, pigeon-houses, coach-houses; the cellars, vaults,
and prisons are below; above are the dwelling apartments;

* Histoire des Fr(ui<;ais de divers etats, by M. A. Monteil, v, ii., p. 196.

CIVJUZATION IJT FRANCE. 87

above these are the magazine, larders, or salting-rooms and
arsenals. All the roofs are bordered with machicolations,
parapets, guard-walks, and sentry-boxes. In the middle of
the court is the donjon, which contains the archives and the
treasure. It is deeply moated all round, and can only be
entered by a bridge, almost always raised. Although the
walls, like those of the castle, are six feet thick, it is sur-
rounded up to half its height with a chemise, or second wall,
of large cut stones.

" This castle has just been rebuilt. There is something
light, fresh, laughing, about it, not possessed by the heavy,
massive castles of the last century."'

This last phrase will cause some astonishment; one would
scarcely expect to hear such a castle qualified with the names
o^ light, fresh, laughing; and yet the author is right; and,
compared with those of the eleventh and twelfth centuries,
the castle of Montbazon really merited these titles. The
former were entirely the reverse — heavy, massive, and
gloomy; there were not so many courts in them, not so much
interior space, nor so judicious a distribution of it. All
idea of art or convenience was foreign to their construction ;
they had no monumental character, no idea of the agreeable;
defence, safety, was the only thought manifested in them. Men
selected the steepest and most savage places; and there,
according to the accidents of the ground, the edifice was
raised, destined solely to repel attacks effectually, and to
shut up the inhabitants. But buildings thus conceived every
one raised, burghers as well as lords, ecclesiastics as well as
laymen; the territory was covered with them, and they all
had the same character, that of haunts, or asylums.

Now that we know what was tlie actual state of feudal
habitations at their origin, what passed within? AVhat life
was led tliere by the possessor? What influence must have
been exercised over him and his people by such a dwelling,
and the material circumstances which arose from it? How
and in what direction developed itself the petty society
contained by the castle, and what was the constitutive element
of feudal society?

The first feature of its situation was isolation. At no epoch,

• Histoirc des Fruiii^ais da dwcrs iiats, by M. A. Monteil, t. i.. p. lOL

88 HISTORY OF

perhaps, in the history of any society, do we meet wjth isola-
tion so complete. Take the patriarchal system,the nations which
were formed in the plains of western Asia; take the nomadic
i/ations, the tribes of shepherds; take those German tribes
I described in one of the last lectures; be present at the
birth of the Greek or Roman society; transport yourself
to the midst of those villages which afterwards became
Athens; to the seven hills whose population formed Rome;
everywhere you will find men in infinitely closer connexion,
far more disposed to act upon one another, that is to say, to
become civilized, for civilization is the result of the reciprocal
and continual action of individuals. The primitive social
molecule was never elsewhere so isolated, so separated from
other like molecules; the distance was never so great between
the essential and simple elements of society.

With this first feature, with the- isolation of the castle and
its inhabitants was combined a singular indolence. The pos-
sessor of the castle had nothing to do; no duties, no regular
occupation. Among other nations, at their origin, even in
the superior classes, men were occupied, sometimes with
public affairs, sometimes with frequent and various kinds of
relations with neighbouring families. We never find them
at a loss how to fill up their time, to satisfy their activity:
here they cultivated and improved large estates; there they
managed great flocks; elsewhere they hunted for a livelihood;
in a word, they had a compulsory activity. Within the
castle, the proprietor had nothing to do; it was not he who
improved his fields; he did not hunt for his support; he had
no political activity, no industrial activity of any kind; never
has there been seen such leisure in such isolation.

Men cannot remain in a situation of this kind; they would
die of impatience and ennui. The proprietor of the castle
thought only of getting out of it. Shut up there when it
was absolutely necessary to his safety and independence, he
,'tft it as often as he was able, to seek abroad what he was in
want of, society, activity. The life of the possessors of fiefs
wiis passed upon the high roads, in adventures. That long
series of incursions, pillages, wars, which characterises the
middle ages, was in a great measure, the effect of the nature
of the feudal habitation, and of the material situation amidst
which its masters were placr.d. They everywhere sought the

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE, 89

4«.)cial movement which they could not find within their own
caatles.

Horrible pictures of the life which the possessors of fiefs
led at this epoch, have been seen in many works. These
pictures have often been traced with a hostile hand, in a partial
design. Upon the whole, however, I do not think them ex-
aggerated. Historical events on the one hand, and contem-
poraneous monuments on the other, prove that such was in
fact, for a very long period, the feudal life, the life of the
seigneurs

Among the contemporaneous monuments, I shall refer you
to three only, in my opinion the most striking, and whicli
give the most exact idea of the state of society at this epoch:
first, the Histoire de Louis le Gros, by Suger; secondly, tiie
Vic de Guibert de Nogent, by himself, a book less known,
but curious, and to which I shall immediately return; thirdly^
V Histoire Ecclesiastique et civile de Normandie, by Oideiic
Vital. You will there see to what an extent the life of pos-
sessors of fiefs was passed away from liome, entirely employed
in depredations, incursions, disorders of every description.

Consult events instead of monuments. That which has
astonished all historians, the crusades, first presents itself tc
the mind. Can it be supposed that the crusades would be
possible among a people who had not been accustom.ed,
brought up from childholJ to this wandering, adventurous
life? In the twelfth century, the crusades were not nearly
so singular as they appear to be to us. The life of the pos-
sessors of fiefs, with the exception of the pious motive, was
an incursion, a continual crusade in their own country. Thty
here went fartlier and from othi^r causes; that is the great dif-
ference. For the rest, they did not leave their habits; they
did not essentially change their mode of life. C'ould one
conceive in the present day a nation of proprietors, who
should suddenly displace itself, abandon their estates, or their
families to go, without any absolute necessity, and seek else-
where such adventures? Nothing of the kind would have
been possible, if the daily life of the possessors of iiefs had
not been, so to speak, a foretaste of the crusades, if they
had not found themselves all prepared for such expeditions.

Thus, whetlier you consult monuments or events, it will be
Been that the need to seek activity and amusement abroad,

90 " HISTORY OP

prevailed in the feudal society at this epoch, and that it had
a large share, among other causes, in the material circum-
stances amidst which the possessors of fiefs lived.

Two characteristic traits manifest themselves in feudalism.
The one is the savage and fantastical energy of the develop-
ment of individual characters: not only are they brutal, fero-
cious, cruel, but they are so in a singular, strange fashion,
such as we might look for in an individual who lives alone,
abandoned to himself, to the originality of his nature, and to the
caprices of his imagination. The second trait, equally striking,
in feudal society, is the stubbornness of manners, their long
opposition to change, to progress. Into no other society have
new ideas, or manners, had so much trouble to penetrate.
Civilization was more slow and difficult in modern Europe
than anywhere else; it was not till after the tenth century
tliat it actually conquered and settled in the territory. No ■
where was, during so long a period, so little progress with so
much movement.

How can we but recognise, in these two facts, the influence
of the material circumstances under the empire of which the
constitutive element of feudal society lived and was developed?
Who does not see therein the effect of the situation of the
possessor of the fief, isolated within his castle, surrounded by
an inferior and a despised population, obliged to seek afar oS,
and by violent means, the society and activity which he had
not about him? The ramparts and moats of the castles
formed obstacles to ideas as to enemies, and civilization had
as much trouble as war to penetrate and invade them.
But at the same time that the castles opposed so strong a bar-
• rier to civilization, at the same time that it had such difficulty
in penetrating therein, they were in some respects a principle
of civilization; they protected the development of sentiments
and manners which have played a powerful and beneficial
part in modern society. There is no one but knows that the
domestic life, the spirit of family, and particularly the condi-
tion of women, were developed in modern Europe, much more
completely, more happily, than elsewhere. Among the causes
which contributed to this development, must be reckoned as
one of the principal, the life of the castle, the situation of the
possessor of the fief in his domains. Never, in any other
form of society, has the family reduced to its most simple

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 91

expression, the husband, the wife, and the children, been
found so bound, so pressed together, separated from all other
powerful and rival relation. In the various states of society
which I have just enumerated, the chief of the family, without
quitting home, had numerous occupations, diversions, which
drew him from the* interior of his dwelling, which at least
prevented that from being the centre of his life. The con-
trary was the case in feudal society. So long as he remained
in his castle, the possessor of the fief lived there with his wife
and children, almost his only equals, his only intimate and
permanent company. Doubtless, he often left it, and abroad
led the brutal and adventurous life which I have just de-
scribed; but he was obliged to return to it. It was there that
he sliut himself up in times of danger. Now whenever a
man is placed in any particular position, the part of his moral
nature which corresponds to that position is forcibly developed
in him. If he be obliged to live habitually in the bosom of
his family, with his wife and children, the ideas, the senti-
ments in harmony with this fact cannot fail to have great
influence. Thus it happened in feudalism.

Moreover, when the possessor of the fief left his castle to
seek war and adventures, his wife remained in it, and in a
situation wholly different from that in which women had
hitherto almost always been placed. She remained mistress,
chatelaine, representing her husband, charged in his absence
with the defence and honour of the fief. This elevated and
almost sovereign position, in the very bosom of dom'estic life,
oft engave to the women of the feudal period a dignity, a
courage, virtues, a distinction, which they have displayed
nowhere else, and it has doubtless powerfully contributed to
their moral development and to the general improvement of
their condition.

This is not all. The importance of children, of the eldest
son more espf-cially, was miieli greater in the feudal mansion
than anywhere else. There broke i'orth not only natural
atfection, and the desire to transmit his property to his
children, but also the desire to transmit to them that power,
that superior position, that sovereignty, inluri'iit in the do-
main. The eldest son of the lord was. in the eyes of his
father and all his people, a prince, an heir presumptive, the
depositary of the glory of a dynasty. So that the weaknesses

92 HISTORY OP

as well as the good feelings of human nature, domestic pride
as well as affection, combined to give the spirit of family
more energy and power.

Add to this the influence of Christian ideas, which I here
merely point out in passing, and you will comprehend how
this life of the castle, this solitary, gloomy, hard' situation,
was favourable to the development of domestic life, and to
that elevation of the condition of women which holds so great
a place in the history of our civihzation.

This great and beneficial revolution was accomplished
between the ninth and twelfth centuries. We cannot follow
the trace of it step by step; we can but very imperfectly
mark the particular facts which have served it as steps, for
we are deficient in documents. But that at the eleventh
century it was almost consummated, that the position of
women was changed, that the spirit of family, the domestic
life, the ideas and sentiments connected with it, acquired
a development, an empire, till then unknown, is a general ■
fact which it is impossible to overlook. Many of you will
still have before you the spirit of the monuments of the
eleventh century, which I placed befoi-e you in the last course;
compare them with the three pages I shall here quote
from the Vie de Guibert de Nogent, of which I just now
spoke. They have no historical importance, and no other
merit than that of showing to what dignity, to what refined
and delicate sentiments, women and domestic manners were
elevated from the ninth to the eleventh century; but, under
this point of view, they appear to me conclusive, and of a
genuine intferest.

Guibert de Nogent gives an account in this work, both of
the public events at which he was present, and of the per-
sonal events which passed within his own family. He was
born in 1053, in a castle of Beauvaisis. Let us see how he
speaks of his mother, and of his relations with her. Call to
mind the narrative, or rather the language (for narrative is
entirely wanting,) of writers contemporaneous with Charle-
magne, Louis le Debonnaire, and Charles le Chauve, on a
similar matter, and say if this is the same condition of rela-
tions and of souls.

" I have said, God of mercy and holiness, that I would
return thanks to thee for thy goodness. First, I especially

CIVILIZATION in FRANCE. 93

return thanks to thee for having given me a chaste and
modest mother, and one filled with fear of thee. With regard
to her beauty, I should praise it in a worldly and extrava-
gant manner, did I place it anywhere but in a face armed
with a severe chastity. . . . The virtuous expression of my
mother, her rare speech, her always tranquil countenance,
were not made to encourage the levity of those who beheld
her. . . . and what is very rarely, or scarcely ever seen in
women of a higli rank, she was as jealous of preserving pure
the gifts of God, as she was reserved in blaming women who
abused them; and when it happened that a woman, whether
within or without her house, became the object of a censure
of this kind, she abstained from taking part in it; she was
afflicted at hearing it, just as if the censure had fallen on
herself.'. ... It was far less from experience than from a
kind of awe with which she was inspired from above, that
she was accustomed to detest sin; and, as she often said to
me, she had so penetrated her soul with the fear of sudd*^ n
death, that, arrived at a more advanced age, she bitterly
regretted no longer experiencing in her aged heart those
same stings of pious terror which she had felt in her age of
simplicity and ignorance.'^

" The eighth month of my birth had scarcely elapsed, when
tny father in the flesh died; .... although my mother was
still fair and of fresh age, she resolved to remain a widow,
and how great was the firmness which she used to accomplish
this vow! How great were the examples of modesty which
she gave! . , . Living in great fear of the Lord, and with an
equal love for her neighbours, especially those who were poor,
she managed us prudently, us and our property. . . . Her
mouth was so accustomed to continually repeat the name of
her dead husband, tliat it seemed as if her soul had never any
other thought; for, whether in praying or distributing alms,
even in the most ordinary acts of life, she continually pro-
nounced tlie name of that man, which showed that her mind
was always preoccupied with him. In fact, when the heart
is absorbed in a feeling of love, the tongue forms itself in a

' Vie de Giiihcrt dc Nofient, 1. i., c. 2, in my Collection des Mc^wiret
relotifx a fllistoire dc Fraiui- t. ix., p. iim — 349.
» ibid., c. 12., p. 30c>.

94 HISTORY OF

manner to speak, as it were unconsciously, of him who is its
object. 1

" My mother brought me up with the most tender care. . .
Scarcely had I learned the first elements of letters, when,
eager to have me instructed, she confided me to a master of
grammar. . . . There was shortly before this epoch, and even
at this time, so great a scarcity of masters of grammar, that,
so to speak, scarce one was to be seen in the country, and
hardly could they be found in the great towns .... He to
whom my mother resolved to confide me had learned grammar
in a rather advanced age, and was so much the less familiar
with this science, as he had devoted himself to it at a later
period; but what he wanted in knowledge, he made up for in
virtue. . . . From the time that I was placed under his care,
he formed in me such a purity, he so thoroughly eradicated
from me all the vices which generally accompany youtli, that
he preserved me from the most frequent dangers. He al-
lowed me to go nowhere except in his company, to sleep
nowhere but in my mother's house, to receive a present from
no one without her permission. He required me to do every-
thing with moderation, precision, attention, and exertion. . . .
While most children of my age ran here and there, according
to their pleasure, and were allowed from time to time the
enjoyment of the liberty which belongs to them, I, held in
continual restraint, muflfled up like a clerk, looked upon
the bands of players as if I had been a being above them.

" Every one, seeing how my master excited me to work,
hoped at first that such great application would sharpen my
wits; but this hope soon diminished, for my master, altogether
unskilful at reciting verses, or composing them according
to rule, almost every day loaded me with a shower of cuffs
and blows, to force me to know what he himself was
unable to teach me. . . . Still he showed me so much friendship;
he occupied himself concerning me with so mucli solicitude,
he watched so assiduously over my safety, that, far from ex-
periencing the fear generally felt at tliat age, I forgot all his
severity, and obeyed with an inexpressible feeling of love. . . .
One day, when I had been struck, having neglected my work
for some hours in the evening, I went and sat mvself at

' Vie dc Guiliert de Noynit, c. 1, 13, 13, p. 355, 385, 30G, 397.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 95

my mother's knee, severely bruised, and certainly more so
than I had deserved. My mother having, according to her
custom, asked if I had been beaten that day, I, in order to
avoid accusing my master, assured her that I had not. But
she pulling aside, whether I would or no, the garment they
call a shirt, saw my little arms all black, and the skin of
my shoulders all raised up and swollen by the blow of the rod
which I had received. At this sight, complaining that they
treated me with too much cruelty at so tender an age, alj
troubled and beside herself, her eyes full of tears, she cried
' I will no longer have thee become a priest, nor in or ler
to learn letters, that thou thus endure such treatment.'
But I, at these words, regarding her with all the rage of
which I was capable, said to her: 'I would rather die than
cease learning letters, and wishing to be a priest.' "*

Who can read this account without being struck with the
prodigious development which, in two centuries, have been
taken by the domestic sentiments, the importance attached to
children, to their education, to all the ties of family? You
might search through all the writers of the preceding cen-
turies, and never find anything resembling it. We cannot, I
repeat, give an exact account of the manner in which this
revolution was accomplished; we do not follow it in its de-
grees, but it is incontestable.

I must close this lecture. 1 have given you a glimpse of the
influence which the internal life of the feudal castles exer-
cised over the domestic manners, and to the advantage of
the sentiments which arose from it. You will immediately
see this life take a great extension; new elements will
become joined to it, and will contribute to the progress of
civilization. It was in the castles that chivalry took birth
and grew. We shall occupy ourselves with it in our next
lecture.

' T'ic (If Guibcrt dc Xoqeuf, 1. i., c. 2. in my Collection dcs ^fimoirtl
rrlitli/i d nitstoLrc de France, c. 4. 'o. C. p. 300, 'VM, 303, 304

96 HI«T()RY OK

SIXTH LECTURE.

Kfforts of the possessors of fiefs to jjeople and animate the interior of fbe
castle — Means which present tliemselves for the attainment of this
end — Offices given in fief — The education o^ the sons of vassals in the
castle of the suzerain — Admission of the young man among the '
warriors in ancient Germany — Tliis fact is perpetuated after the in-
vasion—Twofold origin of chivalry — False idea which is formed of it —
Chivalry arose simply and without design, in the interior of castles, and
in consequence either of the ancient German customs, or of the re-
lations of the suzerain with his vassals — Influence of religion and the
clergy over chivalry — Ceremonies of the admission of knights — Their
oaths— Influence of the imagination and poetry over chivalry — Its moral
character and importance under this point of view — As an institution, it
is vague and without coherence — Rapid decline of feudal chivalry — It
gives rise to the orders: 1. Of religious chivalry ; 2. Of courtly chivalry.

Isolation and idleness were, as you have seen, the most
prominent features of the situation of the possessor of the
fief in his castle, the natural effect of the material circum-
stances in which he was placed. Hence, as you have also
seen, arose two results apparently contradictory, and which yet
wonderfully accorded. On the one hand, the need, the passion
for that life of incursions, war, pillage, adventures, which
characterises the feudal society; on the other, the power of
domestic life, the progress of the position of women, of the
spirit of fjunily, and of all the sentiments connected with \t.
Without premeditation, by the mere effect of their situation,
and of the manners which it gave rise to, the possessors of
fiefs sought at once afar off and within their dwelling, in
the most tempestuous, the most unforeseen chances, in the
nearest and most habitual interests, wherewith to fill up their

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 97

life and to occupy their soul, a twofold satisfying of that need
of society and activity, one of the most powerful instincts oi
our nature.

Neither one nor the other of these means sufficed. Those
wars, those adventures, which in the present day, at a dis-
tance of seven or eight centuries, appear to us so multiplied,
so continual, were probably, in the eyes of the men of the
eleventh century, rare, soon terminated, mere transitory in-
cidents. The days of the year seem very numerous and long
to him who has nothing to do, no necessary, regular, or
jiermanent occupation. The family, in its proper and natural
limits, reduced to the wife and children, did not suffice to fill
them up. Men with manners so rude, with a mind so little
developed, soon exiiausted the resources which they found in
them. To fertilize, so to speak, the sensible nature of man,
and make it give rise to a thousand means of occupation
and interest, is the result of a very advanced civilization.
This moral abundance is unknown in rising societies; its
sentiments are strong, but abrupt, and brief, as it were; the
influence which they exercise over life is greater than the
place which they hold in it. Domestic relations, as well as
external adventures, assuredly left a great void to fill up in
the time and soul of the possessors of fiefs of the eleventh
century

Men must have sought, in fact did seek, to fill it up, to
animate, to ])eople the castle, to draw thither the social move-
nient which it wanted; and they found the means.

You will recollect the life which, before tlie invasion, the
German warriors led around their chief, that life of ban-
quets, of games, of festivals, and which was always passed
in common.

" Feasts," says Tacitus, " bancpiets ill ))repared but abun-
dant, are given tliem instead of pay ... no one is ashamed

to pass the day or night in drinking They most

frequently treat at tlie biUKpiets, of enemies to be reconciled,
alliances to be formed, chiefs to be cliosen, of peace and of
war." '

After the invasion and the territorial establishment, this
agglomeration of warriors, tiiis lii'e in common (as 1 have

' Tar. (/,■ ^forib. Germ., c. 14. 22.
VOL HI. H

98 HISTORY OF

already had occasion to observe), did not immediately cease i
many companions still continued to live around their chief,
upon his domains, and in his house. Moreover, we find tlie
chiefs, the principal of them at least, kings or others, forming
a court, a palace, upon the model of the palace of the Roman
emperors. The multitude and titles of officers, and servants
of all kinds, who all at once make their appearance in the
house of the great barbarians, are inexplicable to those who
do not know the organization of the imperial palace. Re-
ferendary, seneschal, marshal, falconers, butlervS, cup-bearers,
chamberlains, porters, harbingers, &c., such are the offices
which are found from tlie sixth century, not only in the
establishments of the Frank, Burgundian, and Visigoth king?,
but among their more considerable beneficiaries, of which
the greater part are borrowed from the notitia dignitatuin,
the imperial almanac of the time.

Soon, you have seen, the taste for and habit of territorial pro-
perty gained more influence; the greater part of the com-
panions left the chief; some went to live in benefices which
they held of him; others fell into a subaltern condition, into
that of coloni. This revolution was operated more especially
in the course of the seventh and eighth centuries. We
then see the home of the chief broken up, or at least very
much contracted; only a few companions remained near his
person. He was not entirely alone, or absolutely reduced
to his family, properly so called; but he was no longer sur-
rounded by a band of warriors as before the invasion, nor
iit the head of a little imperial palace, as in the century
which followed it.

When we arrive at the end of the tenth century, or rather
at the middle of the eleventh, at the epoch when feudalism
attains its complete development, we find, around the great
possessors of fiefs, numerous officers, a considerable train, a
little court. We find there not only most of the offices
which I have just named, and which they had borrowed from
the empire, not only the count of the palace, the seneschal,
tlie marshal, the cup-bearers, falconers, &c., but new officers
and names, pages, varlets, grooms, and squires of all kinds:
squire of the body, squire of tlie chamber, squire of the
stable, squire of the pantry, carving squire, &c. &c., and
most of the>'i charges aro evidently rilled by free men; in-

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 99

deed by men, if not equal to the lord with whom they live.
Jit least in the same state, the same condition with him.
When La Fontaine said:

" Tout petit prince a des ambassadeurs,
Tout marquis Teut avoir des pages,"

he ridiculed a foolish pretension, an absurdity of his time.
This pretension, not ridiculous then, was in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries a simple general fact, and it was not ne-
cessary to be a prince in order to have ambassadors, or a
marquis to have. pages; every lord, every possessor of a fief,
of reasonable greatness, as La Fontaine would have said,
had many around him,

How was this fact brought about? How was this nu-
merous and regularly constituted train formed in the inte-
rior of the castle, around the suzerain?

To this, I think, two principal causes contributed: 1. The
'.Taation and perpetuation of a certain number of interior
domestic office?, given in fief, as well as estates. 2. The
custom, soon adopted by the vassals, of sending their sons to
the suzerain, to be brought up with his sons in his house.

The principal, in fact, of tlie offices which I have just
named, tliose among others of the constable, marshal, senes-
chal, chamberlain, butler, &c., were at an early period given
in fief, like lands. The benefices in lands, as has been seen,
had the inconvenience of dispersing the companions, of sepa-
rating them from the chief. Offices given in fief, on the
contrary^ retained them, at all events very frequently, about
him, and so far better secured to him their services and
fidelity. Thus, from the time that ti)i.s invention of the
feudal mind appeared, we see it spreading with great rapidity;
all kinds of offices were given in fief, and the proprietors,
ecclesiastics as well as laymen, thus surrounded themselves
with a numerous train. AVe read in the Ilistoire de VAbbaye
de Saint Denis:

" The abbots of Saint Denis liad numerous religious and
lay otficei-s. AVhen tne abbot of Saint Denis went into the
country, he was generally accompanied l)y a chamberlain and
a marshal, whose offices were erected into fief's, as is seen by
the acts of 1189 and 1231. These offices and fiefs were
afterwards reunited to the domain of the abbey, as Avell ds
H 2

100 HISTORY OF

the office of butler of the abbot, which was likewise an officfc
erected into a fief, and possessed by a lay domestic of the
abbot of Saint Denis, before the year 11 82."^

These offices gave rise to great disputes. Those who pos-
sessed them endeavoured, as had been done in the case of
benefices, to render them hereditary; those who conferred
them generally laboured to prevent this. The question re-
mained uncertain; inheritance did not prevail so completely
in offices as in feudal benefices; we sometimes find documents
which recognise or found it, sometimes documents which
deny or abolish it. In 1223, on the accession of Louis VIIL,
son of Philip Augustus, John, invested with the office of
marshal, enters into the following engagement:

" I, John, marshal of the lord and illustrious king Louis,
make known to all by these presents, that I have upon the
holy relics sworn to the said lord king, that I will retain
neither horses, palfreys, nor war horses, which are committed
to me by reason of my office, which I hold of the gift of the
said lord king; and that neither I nor my heirs shall claim
the said marshalsea as belonging to us, and as being here-
ditarily possessed by us. In memory and testimony of which
I have furnished these presents with my seal." ^

On the other hand, the office of marshal of France was
possessed liereditarily by the counts of Anjou; that of con-
stable of Normandy belonged in the same way to the house
of Houniet, as is acknowledged in 1 190 by a charter of king
Richard. Tliere are many similar examples. The conse-
quences to tlie suzerains of the inheriia.ice of offices were still
more serious than those of the inheritance of lands. Tlie
following were the privileges of the constable of France about
this epoch:

" The constable of France has these rights in tlie matter of
war:

" 1. The constable is above all others in the army, except
the person of the king, if he be there, whether barons, counts,
knights, esquires, soldiers, whether horse or foot, of whatever
estate they may be, and they must obey him.

" Item. The marshals of the army are below him, and
have their oflice distinct for receiving the warriors, the dukes,

' Histoirr de Saint Denis, by D. Felibien, 1. v. p. 279, note a.
2 Martsnne, Amp. Culled. 1, p. 1175,

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 10)

counts, barons, kniglits, esquires, and their companions, and
none can or must ride or order battle, except it be by the
constable; no one can order war or make proclamation iu
the army without the consent of the king or the constable.

" The constable must order all battles, expeditions, and all
squadrons.

" Whenever the army is removed from one place to another,
the constable assigns all the places of his right to the king,
and to others of the army, according to their estate.

" The constable must go into the army before the battalia,
immediately after the master of the cross-bow men, and the
commissaries shall be in his battalia. The king, if he be in the
army, must not sound to horse, nor must any of the fighting
men take to horse without the counsel and order oi" the constable.

" The constable has the charge of sending messengers and
spies for the business of the army whenever he sees lit to do
so, and reconnoitering parties when necessary."'

This was, you see, an universal director of war, a general
alone invested with the right of commanding armies and
giving battle. Many civil functions have been rendered
hereditary; but high military functions — the danger is enor-
mous, self-evident. Such was the feudal pi'ivilege, however,
in many cases. Nothing can be more natural, therefore,
than the struggle of the kings and great suzerains against the
inheritance of the principal offices, and they, in i'act, succeeded
in preventing or extirpating it. But it prevailed in numerous
offices of an inferior ord(;r, and was undoubtedly the first
cause wiiich ra!!i(;d or retained around the powerful lords
men who, without that, wouhl have gone to live on their own
domains.

The second was the custom, soon adopted by the vassals, of
having their sons brought up at the court, that is to say, in the
castle of their suzerain. JMore than one reason must have
incited tlieni to this. Inequality between the possessors of
fiefs had become very great; one particidar su/.erain was in-
finitely more rich, more powerful, more considerable, than the
twelve, fifteen, or twenty vassals who held their lands of him.
Now, it is the natural tendency of men to aspire to elevate
themselves, to live in a sphere superior to their own; and

' Brusscl. I'xigr di s litis, v. 1. ji. (i.'U.

102 HISTORY OF

the vassal was naturally inclined to send his son tc sucL a
sphere. It was, moreover, a means of securing fcr himself
the good-will of the suzerain. Although inheritance com-
pletely prevailed in fiefs, although feudal property had become
a firm and veritable property, still it was subject to many
attacks; the spoliation of the weak by the strong was fre-
quent, and it was greatly to the interest of the vassals to pre-
serve themselves from this by keeping up habitual and
amicable relations with their suzerains. The suzerain, on
his side, by having near him the sons of his vassals, assured
himself of their fidelity and devotion, not only for the time
being, but for the future; who, lastly, does not know the
inclination of all men to repair towards the point where the
events, chances, and movement of life abound. It was at
the court of the suzerain that they could best hope for this ;
they therefore naturally gravitated towards this centre of theii
little society.

Thus, the custom became so general that it was, so to speak,
converted into a rule. We read, in the notes added to the
Memoires of M. de Sainte-Palaye, the following passage,
extracted from an ancient work, entitled I'Ordre de la
Chevalerie :

" And it is fitting that the son of the knight, while he is
a squire, should know how to take care of a horse; and it is
fitting that he should serve before and be subject to his lord;
for otherwise he will not know the nobleness of his lordship
when he shall be a knight; and to this end every knight
should put his son in the service of another knight, to the
end that he may learn to carve at table and to serve, and to
arm and apparel a knight in his youth. According as to
the man who desires to learn to be a tailor or a carpenter, it
is desirable that he should have for a master one who is a
tailor or a carpenter, it is suitable that every nobleman who
loves the order of chivalry, and wishes to become and be a
good knight, should first have a knight for a master." '

Thus was the interior of the castle peopled and animated,
thus was the circle of feudal domestic Hie enlarged. All
these officers, all these young sons of vassals, formed part of
the household, acquitted themselves of services of all kinds;

' Saint Palaye, Memoires sur la Chevalerie, vol. 1. p. 5G.

CIVILIZATION IN FRA^CE. 103

und the social movement, the intercourse between equals, re-
turned to these habitations so isolated and of so austere an
appearance.

At the same time, and also in the interior of the chateau,
was developed another fact of equally ancient origin, and
which, in order to arrive at that which it was destined to be-
come in feudal society, had many transformations to undergo.
Before the invasion, beyond the Rhine and the Danube,
when the young Germans arrived at the age of men, they
solemnly received, in the assembly of the tribe, the rank and
arms of warriors.

" It is the custom," says Tacitus, " that none of tliem
should take arms until the tribe have judged him capable of
them. Then, in the assembly itself, one of the chiefs, either
the father, or a relation, invests the young man with the shield
and lance, equivalent to our assumption of the toga, and
with them the first honour of youth. Before this they ap-
pear but a portion of the house, then they become members
of the republic." '

The declaration that a man was entering the class of war-
riors, was therefore among the Germans a national act, a
public ceremony.

We see this fact perpetuated, after the invasion, upon the
Gallo-Roman territory. Without citing a great number of
obscure examples, in 791, at Ratisbon, Charlemagne solemnly
girt the sword (that is the expression of the old chroniclers)
about his son Louis le Deboniiaire. In 838, Louis le Debon-
naire conferred the same honour, with the same solemnity,
upon his son Charles le Chauve. The old German custom
still subsists, only some religious ceremonies are now joined
to it. " In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost," the young warrior receives a kind of consecration.

In the eleventh century, in the feudal castle, when the son
of the lord arrives at tiie age of manliood, the same ceremony
is performed: they gird on the sword, they declare him ad-
mitted to the rank of warrior.

And it was not upon his own son alone, but also upon the
young vassals brought up within his house, that the lord con-
ferred this dignity; they deemed it an honour to receive it

> luc. dc .l/'.nb. (;,nn.. c 13.

104 HISTORY OF

from the hands of their suzerain, amidst their companions;
the court of the castle replaced the assembly of the tribe;
the ceremonies were changed; essentially the facts were the
same.

Chivalry practically consists in the admission to the rank
and honours of warriors, in the solemn delivering of the
arms and titles of the warlike life. It was by this that it
commenced; we see at first only a simple and uninterrupted
prolongation of the ancient Germanic manners.

It is at the same time a natural consequence of feudal
relations. We read in the Histoire de la pairie de France et
du parlement de Paris, by Le Laboureur, a work not without
ingenious and solid views :

" The ceremonies of chivalry are a species of investiture,
and represent a manner of homage; for the proposed knight
appears without cloak, without sword, without spurs: he is
invested with them, after the accolade. As the vassal, after
the consummation of the act of his homage, he resumes his
cloak, which is the mark of chivalry or vassalage; the girdle,
which is the ancient military baldric; the spurs, and finally
a sword, which is a token of the service he owes to his
seigneur; and the analogy holds in reference to the kiss,
which forms part of each ceremony. We may add farther,
that it was upon the same theory that their subjects were
obliged to pay a tax to their lord for the knighthood of
their eldest sons, as the first acknowledgment of their future
seigneury." '

There is a little exaggeration in this language. We cannot
consider the admission of the young man to the title of knight
as a manner of homage; for it Avas not the actual vassal, but
his son, who was received as a knight by the suzerain.
There is, therefore, no true investiture in it. Still the suzerain,
in arming a young man knight, accepted him, in a manner,
for his man, and declared that he sliould one day be his vassal.
This was like an investiture given in advance, a reciprocal
and anticipated engagement, on the part of the suzerain to
receive, on the part of the young man to do, at some future
day, the feudal homage.

You are aware that people have formed an entirely dif-

' IliUuire de la pairie de F'-nuce, by Le I>abourenr, p. 278. I^tiou,
1740.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. lOo

ferent idea of chivalry and its origin. It has been repre-
sented as a great institution invented in the eleventh century,
and with a moral design, with a design of struggling against
the deplorable state of society, of protecting the weak against
the strong, of devoting a certain class of men to the defence
of tlie weak, to the redress of injustice; and this idea has been
so general, so powerful, that we even find it in the Ilistoire
des Fran^ais of M. de Sismondi, generally so clear sighted,
so far removed from the routine of his predecessors. The
following arc the terms in which he states the origin of
chivalry:

" Chivalry broke forth," he says, "in all its splendour at
the time of the first crusade, tliat is to say, during the reign
of Philip I. It had commenced in the time of his father or
grandfather. At the epoch when Robert died, or when
Ileni-y ascended the throne, we sliould regard the manners
and opinions of France as already completely chivalric.
Perhaps, in fact, the contrast which we have pointed out
between the weakness of kings and the strength of warriors,
was the circumstance best calculated to give rise to the noble
thought of consecrating, in a solemn and religious manner,
the arms of the strong to protect the weak. During the
reign of Robert, the castellan nobility began to multiply;
the art of the construction of castles had progressed; the
walls were thicker, the towers higher, the moats deeper ....
The art of forging defensive arms had, on its side, progressed:
the warrior was entirely clothed in iron or bronze; liis joints
were covered with it, and his armour, at the same time that
it presoi'ved the suppleness of the muscles, did not allow the
steel of the enemy to enter. The warrior could not leel any
fear for himself, but the more he was out of reach, the more
he felt pity lor those whom tlie weakness of their age or sex
rendered inca|)able of def<'nding themselves; i'or those unfor
tunates could find no protection in a disorganized society,
iroin a king as timid as the women, and confined like them,
to his palace. Tiie consecration of the arms of the nobility,
become tlie only public force for the defence of the oppressed,
seems to have been the fundamental idea of chivalry. At an
epoch when religious zeal became reanimated, when valour
still seemed the most worthy of all olFerings that men cotdd
present to the Divinity, it is not furjn-ising that they snould

106 HISTORY OF

have invented a military ordination, after the example of the
sacerdotal ordination, and tliat chivalry should have appeared
a second priesthood, destined in a more active manner to the
Divine service."'

Of a surety, if the picture -which I have just traced of the
origin of chivalry be true; if the form which I have, so to
speak, made rise up before your eyes, be legitimate, the idea
which most historians have conceived, and which M. de
Sismondi thus sums up, is fallacious. Chivalry, at the eleventh
century, was by no means an innovation, an institution brought
about by special necessity, and constructed with the design of
obviating that necessity. It was formed much more simply,
much more naturally, much more obscurely; it was the progres-
sive development of ancient facts, the spontaneous consequence
of Germanic manners and feudal relations; it took rise in
the interior of castles, without any other intention than of
declaring: first, the admission of the young man to the rank
and life of warriors; secondly, the tie which united him to his
suzerain, to the lord who armed him knight.

An incontestable proof, the history of the very word which
designated the knight, of the word miles, fully confirms this
idea. The following is that history, and results from the
various acceptations through which the word passed from the
fourth to the fourteenth century, and which Du Cange has
verified.

Towards the end of the Roman empire, militare signified
simply to serve, to acquit oneself of some service towards a
superior, not merely of a military service, but also of a civil
service, an office, a function. In this sense we find it said,
" Such a one serves (milltat) in the office of the count, of
the governor of the province :" militia clericatus, ecclesias-
tical militia, &c. Doubtless the service originally designated
by the word miles was the military service; but the word had
been successively applied to all kinds of service.

After the invasion, we frequently find it employed in
speaking of the palace of barbaric kings, and of the offices
filled around them by their companions. Soon afterwards,
by a natural re-action, for it is the expression of the social
state, the word miles resumed its almost exclusively warlike

» Histoirc dts Frunt^dis, t. iv. p. 190— -201.

CIVIUZATION IN FRANCE. 107

character, and designates the companion, the faithful of a
superior. It then becomes synonymous with vassus, vas-
salus, and indicates that one man holds a benefice from
another, and is attached to him upon that consideration.
" Tliese princes are very noble, and the knights (milites) of
my lord. — Gerbert and his knight (miles) Arser. — We order
that no knight (miles) of a bishop, of an abbot, of a marquis,
&c., lose his benefice without certain and proved fault. — The
pope excommunicated Philip, king of the Gauls, because,
having repudiated his own wife, he had taken in marriage
the wife of his knight (militis sui). The lord Guillaume
Hunald, on his knees, and his hands clasped in those of the
said count, received from him the aforesaid land, and ac-
knowledged himself his knight,'^ &c. &c.

I might multiply these examples: they evidently prove
that, from the ninth to the twelfth century, and even later,
the word miles meant, not the knight, such as he is generally
conceived, and has just been described by ]\I. de Sismondi,
but simply the companion, the vassal of a suzerain.

Here is clearly stamped the origin of chivalry. But in
proportion as it was developed, when once the feudal society
had acquired some fixity, some confidence in itself, the cus-
tom?, feelings, facts of all kinds, which accompanied the ad-
mission of the young men to the rank of vassal warriors, fell
under tlie empire of influences which were not long in imprint-
ing upon them a new turn, another character. Religion and ima-
gination, the church and poetry, took possession of chivalry, and
made it a powerful means of attaining the ends which they
pursued, of fulfilling the moral needs which it was their mis-
sion to satisfy. You have already seen, in the ninth century,
some religious ceremonies associated in this matter with
German forms. I am about to describe to you the reception
of a knight, such as it took place in the twelt'th century: you
■will see what progress the alliance had made, and with what
empire the church had penetrated into all the details of this
great act of feudal life.

The young man, the squire, who aspired to the title of
knight, was first divestrd of his clothes, and put into tlie
batli, a symbol of purification. U[)ou coming out of the

' Ihrocjnovit se esse viilitcm dotn. coiiiitis. Sec tLe G'ossary of Du
Cargc, i\t tilt' vvoid MiUs.

lOS HISTORY OF

bath, they clothed him in a white tunic, a symbol of purity
in a red robe, a symbol of the blood which he was bound t-
shed in the service of the faith; in a saga, or close black coat«
a symbol of the death which awaited him as well as all men.

Thus purified and clothed, the recipient observed a rigorous
fast for twenty -four hours; then, in the evening, he entered
the church, and there passed the night in prayers, sometimes
alone, sometimes with a priest and godfathers, who prayed
with him.

The following day, his first act was confession; after the
confession, the priest administered the communion to him;
after the communion, he was present at the mass of the Holy
Ghost, and generally at a sermon upon the duties of knights,
and the new life which he was about to enter. Tlie sermon
tinished, the recipient advanced towards the altar, tho sword
of the knight suspended from his neck; the priest detached
it, blessed it, and again put it on his neck. The recipient
then went and kneeled before the lord, who was to arm him
knight. " With what design," asked the lord, " do you
desire to enter into the order? If it is in order to become
rich, to repose yourself, and be honoured without doing
honour to chivalry, you are unworthy of it, and would be to
the order of chivalry you should receive, what the simoniacal
priest is to the prelacy;" and, upon the answer of the young
man, who promised to acquit himself well of the duties of a
knight, the lord granted his request.

Then there approached knights, and sometimes ladies, to
clothe the recipient with all his new equipments; they put
on him, I, the spurs; 2, the hauberk, or coat of mail; 3, the
cuirass; 4, the varabraces and gauntlets; lastly, they girded
on his sword.

He was then what they called adouhe — tliat is to say,
adopted, according to Du Cange. The lord arose, went to
him, and gave him the accolade or accoUe, or colee, three
ijlows with the flat of his sword on his shoulder, or nape of the
neck, and sometimes a blow with the palm of the hand on his
(;heek, saying: " In the name of God, of Saint Michael, and
Saint George, I dub' thee knight;" and he sometimes added,
** Be brave, adventurous, and loval."

Adaubix, Adopt

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 109

The young man thus armed knight, tho.y brought him his
hehnet and horse, upon which he sprang generally without
:he help of" the stirrups, and caracoUed about, brandishing
his lance, and making his sword glitter. He finally left the
church, and went to caracol around the square at the foot of
the castle, before the people, ever eager to take its part in the
spectacle.

"Who does not recognise ecclesiastical influence in all these
details? who does not see in them a constant anxiety to asso-
ciate religion with all the phases of an event so solemn in
the life of warriors? The most august part of Christianity,
its sacraments, take place in it; many of the ceremonies are
assimilated, as much as possible, to the administration of the
sacraments.

Such is the share which the clergy took in the external,
material portion, so to speak, of the reception of knights, in
the forms of the spectacle. Let us enter into the heart of
chivalry, into its moral character, into the ideas, the senti-
ments with which they endeavoured to penetrate the knight;
here again religious influence will be visible.

Look at the series of oaths which the knights had to take.
The twenty-six articles which I am about to quote do not
form a single act, drawn up at one time and altogether: it is
a collection of the various oaths exacted from the knights at
different epochs, and in a manner more or less complete, from
the eleventh to the fourteenth century. You will easily see
that many of these oaths belong to widely diflferent times and
states of society; but they do not the less indicate tlie moral
character which it was endeavoured to impress upon chivaliy.

The recipients swore;

" 1. To fear, revere, and serve God religiously, to fight for
the faith with all tlu ir strength, and to die a tliousand deaths
rath(;r than ever renounce Christianity;

"2. To serve their sovereign prince faithfully, and to fight
for him and their country most valorously;

"3. To maintain the just right of the weak, such as of
widows, orphans, and maidens in a good quarrel, to expose
themselves for them according as necessity re(juired, provided
that it was not against their own honour, or against their
king or natural prince;

" 4. That they would never offend any one maliciously, nor

110 HISTORY OF

usurp the possession of another, but rather that they would
fight against those who did so;

"o. That avarice, recompence, gain or profit, should never
oblige them to do any action, but only glory and virtue;

" 6. That they would fight for the good and profit of the
state;

' 7. That they would keep and obey the orders of their
generals and captains who had a right to command them;

" 8. That they would observe the honour, rank, and order
of their companions, and that they would not encroach by
pride or force upon any of them ;

" 9. That they would never fight more than one against
one, and that they would avoid all fraud and deceit;

" 10. That they would carry but one sword, unless they
were obliged to fight against two or more;

"11. That in a tournay, or other combat a plaisa?ice, they
would never make use of the point of their sword.

" 12. That being taken prisoners in a tournay, they would
be bound, by their faith and honour, to execute in every
article the conditions of the surrender, and moreover that
they would be bound to give up to their conquerors their
arms and horses, if so required by them, and would not right
again in war or elsewhere without their permission;

" 13. That they would inviolably keep faith with all the
world, and particularly with their companions, maintaining
their honour and profit entire in their absence;

" 14. That they would love and honour each other, and
give aid and succour to one another whenever the occasion
presented itself;

" 15. That having made a vow or promise to go upon some
quest or strange adventure, they would never lay aside their
arras except to repose at night;

" 16. That in the pursuit of their quest or adventure, tlii;y
would neither avoid bad and perilous passages, nor turn oil
I'roin the straight road for fear of encountering powerful
knights, or monsters, or savage beasts, or any other impedi-
ment which the body and courage of a single man might
overcome;

'• 17. That they would never take wages or pension trora
a foreign prince;

"18 That, commanding tioops of soldiery, they would

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. Ill

live with the greatest possible order and discipline, and
especially in their own country, where they would never suffer
any damage or violence to be done;

" 19. That they would hold themselves bound to conduct
a lady or maiden; they would serve her, protect her, and save
her from all danger and all insult, or die in the attempt;

" 20. That they would never do violence to ladies or mai-
dens, although they had gained them by arms, without their
will and consent;

"21. That being sought in equal combat, they would not
refuse, unless by reason of wounds, illness or other reasonable
impediment;

" 22. That having undertaken to carry out an enterprise,
they would apply themselves to it iacessantly, unless recalled
for the service of their king and country;

" 23. That if they should make a vow to acquire some
honour, they would not rest till they had accomplished it, or
'ts equivalent;

" 24. That they would be faithful observers of their word
and pledged faith, and that being taken prisoners in fair war,
they would pay exactly tlie promised ransom, or return to
prison at the day and time agreed upon, according to their
promise, on pain of being declared infamous and perjured;

" 2o. That, returned to the court of their sovereign, they
would give a true account of their adventures, although it
should be sometimes to their disadvantage, to tlie king and to
the master of the order, under pain of being deprived of the
Qrder of chivalry;

" 26. That above all things, they would be faithful, cour-
teous, humble, and would never fail in their word, for any ill
or loss that might thence happen to thera."^

Of a surety, there is in this series of oaths, in the obliga-
tlDHs imposed upon knigiits, a moral development v»/ry foreign
to the lay society of this epoch. Moral notions so elevated,
often so delicate, so scrupulous, above all so humane, and
always impressed with the religious character, evidently
emanated from the clergy. The clergy alone, at tliat time,
thought thus of the duties and relations of men. Its intluence

• Lf vrni Thtntrr (T/ionneiu ct Je ChevaUrxc, by Vulson ile la Colom
t»i<;ie; folio, I. 1. \. I'i..

112 HISTORY or

was constantly employed in directing the ideas and customs
which chivalry had given rise to, towards the accomplishment
of these duties, towards the amelioration of these relations. It
was not, as has been said, instituted for the protection of the
weak, the re-establishment of justice, the reform of manners; it
arose, I repeat, simply, undesignedly, as a natural consequence
of the Germanic traditions and the feudal relations. But the
clergy immediately took hold of it, and made it a means of
labouring at the establishment of peace in society, of a more
extended, more rigorous morality in individual conduct,
that is to say, to the advancement of the general work which
they pursued.

The canons of the councils from the eleventh to the four-
teenth centuries, if time would allow of the investigation,
would also show you the clergy playing the same part in the
history of chivalry, applied to bring about the same result.

In proportion as it succeeded, in proportion as chivalry
appears more and more under a character at once warlike,
religious, and moral, at once conformable and superior to
existing manners, it more and more invaded and exalted the
imagination of men; and as it was intimately connected with
their belief, it soon became the ideal of their thoughts, the
source of their most noble pleasures. Poetry, as well as re-
ligion, took possession of it. From the eleventh century,
chivalry, its ceremonies, duties, adventures, were the mine
whence the p( ets drew, in order to charm the people, at once
to satisfy and to excite that movement of imagination, that
want of more varied, more striking events, of more elevated
and purer emotions, than real life could furnish. For, in the
youth of societies, poetry is not only a pleasure, a national
pastime, it is also a progress; it elevates and develops the
moral nature of men, at tlie same time that it amuses and ex-
cites them. I have just enumerated the oaths Avhich the
knights took before the priests. The following is an old
ballad which will show that the poets imposed the same duties,
the same virtues, upon them, and that the influence of poetry
tended towards the same end as that of religion. It is taken
from the manuscript poems of Eustace Deschamps, and if
quoted by M. de Sainte-Palaye.

•' Vous qui voulez I'ordre de chevalier,
11 vous eoiivient mcnet nouveil vie;

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE 113

Devotement en oraison Teillier

Pechie fuir, orgueil et villenie :

L'Eglise devez deffendre.

La vefve, aussi I'orphenin, entreprandre ;

Estre hardis et le peuple garder ;

Prodoms, loyaulx, sans rien de I'autniy prendre

Ainsi se doit chevalier gouvemer.

" Humble cuer ait ; toudis' doit travailler
Et poursuir faitz de chevalerie ;
Guere loyall, estre grand Toyageur,
Tournoia suir,'' et jouster pour sa mie.
II doit a tout honneur tendre,
Si c'om ne puist de lui blasme reprandre,
Ne laschete en ses oeuvres trouver ;
Et entre touz se doit tenir le mendre.
Ainsi se doit chevalier gouvemer.

" II doit aimer son seigneur droicturier,
Et dessuz touz garder sa seigneurie ;
Largesse avoir, estre vrai justicier ;
Des prodoes suir la compagnie,
Leurs diz oir et aprendre,
Et des ^aillands les prouesses comprandre,
Afin qu'il puist les grand faitz achever
Comme jadist fist le roi Alexandre.
Ainsi se doit chevalier gouvemer."**

• Toujours. ' Suivre.

* Poesies Manuscrits cC Eustaclm Deschamps, in Saint Palaye, Memoiret
tur la Chevalerie, v. i., p. 144.

• " You wlio would enter the order of chivalry, befits you to kad a new
life ; devoutly to watch and pray ; to fly sin or pride and hII villainy ; you
must defend the church, and take under your charge the widow and the
ornhaii; you must be valiant and defend the weak ; upright, loyal, taking
notliing of other men's ; by this rule must the knight govern himself.

" Let your heart be humble ; ever labour a:id pursue deeds of chivalry ; be
your warfare loyal ; travel far and near ; seek toumay, and joust for your
mistress' honour; a true knight must in all things pursue honour, so that no
blame may beful biro, nor cowardice be found in his lift; ; let him ever
esteem himself least of all ; by this rule must the knight govern himself.

" He must love his seigneur truly and fully, and above all tilings guard
his seigneurie ; he must be liberal and a true lover of justice ; he must seek
tlie company of upright men ; bear their sayings, and profit by them ; he
must study the prowesses of valiant warriors, that he himself may achieve
great deeds, after the example of king Alexander; by ihja rule muBt tb«
kuight govern himself."

VOL. III. I

If4 HISTORY OF

Many have said that all this was pure poetry, a beautiful
chimera, having no relation with reality. And, in fact, when
we look at the state of manners in these three centuries, at
the daily incidents which filled the life of men, the contrast
with the duties and life of knights is repulsive. The epoch
which occupies us is, without doubt, one of the most brutal,
one of the rudest in our history; one of those in which we
meet with the greatest amount of crime and violence; when
the public peace was the most constantly troubled; when the
greatest disorder pervaded manners. To him who merely t^kes
into consideration the positive and practical state of society,
all this poetry, all this morality of chivalry appears like a
mere falsehood. And still we cannot deny but that chivalric
morality, poetry existed side by side with these disorders,
this barbarism, this deplorable social state. The monuments
are there to prove it; the contrast is offensive, but real.

It is pre isely this contrast which forms the great charac-
teristic of the middle ages. Carry back your thoughts to-
wards other societies, towards Greek or Roman society, for
example, towards the first youth of Greek society, towards
its heroic age, of which the poems which bear the name
of Homer are a faithful mirror. There is nothing there
resembling that contradiction which strikes us in the middle
ages. The practice and theory of manners are nearly con-
Ibrmable. We do not find that men have ideas far more
pjre, more elevated, more generous than their daily actions.
The heroes of Homer do not seem to have an idea of their bru-
talit;-, their ferocity, their egoism, their avidity; their moral
knowledge is no better than their conduct; their principles do
not lise above their acts. It is the same with almost all
other societies in their strong and turbulent youth. In our
Europe, on the contrary, in those middle ages which we are
studying, facts are habitually detestable; crimes, disorders of
all kinds abound; and still men have in their minds, in their
imaginations, pure elevated instincts and desires; their notions
of virtue are far more developed, their ideas of justice in-
comparably better than what is practised around them, than
wiiat they often practise themselves. A certain moral idea
havers over this rude tempestuous society, and attracts the
regard, obtains the respect of men whose life scarcely ever
reliects its image Christianity must, doubtless, be ranked

CIVILIZATION TN FRANCK. 1 l/>

amonsf the number of the principal causes of this fact: its
precise characteristic is to inspire men with a great moral
ambition, to hold constantly before their eyes a type infinitely
superior to human reality, and to excite them to reproduce
it. But whatever the cause, the fact is indubitable. We
everywhere encounter it in the middle ages, in the popular
poems as in the exhortations of priests. Everywhere the
moral thought of men aspires far above their life. We
should be careful not to suppose that because it does not
immediately govern actions, because practice incessantly and
strangely gives the lie to theory, the influence of the theory
was, therefore, null and worthless. It is much for men to
exercise a judgment upon human actions; sooner or later this
becomes efficacious. " I prefer a bad action to a bad example,"
'says Rousseau somewhere, and he was right; a bad action
may remain isolated; a bad principle is always fertile; for,
after all, it is the mind which governs, and man acts accord-
ing to his thought much more frequently than he himself
supposes. Now, in the middle ages, principles were infi-
nitely better than actions. Never, perhaps, for instance, have
the relations between men and women been more licentious,
and yet never has propriety of manners been more strongly
inculcated, and described with more esteem and charm. And
it was not the poets only who celebrated it, it was not a
mere matter of praises and of songs; we recognise by nu-
merous testimonies that the public thought as the poet spoke,
and judged in the same way of this kind of actions. 1 will
here read a fragment quoted by M. de Saint-Palaye, in which
the moral spirit of this epoch appears to me imprinted:

" At this time," says he, " there was peace, and there
were great feasts and jousts, and all kinds of chivalry of
dames and maidens assembled where they knew of feasts,
which Mere common and frequent; and there came with
great honour, the good knights of those times. But if it
happened by any chance that a dame or maiden who had an
ill name, or whose honour was stained, sat by a dame or
maiden of good name, however greater her degree might be
as a gentlewoman, or however richer or nobler her husband
might be, sometimes these good knights of their right were
in no way ashamed to come to them in the presence of all.
and to take the good and place them above the blemished,
i2

116 msTORY OF

and to say to them before all : ' Lady, be not displeased that
this lady, or maiden, takes precedence of you; for although
she may not be so noble or so rich as yourself, she is not
stained, but rather is put among the number of the good;
and they do not say this of you, at which I am displeased;
but honour will be done to whom deserves it, and marvel
not thereat.' Thus spake the good knights, and put the good
and those of good name in the first rank, for which .they
thanked God in their heart for their being held pure, by
which they were honoured and placed first, and the others
acknowledged their fault, hung down their faces, and were
much disgraced, and by this was there good example to all
gentlewomen; for by reason of the shame which they heard
said of other women, they hesitated and feared to do ill them-
selves. But, God forgive us, in our days as much honour is
awarded to the blemished as to the good, from which many
take bad example, and say that it is all one, and that as much
honour is given to those who are blemished and fameless as
to those who have done good; do what ill you may, all is
passed over. But this is ill said and ill thought; for, in faith,
though in the presence of ill women, we do them honour and
courtesy, when they are gone we tell our minds of them.
The which, I think, is ill done; for, to my mind, it is better
in the presence of all to show them their faults and frail-
ties, as was done in the times I spoke of just now. And I
will tell you, further, what I heard related by several knights
who had seenMessire Geoffrey, that when he journied through
the country, and saw the castle or manor-house of any lady,
he always used to ask whose it was; and when he was told it
belongs to so-and-so, if the lady was touched in her honour,
he would turn aside, if it were half a league, to go to her
door, and there he would take out a bit of chalk he carried
with him, and so, marking tlie door with a sign, would go
away. But, on the other hand, when he passed near the
house of a lady or damsel of good renown, if he were not in
too great haste, he would come to see her, and say to her:
My good friend, or my good lady, or damsel, I pray God
that, in this excellence and honour, and amongst the number of
the good, he may ever maintain jou, for thereby you shall
earn praise and honour;' and by this means, lo! the good
still more feared, and held themselves still more firmly against

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 117

doing anything by which they might lose their honour and
their rank. I would fain those times were come again, for I
do not think there would be so many women in disrepute as
there are at present."'

It is true, I cannot guarantee the authenticity of all these
details; the romantic is always mixed with the real in docu-
ments of this epoch; but what here concerns us is, the state
of moral ideas: now, they appear beautiful and pure amidst
the licentiousness and grossness of actions.

That is the great characteristic of chivalry; it is for this
reason that it holds a great place in the history of our civili-
sation. If we consider it not under a moral point of view,
but under a social point of view, not as an idea, but as an
institution, there is little in it : not but that it made a
great deal of noise, and led to many events, but it was not a
true, special institution. Lords, possessors of fiefs, alone were
knights, alone had the right to become such. It was some-
what different in the south of France; there the citizens also
were often knights, and chivalry was not purely feudal. Even
in the north we meet v/ith exceptions; but they are exceptions
against which chivalry protested, and which even occasioned
prosecutions, legal interdictions. The knights did not form a
separate class, which had distinct functions and duties in
society; chivalry was a feudal dignity, a character which most
of the possessors of fiefs received at a certain age and under
certain conditions. It played a great part, greater and more
enduring, in my opinion, than it has been represented as
having done, in the moral development of France; in social
development it held but a small place, and possessed but little
consistency.

Accordingly it did not long exist. At the fourteenth cen-
tury, chivalry, properly so called, such as I have just de-
scribed it, with those ceremonies, those oaths, those ideas
which characterised it at the twelfth century, was in rapid
decay. In his Histnire drs Francais dcs divers Efats, j\I.
Monteil has attempted to picture this decay, by ascribing to
his cordelier, brother John, established at the castle of Mont-
bazon, the following letter: —

"We but rarely see knights-errant in tlie present day: we,

• Saint Palnyp Memoires sur la Chciulfrit', tomo i., p 147,

118 HISTORY OF

however, still see them sometimes. One came who sounded
the horn before the great gate of the castle. The trumpeter
not having answered as is ordered in Uke cases, the knight
turned his horse and departed. The pages ran after him, and,
by many excuses for the inexperience of the trumpeter,
they succeeded in bringing him back. During the meantime,
the ladies had dressed themselves, had already takes their
seats in their places, and, while waiting, worked tapestry.
The lady of Montbazon was dressed in a robe embroidered with
gold, which had been in the house more than a century. The
dowager, dressed in a fur cap, as in her youth, had also put
on her rich furs. Enters the knight, enters squire, both
entirely clothed with plates of brass, making much the same
noise as mules loaded with copper utensils ill-packed. The
knight having ordered his squire to take off his helmet, we
saw a head half bald, and half sprinkled with white hair: his
left eye was covered with a piece of green cloth, the colour
of his clothes. He had made a vow, he told us, to see only
from the right side, and to eat only from the left side, until
after the accomplishment of his enterprise. The ladies pro-
posed that he should refresh himself: his only answer was to
throw himself at their feet, swearing to them all, to the oldest
as to the youngest, eternal love — saying, that although his
arms were of the best temper, they could not defend him from
their features; that he should die of them, that he felt himself
dying, that he was undone, and a thousand other similar
fooleries. As he went on in this manner, especially with the
young lady, whose hands he repeatedly kissed, I became im-
patient. The commander seeing this: ' Bah I' said he to me,
' these old fools have their forms and their style, as well as
scribes. But be tranquil; perhaps he will not pass the day here*
and, in fact, he set out some hours after."'

Doubtless, a good deal of this is caricature; and without
Don Quixote, brother John would have written nothing of
the kind. Still, the foundation of the letter is true. Dating
from the fourteenth century, feudal chivalry clianged its
character; the enthusiasm of its earlier year.s hail subsided.
A more indisputable testimony than ^I. Monteil. an official
and contemporaneous testimony — king John himself attests

' Ilistuire dcs Franr^ais des divers Etats, t. i., p. 145

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 119

It iu 1352, when, in creating the order of tlic Chevaliers de
TEtoile, he gives the following motives:

" John, by the grace of God, king of the French. Among
the various solicitudes of our mind, we have often, more than
twenty times, thought that in ancient times the chivalry oi
our kingdom shone forth throughout the whole world by its
bravery, its nobleness, and its virtue; to such a degree that.
with the aid of God, and with the support of the faithful
servants of that chivalry, who sincerely and unanimously lent
the strength of" their arms, our predecessors gained the victory
over all the enemies whom they thought fit to attack, that
they led to the purity of the true catholic faith an immense
number of people whom the perfidious enemy of the human
race, by his artifices, had drawn into error, and that at last
they established security and peace in the kingdom. But in
the long course of time, some of the said knights, whether
they have lost their skill in arms, or by other causes of
which we are ignorant, are in our days more than usually
addicted to idleness and vanities, and neglecting their honour
and renown, have allowed themselves to be occupied only
with their private interests. Therefore it is that we, recalling
the ancient times, and the glorious deeds of the said faithlul

knights we have resolved to bring back our faithiul

of the present day and for the future to the glory of

the ancient nobleness and chivalry so that the flower

of chivalry, which for sometime, and for the said causes, has
languished and lost somewhat of its splendour, may arise and
glitter anew for the glory of our kingdom,"' he, &c.

And towards the end of the same century:

" When Charles VII. conferred knighthood, at Saint Denis,
in 1389, on the young king of Sicily, and on the count of
Maine, tiiese princes, who were brothers, presented themselves
to watch the armour in an equipage as modest as it was
extraordinary, in order to keep up tlie ancient customs at the
reception of new knights, which obliged them to appear aa
young squires. This seemed strange to many peojile, because
there were very few who knew that tlii* was the ancient
order of such knighthood. "^

» Onion, of king John. Oct. Vihl. Itecueil dcs Ord., t. iv., p. 116.
' Haiiite Fdlaye, t. i., p. 140.

120 HISTOBr OF

Not that chivalry was dead; it had given birth to the reli
gious military orders — the templars, the knights of Saint John
of Jerusalem, the Teutonic knights. It began to give rise to
the orders of the court, to the cordon, the knights of rank and
parade. It was still long to figure in the life and language
of French society ; but the original chivalry, properly so
called, the true feudal chivalry, had fallen to decay like
^udalism itself. It is between the eleventh and the fourteenth
centuries that it must be looked for, and there it appeal s under
the features which I have just described.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 121

SEVENTH LECTURE.

The state of the agricultural population, or the feudal tillage — Its condition
seemed for a long time stationary — Was it much chauged by the invasion
of the barbarians and the establishment of the feudal system ? — Error of
tlie common opinion upon this subject — Necessity for studyiug the state
of the agricultural population in Gaul before the invasion, under the
Roman administration — Source of the study — Distinction between coloni
and slaves — Ditferences and resemblances of their condition — Relations of
the bond-labourers, 1, with the proprietors ; 2, with the government —
How a man became a bond-labourer — Historical origin of the class of
bond-labourers — Uncertainty of the ideas of M. de Savigny — Conjectures'

We have hitherto kept in the superior regions of feudal
society. We have lived amidst the masteis of the soil, the
sovereigns of its inhabitants; and, although we have found
great obstacles to the social movement, to the development of
civilization, in their situation, in their kind of life; although
documents have often been wanting to follow, step by step,
and in their various degrees, the progressions which were
painfully and slowly accomplished in those petty societies, so
isolated and so difficult of access, still this progress has not
escaped us. We have clearly seen that, in the very interior
of the castle, ])eople were not stationary, that important modi-
fications, veritable revolutions took place in the relations and
dispositions of its inhabitants. We have, if I do not deceive
myself, unravelled the principal causes, their dominant charac-
ter, and, from time to time, have determined their course.

We will now descend to the foot of the castle, into those
miserable dwellings where the tributary population who cul-
tivated its domains lived. Its situation bears no resemblance
to that of the inhabitants of the castle — nothing defends it,
nothing shelters it; it is exposed to all dangers, a prey to

122 HISTORY OF

continue vicissitudes; upon it, and at its expense, burst forth
all the storms which occupied the life of its masters. Never,
perhaps, did any population live more utterly destitute of
peace and security, abandoned to a more violent and in-
cessantly renewed movement. At the same time, its con-
dition appears stationary; for a long time we can see no
general and notable change. Through all the commotions
which constantly agitated it, we almost always find it the
same — much more immovable, more foreign to social move-
ment than the little society which lived above it, behind the
ramparts and moats of the castle.

There was nothing in all this but what was very natural
and easily explained (as may be readily felt) by the very
situation of the rural population, abandoned to all the chances
of events and of force. The progress of civilization requires
liberty and peace. Where these two conditions are wanting,
men may live, but they do not advance; generations succeed
each other; but it is upon the same place, without progressing.

Still, must we here rely entirely on appearances? Docu-
ments are even more wanting to us upon the history of tlie
agricultural and subject population, than upon that of the
warlike and sovereign population. Is it because documents
are wanting that it appears thus stationary? Or is its immo-
bility real, and as great as it appears?

1 think it real, and even more enduring and of more
ancient date than is thought.

It is an opinion generally pervading and maintained in
many writings, that the deplorable state of the rural popula-
tion of our territory, its servitude, its misery, date from the
invasion of the barbarians; that the conquest, and the pro-
gressive development of the feudal system, entirely changed
its condition, plunged it into that in which we find it from
the sixth to the twelfth century; that there resides the true
cause of the immobility which characterises it.

In vain has this opinion been disputed, even lately, by many
persons, particularly by M. de Montlosier, in his Histoire de
la Monarchic Frangaise. Their reasoning, and not without
motives, seemed partial, passionate, incomplete, tending to
the interest of one class and one cause, and the old idem has
remained predominant. People in general persist in be-
lieving that dating from the fifth century, the conquest over-

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE 123

threw the condition of the rural districts of Gaul, and reduced
their inhabitants to a degree of degradation and misery un-
known before.

I do not think that this opinion is well founded. According
to my view, the invasions and conquest of the barbarians
caused the agricultural population to suffer cruel and in-
cessantly renewed evils, i'ar more poignant than what it had
sutfered under the Roman administration; but at bottom, I
think its social condition was very little changed. Before the
invasion, and under the empire, it was almost the same as it
appears to us in the following centuries. Its vices and its
immobility date much farther back than the German conquest,
and we must not impute to feudfdism alone an evil which it
has often aggravated, but which it did not create, and which,
perhaps, even under the anterior system, would have con-
tinued still longer.

To solve such a question, to appreciate truly what happened
to the agricultural population upon our territory, from the
fifth to the fourteenth century, it is indispensable to know
what was its condition before the invasion, when the empire
was still erect.

We have, therefore, to study: 1, the state of the agricul-
tural population in Gaul, under the Roman administration, in
tlie fourth and fifth centuries; 2, the changes introduced
into this state by the Germanic conquest and the feudal
establishment, from the fifth to the fourteenth century.

It is with the first question only that we shall occupy our-
selves at present.

It is one that has been greatly neglected, and for the fol-
lowing causes: Tlie rural districts played but a small part in
the Roman society. The preponderance of the cities was
immense. Erudition and criticism have accordingly directed
all their attention to the internal administration of cities, and
the condition of the urban population, while the rural population
obtained scarcely a glance. Even the men, the .-peeial nature
of whose studies would seem to forbid their neglect of it, the
jurisconsults, troubled themselves but little about it. The
princi[)al monuments of the Roman legislation, those which
have been the object of the most numerous and most assiduous
labours, the Institutes especially, do not speak of the agricul-
tural population — at least, not of the class which formed the

124 HISTORY OP

greater part of it. Some passages are met with in the
Pandects, but few and undeveloped. The attention of the
jurisconsults has, therefore, not been naturally directed to-
wards this question; some have only spoken of it casually;
others have passed on without even seeing it.

Still original documents are not wanting; the Roman legis-
lation contains many provisions upon this subject.

The following will indicate to you the sources where most
of these may be consulted:

1. Theodosian Code, book v. tit. 9. De fugitivis colonis,

inguilinis et servis.
Tit. 10. De inquilinis et colonis.

1 1 . Ne colonus, inscio domino, svum alienet velpecu-
lium vel litem inferat ei civilem.

2. Justinian Code, b. xi. tit. 47. De agricolis et censitis el

colonis.
Tit. 49. In quithus causis coloni censii dominos accusare
possint.

50. De colonis Palcestinis.

51. De colonis Thracensibus.

52. De colonis Illyricianis.
63. De fugitivis colonis, S^c.

Q1. De agricolis et mancipiis dominicis, vel jiscalt'
bus republicim vel privatce.
8. Novels of Justinian, nov. 54. qucs ex adscriptitio et libra
natos, liberos esse non vult, 8j-c.
Nov. 156. De prole partienda inter rusticos.

157. De rusticis qui in alienis prcediis nuptias con-

trahunt.
162. c. 2, 3.
4. Constitution of Justinian, De adscriptitiis et colonis.

• of the emperor Justin. Dejlliis liberarum.

of the emperor Tiberius Constantius. De

Jiliis colonorum.
This shows that if study has been wanting, it was not so
with materials for study. The texts which I bave just men-
tioned, and some other documents, have been examined and
summed up with much care in a dissertation by M. de
Savigny, inserted in his Journal pour la science historique du
droit, published at Berlin;' a dissertation in which will be found

Vol. vi. p. 273— 32C Berlin, 18123

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 125

some of the faults of the author, that is to say, the absence
of general views and conclusions, but in which his merits also
abound, exactness of research, enlightened criticism of texts
and precision of results. I derive from it the greater por-
tion of what I shall place before you in the present lecture.

This dissertation is entitled Sur le colonat romain. The
name of coloni was, in fact, borne by the greater part of the
agricultural population of the empire: colojii, rustici, origi-
narii, adscriptii, inquilini, tributarii, censiti, all these words
meant one and the same social state, a special class inhabiting
the rural districts and devoting themselves to agricultural
labours.

Men of this class were not slaves; they even differed
essentially from them; and that in numerous characteristics.

1. The laws frequently oppose them to slaves, by a posi-
tive contradistinction. The following texts prove this:

" In order that people may no longer remain uncertain as
to the question what the condition is of a child born of a
female bond-labourer and a free man, or of a female bond-
labourer and a slave, or of a female slave and a bond-labourer,
&c." '

I might multiply these quotations; but, in general, not to
interrupt our progress, I shall content myself by pointing out,
in support of my assertions, the most clear and most formal
text.

2. Not only did the Roman law distinguish the bond-
labourers from the slaves, but it often formally qualifies the
first by the names oi free, free-horn :

" Let the labourers be bound by the right of their origin;
and although by their condition, they appear free-born, let
them be held as serfs of the estate upon which they are
born." 2

3. The labourers contracted veritable marriages; a legal
marriajre, which gave to the wife the title of uxor, and to
their eiiilurcn all the rights of legitimacy.

"If bond-labourers have taken free women for wives
{^uxnres sihi conjunxerint,) &c." ^

Now, you know that in the Roman society, slaves did not
marry legally, any more than negroes now in many colonies.

« Cod.Jii$tiii.,\. xi., tit. 47, 1. 21.

» Ibid., lit. 51, 1. unic. ' Ibid., tit. ^1 ,\. 24,

126 HISTORY OP

4. There are laws which, by inflicting certain punishments
upon bond-labourers, assimilate them, in this case only, with
slaves, an assimilation which in general confirms the dis-
tinction:

" It is fitting that henceforth labourers who have thought
of escaping should be loaded with irons, in the manner of
slaves." ^

5. The bond -labourers served in the Roman armies, where
slaves were not received. A certain number of recruits were
assigned to each proprietor to furnish, as is the present prac-
tice in Russia; and like the Russian lords, he took them from
among the labourers of his domains.^

6. The labourers were capable of holding property; they
gave to it the name of peculium, the same as that which
slaves might acquire; and, at the first glance, the resemblance
seems complete; but, as M. de Savigny with reason ob-
serves, the peculium of slaves belonged to their master, while
labourers really possessed theirs, with the exception of cer-
tain restrictions, of which I shall immediately speak. These
are, as you see, essential differences between bond-labourers
and slaves, and which made the colonaria conditio, or state
of bond-labour, a class of itself, an entirely distinct leg;d
condition in society.

But the liberty of this class was confined to very narrow
limits, and subject to very harsh conditions. I am about to
enumerate them, as I have enumerated the rights.

1. The coloni were attached to the estate; their legal
definition formally says as much: servi terrce glebce inharcntes.
They could not, under any pretext, quit the domain to which
they belonged; and if they happened to make tlieir escape,
the proprietor had a right to claim them, in whatever place
he found them, and in whatever profession they might be
engaged :

" We order that labourers be attached to the glebe, in
such a manner that they cannot be taken from it, even for a
moment." ^

" Let all fugitive labourers, without any distinction of sex,
function, or condition, be forced by the governors of the pro

Cod. Thend., 1. v., tit. 9, 1. 1, « Ibid., ]. 7. tit. 13, 1. 7, S-

» Cod. Just., tit. 47. 1. I.''

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 127

vinces to return to the places where they were born, have
been brought up, and paid the quit-rent." '

The proprietor might even claim them from the ranks of
the clergy. Legislation varied a little on this point. It was
at first ordered that no labourer could enter into the clergy,
be ordained priest, unless in the church of the very place
where he dwelt, in order that he should not depart from the
place to wliich he was attached, and should continue to acquit
himself of the duties to which he was bound.

" In the churches situated in the domains of any private
person, or in a village, or in any other place, let them only
ordain as priests men of the place itself, and not of any other
domain, in order that they may continue to bear the burden
of the poll-tax." 2

It was soon seen that even thus restricted, the licence so
given to the coloni turned to the detriment of the proprietors;
that the labourers become priests acquired more liberty,
greater stability, and no longer so assiduously fulfilled their
obligations. Bishops were interdicted from ordaining any
labourer without the consent of the proprietor.

" Let no man subject to the quit-rent receive the dignity
of priest without the consent of the proprietor of the estate,
and let him not be invested with the priesthood except under
this condition, even in the village where he lives." ^

The demands and continually increasing credit of the clergy
soon brought about a new change; they returned to the
ancient principle.

*' We allow labourers to be made priests, even without the
consent of their master, in the domains to which tlioy are
attached, so that, though priests, they still acquit themselves
of the cultivation with which they are charged."'*

But these very vicissitudes prove how weak and subordi-
nate was the condition of labourers in general, to the interests
of the proprietors. If they attempted to fly, they were, like
the slaves, considered as having wished, according to the
(■nit>l expression of the law, to steal themselves from their
masters.

'' If any labourer conceal himself, or endeavour to leave

> Cod. Juat., 1. fi. See also b. ii., tit. C3, 1. 1 & :).

» Cod. Theod., 1. xvi., tit. 2, 1. 33. ' Cod. Just., 1. i., ti: 3, i. 10.

♦ Nov. Just.,xh. )'J3, c. 17.

128 HISTORY OP

the estate where he lives, let him he considered as having
wished fraudulently to despoil his patron, like a fugitive
slave." »

2. They were, like slaves, subject to corporeal punishment;
not so frequently as the slaves, but in certain cases, and to
certain punishments from which free men were exempt.
Was it desired, for example, to extirpate from Africa the
heresy of the Donatists, it was decreed.

" With respect to slaves or labourers, the admonition of
their masters, and repeated floggings will deter them from
this perverse faith." ^

3. Labourers, like slaves, were deprived of all right of
complaint, of all civil action against their patron, against the
proprietor of the soil. Two cases only were excepted: that
in which the proprietor exacted a heavier rent than ancient
custom had fixed; and that of offence, of crimes committed
against them by their patron. In each case the labourer
might appeal to the magistrate, and enter an action. The
law of Justinian is explicit:

" As in civil affairs, we refuse to the bond-labourers any
action and complaint against their masters and patrons (except
in case of over-exaction of rent, according to what the
princes which have preceded us have granted); in criminal
matters, which interest the public at large, they have a right
to prosecute in cases of crime against themselves, or those
belonging to them." ^

4. Although labourers were capable of holding property,
that property was not complete, nor truly independent. They
enjoyed it at their will, they transmitted it to their family,
but they were interdicted from alienating it without the
<*onsent of their masters.

" It has been often decreed that no labourer can sell or
alienate, in any manner, any part of his peculium without
the knowledge of the master of the estate which he inhabits." "*

It will be seen, that although the condition of labourers
differed essentially from that of slaves, it nearly approached
it in some respects, and that they enjoyed but a very restricted

> Cod. Jnst., tit. 47, 1. 23.

' Cod. Theod., 1. xvi., tit. 5, 1. 52, 54. See alsc Cod. Jusf., 1. xi., tit. 47,1. 24

» Cod. Just., 1. xi., tit. 49, 1. 2. ■• Ibid.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 129

liT)erty; M. de Savigny even thinks, it is true without citing
any distinct texts, that their condition was, in one sense,
worse than that of slaves, for there was, in his opinion, no
enfranchisement for the coloni; they were looked upon as
being obliged always to remain upon the glebe, and even
their patron could not detach them from it by means of manu-
mission. The labourer became free only by prescription;
when he had been in the enjoyment of liberty for thirty
years without being claimed by any proprietor, then, and
then only, it definitively belonged to him.

What were the advantages which in some measure com-
pensated the coloni for so hard a condition? What guarantees
were granted them against the tyranny of the proprietor of
that soil from which nothing could detach them.

There were two principal ones:

The first was that the pro{)rietor could not separate them
from the domain; the personal sale of the coloni was inter-
dicted, they could only be sold with the estate; and the estate
could not be sold without them. Nor could the possessors sell
the estate, and retain the labourei-s, to carry them into another
domain; the legislation showed itself upon this subject pro-
vident and attentive in baffling the tricks by which they
attempted to elude the prohibition:

" It is in no way permitted to sell labourers {oriyinarios,
rusticos, censitosque servos,) without the estate which they
inhabit. And let it not be devised by fraud, as has often
been done, to remit to the purchaser a small portion of the
land, preserving the culture of the domain; but when all
the domain, or a determined part, sliall be sold, let it be so
with as many coloni as there were upon it when it belonged
to the first possessor."'

It also regulated what should hapi)en in case of a division
of lands, and laid down for the benefit of tlie labourers
measures often invoked, but as yet without success, for the
benefit of the negroes in various colonies:

" The partition of lands shall be made in such a manner
that each bond-labourer's family shall belong entirely to one
and the same possessor. Who can bear cliildren to be sepa-

> Cnd. Just., 1. xi., tit. 49, 1. 7.
VOL. III. X

ISO UliTORY CF

rated from their parents, sisters from their brothers, wives
from tlieir husbands."'

The labourers had then, if not liberty, at least security, a
veritable guarantee.

Here is a second. — The rent which they paid to the pro-
prietor of the soil, a rent almost always paid in kind, and
which they called reditus, annuce junctiones, could not, in any
case, be raised; it was always to remain the same, as fixed
by ancient custom, and independent of the will of the pro-
prietor.

" Let any labourer from whom his master shall exact
more than is customary and has been exacted from him in
former times, address himself to the first judge he can find,
and prove the fact, in order that he may forbid the con-
victed master from thus exacting in future more than it was
customary for him to receive, and let him be made to return
what he shall have extorted by such excess. "^

This was an important advantage for the agriculturalists.
The fixedness of rent had the same effect as they seek to
bring about in modern societies, by the immutability of the
land tax. It is a recognised principle in political economy,
that this immutability is very desirable; for all the ameliora-
tions which the proprietor can make in his domain then turn
to his profit; the state does not come to demand a part of it;
he has not to fear, in augmenting his revenue, tlie seeing it
diminish on another side. The transferences, the mutations
of property, are besides made with full knowledge of the sub-
ject, and safe from all uncertainty. Accordingly, the immu-
tability of the land tax is classed among the most efficacious
causes of the agricultural prosperity of a country, and
England is an example of this. The coloni enjoyed this
advantage; and if other circumstances had not diminished
its effect, it would perhaps have counterbalanced, up to a
certain point, the evils of their condition.

But independently of the rent which they paid to the pro-
prietor of the soil, the labourers were subjected by the state
to a less fixed and more onerous tax. Tlie two great con-
tributions of the Koman empire, it may be mentioned in
passing, were a land contribution and a personal contribution.

> Cod. Just , I. iii. tit. 3*. I. 1 1. "- Ilnd., 1. xi., tit. 49, i. 1,

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 131

The land contribution was paid by the proprietors, and the
personal contribution or capitation by all the inhabitants of
the territory. It was of the landed proprietor that the state
demanded the capitation; in addressing to him what we should
call the assessment for his land-tax, they joined to it the table
of the poll-tax due from the inhabitants of his domains; he
paid it in advance, and recovered it afterwards as he could.
Now the capitation continually increased, and was, both on
the part of the state towards the proprietors, and on the part
of the proprietors towards the labourers, the source of intole-
rable vexations. It destroyed, in a great measure at Ica.'^t,
the benefit which the latter might have drawn from the fixed-
ness of their rent; and hence that decline of the agricultural
population which preceded the invasion of the barbarians,
and facilitated its success.

Such are the principal features in the condition of the coloiii.
Men belonged to that class in virtue either of origin, prescrip-
tion, or a special and formal contract. With regard to origin,
the condition of the mother generally determined that of the
children. Still, if the father was a labourer and the mother
free, the principle was not inexorable, or, more correctly
speaking, the legislation varied, and the child sometimes fol-
lowed the condition of the father, sometimes that of the mother.
Upon the whole, the general effort of the legislation was to
retain as many individuals as was possible in the class of bond-
labourers.

Men also entered this class by prescription; whosoever
had been a labourer thirty years, without protest, could not
free himself from it. P'inally, a man might become a bond-
labourer by a kind of contract, a kind of personal engagement
with a proprietor, by which he received a certain portion vi
the estate on condition of establishing himself upon it, culti-
vating it, and acquitting himself of all the duties attached to
the condition of coloni, while he acquired its privileges.

We may easily see thence how the class of labourers was
perpetuated and even recruited in the empire; but we cannot
see how it was formed, what was tlie origin of that great
social condition, nor by what causes almost all the agricultu-
ral population, especially in Gaul and Italy, had been thus
placed in a medium condition between freedom and servitude.
M. de Saviirny has not passed by tliis important question^
k2

J3<? HISTORY OK

but lie has not solved it; he treats of it at the end of his dis-
sertation, and does little more than communicate his doubta
to the reader. Perhaps, indeed, it is impossible to arrive,
upon this point, at a precise and truly historical solution. 1
will give, in my turn, some conjectures somewhat less re-
served than those of M. de Savigny, and which still appear
to me probable.

I see but three ways of explaining the formation, in the heart
of a society, of such a class as that of the colonic the reduction ol
the agricultural population to such a condition: 1, either thia
condition was the result of conquest, of force; the agricultural
population, vanquished and despoiled, was fixed to the soil
which it cultivated, constrained to share its products with the
conquerors; and the laws, the customs which recognised some
rights, some guarantees in it, were the slow work of time and
the progress of civilization; 2, or the agricultural population,
free in its origin, gradually lost its liberty by the increasing
empire of a highly aristocratic social organization, which
more and more concentrated property and power in the hands
of the great; in which case the degradation and immobilisa-
tion, so to speak, of the labourers, was the work, not of con-
quest and sudden violence, but of government and legis-
lation; 3, or else, lastly, the existence of such a class, the con-
dition of labourers, was an ancient fact, the wreck of a primi-
tive, natural, social organization, which took rise neither from
conquest, nor in scientific oppression, and which maintained
itself, in tliis at least, through the various destinies of the
land.

lliis last explanation appears to me the most probable, in-
deed the only probable expUination. I will recal some facts.

When I treated of the social state of the sedentary and
agricultural Germanic tribe,' I pointed out two elements :
on the one hand the family, the clan ; on the otlier, conquest,
force. The descendants of the same family, the members oi
the clan were, as has been seen, in a condition nearly analo-
gous to that of the Gallo-Roman coloni. They inhabited the
lands of the chief of the clan, without any regular right or
property, but hereditarily enjoying the privilege of cultiva-
ting them in consideration of a rent, and always rL-aly to

» Lcct'iue HI. o\ ttifc present course.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE- 133

rally round the chief whose origin and destiny were the same
as theirs. Such was the condition in which the agricultural
population appeared wherever that social organization is found
which bears the name of tribe, clan, sept, &c. and which evi-
dently results from the progressive development of the family.
Now, there is reason to believe that before the Roman inva-
sion, a portion of the agricultural {)opulation of Gaul was in
this condition. T cannot here go into details, but everything
indicates that anterior to the conquests of Cassar, two forms
of society, two influences disputed for Gaul. Towns, cities,
were formed therein, powerful mistresses of a considerable
territory around their walls, and organized municipally upon a
system analogous to that of the Roman municipia, if not
exactly upon that system itself. The country parts were
inhabited by the chiefs of tribe, of clan, each surrounded by
a population which lived upon his domains, and followed
him to war. The great chieftains who struggled against
Caesar, Vircingetorix for example, appear to have been
chiefs of clans, whose position and manners closely resembled
those which, scarcely a hundred years back, were still to be
seen in the Highlands of Scotland. We cannot, of course,
speak with unhesitating certainty upon this point, for we are
here altogetlier wandering over a sea of conjecture. Yet
there is evei'y indication that the system of clan prevailed for
a long time in western P^urope, amidst the Gaelic race, im-
properly denominated Celtic, and that it t^till existed, though
greatly modified and subdued, in the country parts of Gaul
at the time of the Roman invasion.

Now, if the Roman conquest did, in point of fact, fiiul the
agricultural Gaulish population in the state I have desrribed,
living upon the domains of the great chiefs, and cultivating
them for a ground retit, is not the origin of the Gallo-Honian
coloni clearly manifested? is not their condition thoroughly
explained? The chiefs of clans were exterminated; the con-
quering chiefs took their place; the lower agricultural popu-
lation remained almost precisely in the same position as
before. Tlu^y were, doubtless, losers in some respects by the
change operated above them, i'or their national chiefs were
replaced by foreign masters; they had to obey conquerors
instead of voluntarily following eountrynuui of their own;
primitive natural ties were violently Ijroken, and sentiments.

134 HISTORY OF

the most dear to a people, received a cruel bloAV, But, on
the other hand, the Roman domination was more regular,
more able than that of the chiefs of the Gaulish clan; a better
and firmer order was introduced into the relations of the
coloni with the proprietors; so that, perhaps, on the whole,
the condition of the former (I refer solely to their material
condition), was very little deteriorated by this change of
sovereigns.

I have thus given what appears to me the most probable
explanation of the state of the agricultural population in
Gaul under the Roman administration. This state was, as
it appears to me, neither the sudden work of conquest, nor
the slow labour of legislation: it was an ancient natural fact,
which the Romans found existing on their arrival, and which
was to endure after them.

It was a state which in no degree appeared singular to the
new conquerors who succeeded to Rome; on the contrary, it
was entirely conformable with their own customs and man-
ners, with their own social state. The Germans also had
labourers, coloni, living on their domains, and hereditarily cul
tivating them on payment of a ground rent. It was there-
fore naturally to be supposed that the state of the agricultural
population would undergo no essential change, and that, sub-
ject to a few inevitable modifications, it would survive this
second conquest as it had survived the first. Did this prove
to be the case? The question will form the subject of our
next lecture

CIVILIZATION IN FUANCE. 135

EIGHTH LECTURE.

Of the slate o/ the agricultural populatiuu in Gaul from the 5th to the lAib
century — It has not changed so much as is commonly supposed — Of the
two principal changes wliich it was to be expected would take place in
it, and which did, in point of fact, take place — Insurrections of the
peasants in the lOth and Ilth centuries — Continuance of the distinction
between the coloni and the serfs — Progress of the condition of the coloni
from the llih to the Ilth century — Proofs.

I EXHIBITED in our last lecture the state of the agricultural
population in Gaul under the Roman administration. What
was its condition after the invasion — first, from the fifth to
the tenth century, during the epoch which we may deno-
minate the barbarous epoch, and then I'roin the tentli to the
fourteenth century, during the feudal epocli? Did that con-
dition undergo the so entire change that has been generally
represented?

In itself, such a change was not probable. Not only was
the condition of the coloni gen<n*al and vfell established in
Gaul, established de jure as well as de facto, I'ooted in civi-
lization as in society, but moreover, in the last days of the
empire, and amidst the repeated incursions of tlie barbarians,
the number of coloni had very greatly increased. A passage
in Salvienus, the writer who has perhaps more vividly than
any other depicted the social misery of this period, leaves no
doubt on the subject:

" Some of the men of whom we speak, more prudent
titan the rest, or rendered so by dint of necessity, de-
spoiled, in the course of the repeated incursions, of their
humble dwellings and poor fields, or driven thence by the
exactors, and no longer able to retain them, repaired to the
domains of the great men, and became their coloni. And as

136 HISTORY OF

men seized with fear, on the approach of the enemy, retire
unto some stronghold, or, as those who, having lost the
honourable position of freedmen, retreat in despair into some
asylum, so the men of who'll I speak, being no longer in con-
dition to preserve their property, and the dignity of their
origin, submit to the yoke of the humble condition of colonus,
reduced to this extremity, that the extortioner despoils
them, not only of their goods, but of their state, not only of
that which belongs to them, but of themselves; that they
lost themselves at the same time that they lose all that they
had; that, retaining no property, they renounce even the
right of liberty."'

It hence resulted, that at the period of the conquest,
and when the barbarians definitively established them-
selves on the Roman territory, they found almost all the
rural population reduced to the state of bond-labourers. Now
a condition so general, was a powerful fact, and capable of
resisting many crises. We do not change very easily the lot
and condition of so great a number of men. Considering
then the thing in itself, independently of all special testimony,
we may presume that the condition of the bond-labourers
would survive the conquest, and remain, for a very long time
at least, very nearly the same.

In fact, in certain parts of the empire, especially in
Italy, we positively know that it was not changed; explicit
monuments, more especially letters from the popes in the
sixth and seventh century, prove this. The Roman church
possessed, as you are aware, considerable territorial property;
this was, in fact, the principal source of her revenues at that
time. There is a letter addressed by Gregory the Great,
(590 — 604), to the sub-deacon Peter, the officer charged with
the administration of the property of the church in Sicily,
which gives some very curious details as to the state of the
rural population after the fall of the empire. I will lay a
portion of this epistle before you.

"We have learned that the bond- labourers of the church
are extremely troubled by reason of the price of grain, which
occasions the amount of the rent to which they are bound to be
no longer the same as in times of abundance. We order

Salvienus, I)e r/iibcrn. Dci, b. »

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 137

that, upon all occasions, whether the harvest be good or bad,
only the same proportion be collected from them. As
to the grain which shall be shipwrecked during its transport
to our granaries, we direct it to be reckoned as received.
But let there be no negligence on your part, in reference to
its transmission; for if you take not the fitting time for ship-
ment, the loss that may arise will be by your fault.

" We regard, also, as very unjust and iniquitous, that any
portion of the measures of grain furnished by the bond-
labourers of the church, should be taken by the collectors,
and that for this purpose they should be compelled to furnish
a fuller measure tha ii that which is delivered into the grana-
ries of the church; we forbid, by these presents, that the
bond-labourers of the church should be called upon to furnish
bushels containing more than 18 — , excepting such extra
quantity as the masters of the ships receive according to cus-
tom, in consideration of the waste which they state takes
place during the voyage.

" We have learned, also, that in some farms of the church
there exists a most unjust system — namely, that out of seventy
bushels the farmers exact three and a half; and even this is
not sufficient, for it is said that for many years past tliey have
exacted even more. We wholly detest this custom, and will
extirpate it entirely from our patrimony. Do you inquire,
in reference to the various descriptions of weights and mea-
sures, what is exacted of the bond-labourers, beyond the jus-
tice of the case, and do you appoint one uniform sum for their
various rents, so that they may pay in the whole two bushels
in seventy, but that beyond this no shameful exaction be
made upon them. And least after my death, when we shall
have augmented the total fixed sum to be paid, suppressing
the other charges wliich were heretofore made, these charges
may again be imposed upon the coloiii, so that while their
rent remains higher they are burthencd besides with tlie
extra charges, I order tliat you draw up formal registers, in
which you set down, once; for all, what each man shall hence-
forth pay, distinctly abolishing the old rates, dues, and the tax
upon vegetables and grain. As to what was formerly ]>aid
out of tlu'se items to tlie collector for his own use, we order
it to be henceforth given him out of the portion paid to us as
rent.

138 HISTORY OF

" Above all things, we desii*e you to take the greatest care
that no unjust weight be used by our collectors; if you find
such weights, destroy them, and substitute just ones. We
would not have anything exacted from the church coloni
besides the legal weights, except some common provisions.

" "We have learned, mox-eover, that the first collecting of
the tax very much straitens our coloni, for before they
are able to sell their commodities, they are forced to pay
the tribute; and having nothing of their own at the moment
when they are called upon to pay, they borrow of the officer,
and for this service pay heavy interest. . . . We therefore
order, by these presents, that thou make to the coloni, out of
our public treasury, the loans which they might otherwise
demand of strangers; let payment be exacted of them only
gradually, and in proportion to what they shall have to pay
with, and let them not be troubled for the present: for what
would suffice for them being kept till some future time, when
sold too soon and at low price when they are pressed, becomes
insufficient for them."*

I omit other recommendations dictated by the same spirit
of benevolence and justice. We can thus understand how
people were eager to place themselves under the rule of the
church; lay proprietors were certainly very far from tlius
watching over the condition of the inhabitants of their do-
mains. But however that may be, it is evident that this
condition, such as it is described by St. Gregory, was very
similar to that which existed before the fall of the empire.
His words, it is true, are applied to the coloni of the church
in Sicily; but we may hence judge of those of the south of
Gaul, where the bishop of Rome likewise possessed domains,
w^hich he probably administered in the same way.

As to northern Gaul, far less Roman, and more frequently
ravaged by the incursions of barbarians, we do not find docu-
ments so detailed, or which prove with the same precision the
permanence of the condition of the agricultural population.
But the general fact is not the less certain, and attested by
numerous texts; the following are taken from the seventh to
the ninth century:

' S. Greg., Up., lib. i., ep. 47 : In his Wopks, vol. xi., ool. £j3{5.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 139

" Let him who kills a free-man of the church, whom they
call coloni, pay composition as for any other German." '

*' Let the free-men of the church, who are called colonic
like the coloni of the king, pay tribute to the church." ^

" They have protested, and have said that they were born,
and should be free coloni, as the other coloni of Saint Denis,
and that tlie said monk Deoda has sought by force and
unjustly, to reduce them to inferior servitude and oppress
them." 3

"We give to the abbot Friedegies our seignorial manor . . .
with the men upon it, whom we have established there, to
live as coloni .... and we order that these men cultivate the
land and the vines, and all things, for half the produce, and
let no more be demanded of them, and after us let them have
to suffer no trouble." *

I might infinitely multiply these examples. The names of
coloni, inquilini, &c., incessantly recur in the documents ot
this epoch; the formulas of Marculf are full of them; we have
those by which they claimed fugitive coloni. Everything
attests, in a word, the permanence of this social condition.
Doubtless, it was then much more unhappy, more precarious
than it had been under the Roman administration; the rural
population had to suffer more than any other from the con-
tinuing violence and anarchy: but its legal state was not
essentially changed; the distinction between the coloni and
the slaves continued to subsist; and the first, in regard to the
new proprietors, remained in almost the same relation that
they occupied with the old ones.

Still two causes must, in certain respects, have considerably
modified their situation.

In the last lecture I placed before you the differences which
separated tlie condition of the coloni from that of the slaves:
these differences, you will recollect, were real, but, in many
cases, very fine, subtle, and difficult to be properly determined.
Now, distinctions of this kind evidently belong to an ad-
vanced and a tranquil society; they are the work of a
scientific legislation, and can only be maintained by a regular

« Law of the AUemaniii, tit. 9. * Ihid., tit. 23, 8. i.

« Charter i>f Clinrlrs le Chauve, in Bf.O.

< Donation of Ha^i»u to the abbey of Saint Martin de Tours, in 819

140 msTORY OP

provernment. They necessarily become weakened amidst great
disorders, under the empire of a confused and rude legislation.
"We then see the legal shades of difference vanish; profound
and striking differences almost alone survive. It was, there-
fore, in the nature of things that after the invasion, under the
brutal domination of the barbarians, when the Roman admi-
nistration was no longer there to maintain skilfully the limits
fixed by its learned laws, it was, I say, in the nature of things
that these limits should be continually overlooked, and that
the social conditions which approximated, although they were
distinct, should often be confounded. The legal distinction
between the coloni and the slaves, more than any other, per-
haps, must have run this risk. Although the Germans, in
fact, were not, before the invasion, entirely without slaves in
the interior of their houses, still they had no great number
of them. The system of domestic servitude was far less
developed with them than amongst the Romans. Tacitus,
and all the ancient documents, leave no doubt on this subject.
The Germans, on the other hand, had many coloni; bond-
labour was, as you have seen, the general condition of their
rural population. They would naturally, therefore, when
transplanted to the Roman soil, very imperfectly comprehend
the distinction between coloni and slaves; all the men em-
ployed in the cultivation of the land would be in their eyes
coloni; and the two classes were, doubtless, often confounded
in their actions as well as in their ideas. The coloni, per-
haps, lost by this circumstance; the slaves, especially so
called, gained by it; and at all events, there was here a suffi-
ciently notable change in the general state of society. I
now come to a second change of still graver import.

The proprietors who derived from the coloni a rent for
their lands, had, as you have seen, no jurisdiction, no poli-
tical authority over them. The criminal, or civil iurisdiction
over the coloni, belonged, not to the proprietor of the soil, but
to the emperor and his delegates. It was the provincial
governors, the ordinary judges, who administered justice to
the coloni. The j.roprietor only exercised over them the
rights peculiarly connected with the property, civil rights;
all rights of sovereignty, all political power over them, were
emtirely unknown to him.

This state of thin;T;s chansred after the invasion. You re

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 141

member that in the Germanic tribe, sovereignty and pro-
prietorship were combined in one person, and that this fact
was transplanted, was even aggraveted in the Gallo-Roman
territory. The condition of the coloni there was profoundlv
affected by this circumstance. Previously they had depended
upon the proprietor as cultivators, and attached to the soil; in
the central government, as citizens, and incorporated with the
state. When there was no longer a state, no longer a central
government, they depended upon the proprietor in every rela-
tion of life, for their whole existence. This fact, Ivowever,
was not accomplished all at once Three different systems, you
recollect, the system of free institutions, that of monarchical
institutions, and that of aristocratic institutions, co-existed
and struggled together during the first ages of the invasion.
Some time after, the barbarian kings, as successors to the
empire, endeavoured to establish and maintain those provincial
magistrates, those delegates of central power, who, under the
empire, had been charged with the administration of justice,
independently of the local proprietors. But you know the
issue of the struggle: the system of monarchical institutions
was defeated, and the proprietors of the soil became the
ministers of its population. The condition of the coloni was
greatly changed by this circumstance; they were still, indeed,
distinct from the slaves; their relations, as cultivators, with
the proprietor, remained much the same as before; but this
proprietor was now their sovereign: they Avere in his de-
pendence in all things, and had no connexion whatever with
any other power.

If we pass in review all the relations of the possessor of
the fief with the coloni on his domains, more especially during
the eleventh century, ere yet the feudal system had given way
under the attacks of the kings and of the commons, we shall
everywhere find the seigneur invested witli rights of sove-
reignty. It is he who possesses the legislative power; the
laws emanating from the kiii;j; have no executive effect be-
yond the royal domains. Tliis principle, indeed, did not
long remain intact and in vigour, but it was none the less
real, none the less the true feud'd j)ri!ieij)le. It was, more-
over, the sovereign alone who taxed his coloni, and regulated
tlie dues they :?hould pay Iiini. Tlie feudal taille took the
place of the Koman cnpitado. Under the Empire, the rent

142 HISTORY OP

payab.3 by tlie colonus to the proprietor was fixed; the prO'
prietor was not at liberty to increase it at his pleasure. But
the personal impost, the capitatio, which the colonus paid, not
to the proprietor, but to the government, to the emperor, this
was not fixed; it varied, it was constantly increased at the
sole will of the emperor. When the fusion of sovereignty
and of property became operated in the heart of the fief, the
seigneur was invested, as sovereign, with the right of im-
posing the capitation tax, and, as proprietor, with the right
of levying the rent. According to the ancient usages, the
rent was to remain always the same, and you will presently
see that, in effect, this principle passed into feudalism. But
as to the capitation, which became the taille, or poll-tax, the
seigneur, as theretofore the emperor, regulated it, and aug-
mented it at pleasure. The condition of the colonus, then,
was not changed, inasmuch as his rent remained fixed, and
his poll-tax arbitrary, as under the empire; but the same
master now disposed alike of the rent and of the poll-tax, and
this was undoubtedly a very important change.

And not only did the seigneur tax, tailler, his colon! at his
pleasure: all jurisdiction over them, as you have seen, was
now in his hands. In common with their legislative power,
the judicial power of the seigneurs, even over the rural popu-
lation of their domains, ere long underwent more than one
assault, encountered more than one limitation; but in prin-
ciple, and in the age of true feudalism, it was none the less a
real and entire fact; so real that the seigneurs had the prero-
gative of pardon, as well as the right to punish.

Under the political point of view, then, the condition of
the colonus was not only changed, but it was deteriorated by
the invasion; for sovereignty and property being now in-
vested in one and the same hands, the coloni had no re-
source, no guarantee against oppression. Oppression, accord-
ingly, became very heavy, and speedily brought about those
violent animosities, those incessant revolts which, from the
tenth century, characterized the relations of the rural popula-
tion with their masters. I will at present quote tAvo illus-
trations of these. In 997:

" While the faithful duke Richard abounded in virtue and
honour, it happened that in his duchy of Normandy there
ftrose a storm of pestilential discords. For in all the various

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 143

countries of the Norman land, the peasantry assembled in
numerous bodies, and unanimously resolved to live hence-
forth according to their own fancy, declaring that, despising
what the establislied law had laid down touching the share
of wood and water to be enjoyed by the people, they would
govern themselves by their own laws; and to enact and
confirm these, each troop of these persons elected two
deputies, who were all to assemble at a certain place in the
centre of the country, and there to pass these laws. When
the duke learned these things, he forthwith despatched count
Rodolph, with a multitude of soldiers, to repress this agrestic
ferocity, and disperse this rustic assembly: the count, using
no delay in his obedience, seized upon all the deputies and
several of their companions; and having cut off their hands
and feet, sent them, thus disabled, back to their people, to
turn them from their ill desires, and, by the lesson thus given
them, to render them prudent, for fear of Avorse consequences.
The peasants, taking the lesson, gave up their meetings at
once, and returned to their plouglis." '

They did not return there permanently, however; for
thirty-seven years afterwards, in 1034, on the confines of
Normandy, in Brittany:

" The insurgent peasants assembled once more against
their seigneurs: but the nobles, joining their forces to those
of the count Alain, bore down upon the peasantry, dispersing,
pursuing, killing in all directions; for the peasantry had got
together without arms, and without a leader." ^

These peasants were not slaves, especially so called, but
the ancient coloni of Roman legislation, whom the fusion
of sovereignty with proprietors burdened at once with the
rights of property and the exactions of the arbitrary master,
and who rose to shake off the yoke if they could.

Amidst tliis tyrannical anarchy, it was impossible, as 1
before remarked, that the distinction between the condition
of the coloni and that of the slaves should remain clear and
precise, as under the imperial administration. Nor did it:
when we examine the documents of tlie feudal period, we
find there all the names which, in t!ie Roman legislation,

' GiiillauniP tie .lumiifro, Histoire ties Nomiands, v. 11.
• I'U de ^'iniiit Gildag. Alibi de liuyi ; Histonens de France, x. 377.

144 HISTORY Ob-

specially indicated the coloni, colom, adscriptitii, censiti, he,
but there they are employed at random, almost indifferently,
arbitrarily, and constantly confounded with that of iervi.
And the confusion was so real, that it has passed into the
language of even the most exact and sensible writers on the
subject. No man, undoubtedly, has more closely studied,
or was more thoroughly acquainted with the middle ages,
than Du Cange; his erudition is as precise as it is vast. The
distinction between the coloni and the slaves has not escaped
him, he has distinctly stated it: " The coloni," says he,
" were of a medium condition, between the ingenui, or free
men, and the serfs." And yet he often forgets this distinc-
tion, and speaks of the coloni as of veritable serfs.

The distinction, however, never ceased to be not only
real, but recognised and proclaimed by the jurisconsults; it
was by the word villeins that they ordinarily designated the
coloni. We read in Pierre de Fontaine's Treatise on the
Ancient Jurisprudence of the French:

" And know well that, according to God, thou hast not fuU
power over thy villeins. Therefore, if thou takest of his
beyond the lawful rent that he owes thee, thou takest it
against God, and on the peril of thy soul, and as a robbery.
And that which is said that all the things which the villein
has are his lord's, it is well to guard against, for if they were
his lord's, there would be no difference between serf and
villein. But by old custom there is no judge between thee
and thy villeins, but God." '

The difference is here, you see, formally established, and
based precisely upon the same characteristic which distin-
guished the coloni under the Roman administration; that is
to say, on the fixity of the rent which they owed the pro-
prietors of the soil.

Notwithstanding all the excesses of feudal oppression, this
distinction did not long remain void of effect; by small
degrees, in virtue of the simple fact, that, in principle, the
rights of the possessor of Ihe fief over the villeins who culti-
vated his domains, were not altogether unlimited and arbi-
trary, the condition of the villeins acquired some fixity;
they were subjected to a multitude of dues, often odious and

'Jonseil a un Ami. clmp. 2L

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 145

absurd ; but however numerous they were, however odious,
however absurd, when he had once paid them, the villein no
longer owed anything to his lord; the seigneur had nof full
power over his villein. The latter was not a slave, a thing
of which the proprietor might dispose at his pleasure. A
principle of right soared constantly above their relations:
and the weak knew, up to a certain point, that he had some
ground to go upon, some theory of appeal. Now, such is
the virtue of the bare idea of right, that wherever it exists,
the instant that it is admitted, however t)pposed to it the
facts of the case may be, it makes its way amongst them, it
combats them, little by little it queUs them, and becomes an
invincible cause of order and of development. This was, in
effect, what happened in the bosom of the feudal system.
When once this system was thoroughly established, in despite
of all the tyranny, all the ills which the rural population had
to endure, despite the redoubled oppression which for a time
was poured down upon it, as soon as it set about the endea-
vour at self-emancipation, its condition advanced towards
amelioration and development. From the fifth to the tenth
century, we find that condition constantly worse and worse,
constantly more and more miserable. With the eleventh
century the onward progress commences; a progress partial,
for a long time impracticable, manifesting itself now at one
pomt, now at another, and leaving prodigious iriiquities and
sufferings untouched, and which yet it is impossible not to
recognise. I can merely indicate, from epoch to epoch, the
principal documents which prove it: the following are some
of these:

In 11 18, on the demand of Thibault, abbot of Saint-Pierre
des Fosses, near Paris, king Louis le Gros rendered the follow
ing ordonnance:

" Louis, by the grace of God, king of the French, to all tlie
faithful in Christ. As, according to the tenour of the most
holy laws, the royal power, in virtue of the duty imposed
upon it, should, above all things, watch over the defence and
honour of churches, it is fitting that those to whom so great a
power has been delegated by the hand of God should provide
with most attentive solicitude for the peace and tranquillity ol
the churches, and to the praise of God, all powerful, through
whom kings reign, honour their possessions with some i^rivi

VOL. Ill,

146 HISTORY OF

leges, and thus acquit themselves of their kingly duties by
good actions, indubitably receiving therefore the recompence
of eternal beatitude. Let all know, then, that Thibault, abbot
of the monastery of Saint-Pierre des Fosses, has come into the
presence of our serenity as complainant, complaining and
setting forth that the serfs of the holy church des Fosses are
so contemned by secular persons, that iei the courts of justice
and civil aifairs they will not admit them as witnesses against
free men, the ecclesiastical serfs being scarcely in any matter
preferred to the lay serfs, whence the ecclesiastical state not
only is abased by the shame of such an insult, but suffers
day after day great material damage. Having heard the
plaint of the church, moved as much by reason as by affec-
tion, I have found it necessary absolutely to deliver the
church des Fosses, dear to our person among all others, from
such a scandal, and to elevate by a royal favour a royal abode.
I then, Louis, by the mercy of God, king of the French, by
the unanimous council and consent of our bishops and great
men, by decree of royal authority, I establish and order that
the serfs of the holy church des Fosses have full and entire
licence to give evidence arid to combat against all men, free
men as well as serfs, in all causes, pleadings and business;
and let no person, bringing against them the fact of their ser-
vitude, ever dare in any way to calumniate their testimony.
Granting them, therefore, by these presents, the licence to
give testimony of what they have seen and heard, we grant
them that if any free man in a cause seeks to accuse them of
false testimony, he shall prove his accusation by single combat^
or, receiving their oath without contradiction, acquiesce in
their testimony; that if, by a rash presumption, any one
refuse to accept, or in anything calumniate their testimony,
not only shall he be guilty towards the royal authority in the
public laws, but he shall irrevocably lose his request and his
cause; that is to say that, a presumptuous calumniator, he
shall be heard no more concerning his plaint; and if any one
have a complaint against him he shall be held as guilty, and
convicted upon the complaint of the other. We have also
ordered, that if the said calumniator do not make reparation to
the church des Fosses, by reason of the sin of such calumny,
he be excommunicated, and that he no longer be admitted as
witness.. In order that this edict of our will be provided with

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 147

the privilege of perpetual duration, we have ordered that these
presents be made into a charter, vi-^hich shall transmit the effect
of our authority to all posterity, and shall prevent all occasion
of retraction. Made publicly at Paris, the year of the incar-
nate Word, eleven hundred and eighteen, the tenth of our
reign, the fourth of the queen Adelaide."

The serfs here in question are evidently the coloni of the
abbey of Saint-Maur des Fosses. Most churches endeavoured
to get the same privileges granted to their coloni, in order to
give them a certain superiority over the coloni of the lay
lords; and the kings willingly consented to their desires,
either to assure therflselves the ecclesiastical alliance, or to
establish their legislative power beyond their own domains.
We find in 1128 an ordonnance of the same Louis le Gros,
which grants the same privilege to the coloni of the church of
Chartres. It was thus in the domains of the king and of the
church that the condition of the coloni was ameliorated the
earliest and most rapidly.

This amelioration progressed so quickly, j^nd became so
general, that, towards the m.'ddlo of the thirteenth century,
the wealth of a large number of the coloni,- men of poote (in
the power of others) as they were called, not only caused dis-
quiet to the lay lords, but to Saint Louis himself Many
coloni had acquired iiefs, and I read in the Coutume de
Beauvaisis :

" According to the establishment of the king, (Saint
Louis,) the men of poote cannot nor should hold fiefs, nor
a fief accrue to them; but the establishment had it not it in
intention to take away.tiie rights of any man, but only that
things should be done according to reason, and that ill
customs should be abated and good ones promoted. There
were tAvo cases in which the men of poote might hold lands in
fief, one where they had these lands in fief before the establish-
ment was declared, and the other where they had received
them by descent; and these fiefs were not taken away, for
the establishment did not do away that wliioh liad already
been done, but only declared that such. should not be done in
future; for the citizens and tlie men of poote got hold of so
many fiefs, that if things had gone on so much longer, the
prince n)ight have had less service of gentlemen." ^

> Coutume dc beauv iisis, l,v Bt'iiunianoir c. slviii., p. '264.

l2

148 . HISTORY OF

Assuredly, the number of fiefs possessed by coloni must
have been very considerable, for it to have been . thought
necessary, on the one hand, to prevent their continuing to
acquire them ; on the other, to respect those which they had
already acquired. There is, in this restriction and in the.
concurrent maintenance of the rights of this class, a twofold
proof of its progress.

I find this progress faithfully represented in VHistoire des
Frangais des divers Etats, of M. Monteil, in a conversation
where his cordelier explains to Antoine de la Vacherie, a
peasant of the environs of Tours, how the condition of his
class had ameliorated.

" Antoine," says he, " how much more happy you are than
your father and grandfather!

" When, on market-days, you carry your milk and fruit to
Tours, you enter and go out freely, you generally find the
gates open; do you know, my poor Antoine, that formerly
the gates of towns were often closed during the day, even in
times of vintage? Now it is possible for you to transport
your sheafs, to cart your hay from sun-rise until sun-set. It
is true, you tell me you cannot pasture your newly-cropped
fields until three days after the harvest; this is just, it is for
the sake of the poor, it is the gleaning which is desired to be
preserved.

" Now, Antoine, who so secure as you in your fields ! No one
will rob your grain, or your fruits, for he would be bound to
pay a four-fold restitution; no one will steal your plough-
share, for he would be liable to have his ear cut; then, admit
it, what a good police we have; now, whoever allows a goat to
stray, is more or less punished; whoever lets his pig get into
a vineyard, is fined half its value,, which belongs to the pro-
prietor of the vineyard; whoever, by the middle of March,
has not repaired the hedges and fences, must pay a fine; who-
ever, by the same period, has not cleaned out the canals, and
given free course to the water, must also pay a fine; finally,
from here to Bourges, whoever hunts in the vineyards, on the
approach of the vintage, will be corporally punished; aiid, as
if the fear inspired by these laws were not sufl^cient, they have
instituted field-keepers.

" For the improvement of your cattle they are about to re-
establish the ancient breeding studs; to prevent the degene-

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 149

ration of your lands, they have become more and more severe
regarding the execution of the law which forbids a farmer to
take, away the vine poles; to prevent too great a division of
property, and at the same time to facilitate the improvement
of it, they have made the exchange of your various inherit-
ances more easy, by exempting you from the law of fines for
alienation. Finally, still more has been done; in some coun-
tries they have arrested the arm of justice, they have forbid-
den the seizure of the animals and instruments of labour." " In
those countries," answered Antoine, who until then had said
nothing, "they are very happy; the apparitor can take from
you neither your horses, nor your plough, nor your spade: in
this, they can take from me, if not my every day suit, at least
my Sunday clothes." " Patience," answered I, " they will
think by-and-by of your Sunday suit, but one thing must
come after another." '

Moral truth, I repeat, will scarcely be found here; the lan-
guage is not anything like that of the time; but the facts are
correct, and ingeniously connected.

This general progress of the condition, and of the import-
ance of the agricultural population, soon had the effect which
was to be expected. I will read entire the famous ordonnance
of Louis le Ilutin upon the enfranchisement of the serfs, for
it is spoken of much more generally than it is known. It is
addressed to the reeve of Senlis.

" Louis, by the grace of God, king of France and Navarre,
vo our loved and trusty master Sainee de Chaumont, and
master Nicholas de Braye, health and love.

" As, according to the law of nature each must be born free,
and that by some usages or customs, wliich of great antiquity
have been introduced and hitherto preserved in our kingdom,
and poradventure,^t»r the fault of their jrredeccssors, many of
our common people have fallen hito servitude and divers con-
ditions wiiicli very much displease us; xvc, considering that
our kingdom is called and named the kingdom of the Franks, ■
(free men) and wishing that the thing should truly be ac-
cordant witli the name, xmd that the condition of the people
should improve on the advent of our new ■jovernment, upon
d*iliberatioii with our great council, hacc ordered, and ordei,

' Hialoirc des Fnni(;<tis drs divers Etats, torn. i. p. 195 — 197.

150 HISTORl OF

that, generally throughout our kingdom, so far as may belong
to us and our successors, such servitudes be brought bach to
freedom, and that to all those who from origin or antiquity or
recently from marriage or front residence in places of servile
condition, are fallen, or may fall, into bonds of servitude,
freedom be given upon good and fitting conditions. And
especially that our common people, who in past times have
thus been brought under villanage, be by the collectors,
bailiffs, and other officers, no longer molested, nor aggrieved
in these respects as they have hitherto been, whereat we are
displeased, and to give an example to other seigneurs who have
men in like tenure to give them freedom; we who have full
confidence in your loyalty and approved discretion, do commit
it to you, and command you, by the tenour of these letters,
that you go forthwith throughout the bailiwick of Senlis
and its jurisdiction, and with all such our men treat and
grant to them, that upon certain composition, whereby suffi-
cient compensation shall be made to us for the emoluments
arising to us and our successors from their said servitudes,
you give and grant unto them, as far as we and our successors
are concerned, general and perpetual liberty, in the manner
above set forth, and according to that which we have more
fully declared and committed unto you by word of mouth;
and we promise in good faith that we, for ourselves and
our successors will ratify and approve, will observe and
cause to be observed and kept, all that you shall do and
accord in these matters, and the letters which you shall give
as treaties, compositions, and grants of freedom to towns,
communities, or individual persons and properties, we will
ratify them forthwith and confirm them again and again
whenever we shall be so required. And we give it in com-
mand to all our justiciaries and subjects, that in all things
they obey you, and diligently curry out your designs.

" Given at Paris, the 3rd day of July, in the year of grace,
1315."'

Jn our days the emperor Alexander would not have dared
to publish in Russia such an ukase; he has laboured at the
enfranchisement of the serfs in his states, he has enfranchised
a considerable number of them in his own domains; but he

* Ordonnances det Rois, &c., torn. i. p. 588.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. lol

would not have dared to proclaim that, " according to the law
of nature, each must be born free, and that the thing should
accord with the name." Such a principle, it is true, had not
the same reverberation, the same moral power' in the four-
teenth century, as in our times; and it was not with disin-
terested views that Louis le Hutin proclaimed it; he did
not intend to give freedom to the coloni, he sold it to them
on good and adequate conditions; but it is not the less cer-
tain, in principle, that the king believed it his duty to sell it
them, in fact, that they were capable of buying it. This is
assuredly an immense difference, and an immense progress,
between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries.

This progress did not continue beyond the fourteenth cen-
tury, with so much rapidity and extension as we might be
led to presume. The movement of amelioration and enfran-
chisement of the agricultural population v/as stopped, or at
least very much slackened, by a multitude of causes, of which
I shall speak in treating of that epoch. It was not. the less
real and important in that which occupies us.

Such was the condition of the inhabitants of the feudal
village, in its general features, from the sixth to the four-
teenth century. You are now acquainted with the principal
social vicissitudes which, within the simple fief, occurred
in the destiny both of its possessors and of its cultivators.
In our next lecture we shall leave this element of the feudal
society, to examine the relations of possessors of fiefs among
themselves, the general organization of feudalism.

152 HISTORi OF

NINTH LECTURE.

Relations of the possessors of fiefs among themselTes — Variety and ecm-
plexity of the feudal association considered in its whole — Necessity Ibr
reducing it to its proper and essential elements — Eelations between the
suzerain and his \assals — Character of these relations — Homage, the
oath of fidelity, and investiture — Feudal duties — Feudal services — Mili-
tary service — Judicial service — Aids — Some rights progressively acquired
by the suzerains — Independence of vassals who had acquitted themselves
of feudal services. ,

We now begin to study the relations of the possessors of
fiefs among themselves, — that is to say, the feudal society, —
no longer in its simple and primitive element, but in its
hierarchical organization and in its whole. We shall here
encounter infinitely greater difiiculties. We shall no longer
have to do with well-determined questions, with well-circum-
scribed facts. We shall enter upon an immense field, and
one which contains prodigiously complex facts. On the one
hand, as you know, the variety of fiefs was very great; all
kinds of things were given in fief; they were given with dif-
ferent views and upon different conditions. The dignity ol
fiefs varied like their nature. Open the Glossary of Du
Cange at the word Feodum; you will there see the enume-
ration of eighty-eight kinds of fiefs. The difference, it is
true, is sometimes very slight, almost nominal, but most
frequently it is real, more real perhaps than is mdicated by
the mere definition which distinguishes the various kinds uf
fiefs. On the other hand, the situation of the possessors of
fiefs was very complex; a large number, the greater portion
of them, were at the same time suzerains and vassals; suze-
rains of such an one, by reason of a fief whicii lie had given
them; vassals of the same, or of some other, by reason of an-

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 153

Other fief which they held of him. The same man possessed
fiefs of a very different nature; here a fief was received upon
condition of military service, there a fief was held by inferior
services. To the variety, to the complexity arising* from the
nature of fiefs and of the situation of their possessors, were
added those foreign elements, those two great facts, royalty
and the commons, which, everywhere and incessantly in
contact with all parts of the feudal society, were there
eveEyvvhere a new. source of complexity and variety. How
could feudalism have developed itself under pure and simple
forms? How were its peculiar, special principles other-
wise than deeply affected? How could the relations of the
possessors of fiefs among themselves be otherwise than conti-
nually disturbed, disfigured? In such a chaos, it is assuredly
very difficult to distinguish the true principles, the constitu-
tive characteristics of feudal society, what it was in itself,
independently of all accident, of every foreign influence.

Still it is necessary to accomplish this; we shall compre-
hend it by no other means.

I see but one way; that is, to extricate it from all which
thus complicates and alters it, to lead it back to its primitive
base, to reduce it to itself, to its proper and fundamental
nature. Let us take, then, a possessor of estates, a suzerain
of eight, ten, twelve, fifteen vassals, likewise possessors of
estates which they hold of him in fief, and let us seek to dis-
cover what passed among them, how their relation was
formed, what principles presided therein, what obligations
were attached to it, &c. This is feudal society; this is the
type, the microcosm, where we may learn to know the true
nature of feudal relations. This study once accomplished,
we shall restore to the relation of the possessors of fiefs
among themselves, all the variety, all the complexity of which
we shall have divested it, and see what changes it was
subjected to by tlie foreign elements becoming associated
with it. But it i.'f indispensable first to consider them in
tliomselves, and in a somewhat narrow spliere, under a form
sufficiently simple to present them in clear outline.

I will once again recal to you the first origins of feudal
relations. As you are aware, they go back to the Germanic
warlike band; tliey are a consequence, a transformation of the
relations between iha barbarous chief and his companions.

154 HISTORY OF

The relations between the barbarian chief and his com-
panions, it will be recollected, had two essential character-
istics: 1. It was purely personal, engaged only the indivi-
dual who acceded to it of his own choice, and in no way
involved his family, his children, his descendants. 2. It was
moreover, perfectly free, — that is to say, the companion was
at liberty to quit the chief when it suited him, to enter into
another band, to associate himself with another expedition.
Upon personality and liberty reposed that mobile society which
was the basis of feudal society.

The territorial establishment once accomplished, by the
mere introduction of landed property into the relation be-
tween the chief and the companions, it was greatly modified.
From the very nature of landed property, it followed that the
relation became less free, less mobile. The companion
attached himself to the estate which he had from his chief; it
was not so easy for him to quit his estate as formerly to quit
his chief. The will of the individual was constrained to fix
itself more firmly; the social tie was stronger. The relation
accordingly lost its personality. Landed property, as you
know, necessarily tended to become hereditary; inheritance
is its natural, normal condition. The relation between the
vassal and the suzerain follows the same law; it was not only
personal but hereditary; it engaged the children as well as
the father, the future as well as the present. As it was more
strong, the social tie was more durable.

In the train of territorial establishment, these two changes
could not fail to be introduced into the relation of the com-
panions to the chief. We have already observed its progress
in the development of facts.

Still the primitive character of the relation was not abolished;
far from it. Instinctively, by the sole power of manners, an
effort was made for it to remain free and personal, as much
so, at least, as was compatible with the new state of facts.
Whenever there was a change in the persons between whom
relation was established, — that is to say, whenever the vassal
died, — the social tie had to be renewed. The son did not
tacitly and without ceremony become the vassal of his
fatlier's suzerain; a formal act was necessary on his part to
place him in the same situation, to make him contract the
si'me rights and the same duties. It was necessary, in a word.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 155

that the relation should take the character of personality.
This, in fact, is the character which they sought to give it
by the ceremonies of homage, the oath of fidelity and inves-
titure.

See what was the progress of these three facts:

On the death of a vassal, although the principle of the in-
heritance of fiefs was completely established, his son was
obliged to do homage for the fief to his suzerain; he was, in
fact, not truly the possessor until after he had acquitted him-
self of this duty.

" The manner of entering into the homage of another is
this, — that is to say, the feudal seigneur must be humbly re-
quested, with the head bare, by his man who wishes to do
faith and homage, to be received into his faith; and if the
seigneur will, he sits down, and the vassal unbuckles his
girdle, if he has one, lays down his sword and staff, kneels on
one knee, and says these words: ' I become your man from
this day forth, of life and limb, and will hold faith to you for
the lands I claim to hold of you.' "'

This is evidently an q,ct analogous to that by which a com-
panion formerly chose and declared his chief — " I am your
man!" and the very word homage, homagium, hominivm, what
does it mean but that such an one makes himself the man of
another ?

After homage came the oath of fidelity. After having done
homage by reason of the estate which he held of the suzerain,
the vassal engaged his faith to him; the two acts were essen-
tially distinct:

" And when the freeholder shall do fealty to his lord, he
shall put his right hand upon a book, and shall say these
words: — ' This hear you, my lord, that I will be faithful and
loyal to you, and will keep faith to you for the lands which 1
claim to hold of you, and will loyally fulfil unto you the cus-
toms and services that I shall owe you on the conditions
belonging thereto, so help me God and the Saints.* And then
he shall kiss the book; but he shall not knt'til when he does
fealty, nor make so humble a reverence as is before prescribed
for homage. And there is a great difference between doing
fealty and doing homage; for homage can only be done to the

' Coutume dc la Afarche, an. 180. Sec Du Cnnge, at the word Ho
wtinium.

156 HISTORY OF

seigneur himself, whereas the seneschal of the seigneur's
court, or his bailiff, may receive fealty in his name."^

The oath of fidelity once taken, the suzerain gave the
vassal investiture of the fief, by delivering to him a clod of
turf, or a branch of a tree, or a handful of earth, or some such
symbol. Then only was the vassal in full possession of his
fief; then only had he really become the man of his lord.

Let us pause a moment to consider the true character, the
hidden meaning of these acts.

In our modern societies, essentially territorial, that is to
say founded upon the fact of birth in a determined territory,
people do not wait for the consent of the individual to incor-
porate him in the society. He is born in a certain place, of
such or such parents; society takes possession of him from his
birth, in virtue of his origin alone, independently of his will,
considers him as one of its members, imposes upon him all its
charges, subjects him to all its laws; in a word, it is in the
principle of territorial societies for the individual to belong to
them in virtue of a material fact, without any act, without
even any formality which manifests his consent.

Such was not, as you have just seen, the principle of feudal
society: it far rather rested on the contrary principle; it was
formed, or rather it was reformed, between the suzerain and
the vassal, at each renewal of the generation, only by means
of the formal consent of each of them, and by their reciprocal
engagement. The principle which had presided over the for-
mation of the ancient Germanic tribe, the voluntary choice of
the chief by the companions and of the companions by the
chief, continued in the feudal society, despite the introduction
of the element of landed property, and the changes to which
it necessarily subjected the ancient relations. The consent
was so essential to bind the knot of the feudal association,
that often the very form of the homage distinctly expresses it.
Here is the form of the homage done in 1329 to Philip de Valois,
by Edward II., king of England, for the duchy of Aquitaine:

" Tlie king of England, duke of Guienne, will hold his
hands between the hands of the king of France; and he whc
shall speak for the king of France shall address these words to
the king of England, duke of Guienne, and shall thus ^ay;

t 1 Du Cange, at the word FidcUtas.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 157

• You become liege-man of the king of France, and promise
him faith and loyalty; answer, Voire' (vere). And the said
king and duke, and his successors, dukes of Guienne, shall
say: 'Voire.' "And then the king of France shall receive
the said king of England and duke as liege-man into faith
and homage saving his and others' superior right."'

I might cite many other texts in which the consent of the
vassal to the social tie which was to be formed between him
and his suzerain is thus formally expressed.

Thus had the generative principle of the Germanic band
passed into the feudal hierarchy, the principle that society
requires reciprocal consent and engagement; that it is not ter-
ritorial nor hereditary; that it does not necessarily result
either from origin or from any material fact. Doubtless, this
principle had already received more than one blow, and feudal
legislation, as regards homage, would suffice to prove this.
The minor, for example, the infant in his cradle, was admitted
to do homage: he could not give his consent, he co'ild not
contract any formal engagement: still, in his quality of in-
heritor of the fief of his father, and in order that the posses-
sion might not be interrupted, the suzerain received his
homage. But the oath of fidelity could not come until his
majority. The homage wa,<^ a kind of provisional ceremony
which continued between iLn suzerain and the minor the
relations which luxd existed between the suzerain and his
father, but which did not fully establish community between
them; it was necessary that, at majority, the oath of fidelity
and investiture should confirm the engagements which the
minor had entered into by doing homage.

Now, homage done, the oath taken — that is to say, society
formed between the possessors of fiefs — what were tlie conse-
quences? What relations, what obligations were established
among them?

Tlie obligations which tne vassal contracted towards his
suzerain were of two kinds: there were moral obligations
and material obligations, duties, and services.

To give you an idea of feudal dutii.'s, 1 will read three
chapters of the Assises <ie Jerusalem, the most complete and
striking monument of feudal society, of its manners as of

' Du Cange, at ihe word Homimum, 1. iii. col. 1161.

158 HISTORY OF

its laws. See in what terms are laid down the principal
moral obligations of the vassal towards his suzerain:

" He is bound not to offer violence nor cause it to be
offered to his lord; not to. consent or suffer, as far as he can
prevent it, that any one offer such ; nor to take or cause to
be taken, or hold anything of his seigneur, without his
leave and good will, or unless upon account of, and .with the
knowledge of the court of his seigneur, of that seigneurie
where his fief is, whereto he has done homage. No man
or woman must give counsel against the lord, nor must any
one wilfully go about to compass injury or shame to his lord,
nor suffer any other person to do so; nor must he seek to dis-
honour the wife or daughter of his seigneur, nor permit, as far
as he be able to prevent it, any other person to do so ; and he
shall loyally give counsel to his seigneur to the best of his ability,
whenever his counsel is asked."' " And the man owes to his
seigneur, by the faith which he has given him, so much more
than the seigneur to him, that the man must become hostage
for the seigneur, in order to relieve the seigneur from prison,
if the latter so require him by word of mouth, or by a certain
messenger; and every man who has done homage to another
is bound by his faith, if he find his seigneur on foot and
defenceless among his enemies, or in a place where he is ir
danger of death or prison, loyally to do his utmost to extri-
cate him, and save him from that danger; and if he cannot
do it otherwise, he must give him his horse or his beast,
whereon he may escape if he require it, and aid him to mount,
and thus save his life. And whoever fails in the above said
things to his seigneur breaks faith with his seigneur, and if
the seigneur can prove it in court, he shall be dealt with as a
man convicted of broken faitli; and for him who does these
things for his lord, the seigneur is bound by his faith, loyally,
at his utmost power, to deliver him from prison if he has be-
come a hostage for him, or if by giving him his horse, whereon
to flee, as above said, he has been taken and made prisoner.
The man is held bound to his seigneur to become a hostage
also for iiim for the payment of his debts, and is a pledge for
him for such amount as the fee which he holds of him, and
in respect whereof he is bis man, is worth, and may fairly be
sold at. And whoever fails in his duties to his seigneur,

• Assises de Jerusalem, 205, p. 140. Ed. of La Thaumassi^re.

CIVILIZATION in FRANCE 159

thereby, as I think, forfeits for his life the fee he holds
of him," &c. &c. " If a man breaks faith with his lord, or
the lord with his man, and kills him, or causes him to be killed,
or in any way compasses his death, or consents to it or suffers
it, without doing all in his power to prevent it; or if he takes
him prisoner, or causes him to be taken, or compasses his
being taken, or consents to or suffers his being taken by his
enemies, without, to the utmost of his power, defending him
by himself and others; or if he keeps him in prison, or suffers
him to be kept there by another, without doing all in his
power to release him ; or if in anger he strikes him or causes
him to be struck, or consents or suffers him to be struck by
others, and does not defend him to the utmost of his power;
or if he lay his hand or cause his hand to be laid upon him,
or upon the things appertaining to the seigneurie of which he
is man, or seeks to dispossess him in any way; or if he does
any treason towards him, or compasses or suffers it, or con-
sents to its being done, or does not do his utmost to prevent
its being done, or if he dishonours his daughter or seeks to
dishonour her or the lord's sister, so long as she is a damsel
in his house, or suffers or consents that others do so, if he can
prevent it, he is false to his faith."'

These, you see, are not feudal services, properly so called,
the services of which we shall immediately speak; they are
veritable moral obligations, duties from man to man. Now,
recal to mind a remark whicli I had occasion to make while
speaking of the capitularies of Charlemagne; it is that, in
the life of nations, there is scarcely ever but one epodi when
we see purely moral obligations thus written in the laws.
AVhen societies are forming, in the barbarous and rude laws
which belong to their first infancy, morality is not found;
duties are not considered as matters of law; men think but of
preventing violence and assaults upon property. When
societies have attained a great development, morality is not
any the more written in their codes; the legislation leaves it
to manners, to the influence of opinion, to the frer wisdom
of men's wills; it expresses only civil obligations and the
punishments instituted against crimes. But between these
two terms of civilization, between the infancy of societies and
tbeir greatest development, there is an epoch when the legis-

' Assisea de Jerusalem, c. "-ilT, p. 147,

160 HISTORY or

lation takes possession of morality, digests it, publishes It,
commands it, when the declaration of duties is considered as
the mission and one of the most powerful mediums of thxi
law. People then consider it, and not without reason, neces-
sary legally to second the development, legally to sustain
the empire of moral principles and sentiments;- they apply
themselves to exalt them, in order that they may struggle
against the violence of passions and the brutality of personal
interests, and not only do they wish to celebrate, to exalt
moral principles and sentiments, but they feel the need of
connecting them with some definite, veritable object; the ge-
neral and abstract idea of duty does not suffice, duty must be
personified; the law points out to it the relat'.ons over which
it should preside, the persons who should be its object, the
sentiments which it should inspire, the actions which it should
command. It not only enjoins such or such a virtue, but it
specifies, it regulates the applications of that virtue.

This is the distinctive characteristic of feudal legislation,
in the history of modern civil society. Morality holds an
important place in it; it enumerates the reciprocal duties oi
vassals and of suzerains, the feelings which they should bear
towards each other, the proofs which they are bound to give
of those feelings. It has foreseen and regulates by anticipation
great and difficult circumstances; it proposes and resolves,
so to speak, numerous cases of conscience in matters of
fidelity and feudal devotion. In a word, at the head of the
obligations which result from this relation, it places the moral
obligations of the vassal man towards the suzerain man, that
is to say, duties. Next come the material obligations of the
vassal proprietor towards the suzerain proprietor, that is to
say, services.

I pass from duties to services.

The first of all, the most known, the most general, that
which may be looked upon as the very source and base of
feudal relationship; is the military service. That, doubtless,
was the principal obligation attached to the possession of the
fief. Much discussion has taken place as to the nature, the
duration, the forms of this obligation. No general proposition,
I think, can be affirmed upon this subject. The feudal mili
tary service was there for sixty days, here for forty, else-
where for twenty; the vassal, upon the requisition of his lord,

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 161

was bound to follow him sometimes alone, sometimes with such
or such a number of men, sometimes within the limits of the
feudal territory, sometimes everywhere, sometimes only for
defence, sometimes for attack as well as defence. The con-
ditions of the duration of the military service varied according
to the extent of the fief: a fief of such an extent involved a
complete service; a fief only half as large, imposed but- half
the service. In a word, the variety of conditions and forms of
obligation was enormous.

M. de Boulainvilliers, in his Lettres sur les Anciens Par-
lements de France,^ has attempted to carry the legal rules of
military service as far back as an ordonnance of Charles le
Gros, given at Worms about the year 880, the provisions of
which he states and discusses at length. This ordonnance, it
is true, exists, and it determines with great detail the service
to which vassals were bound towards their suzerain, the
equipment in which they were to come, the number of men
that they were to bring with them, the time that they were
to give to the expedition, the provisions which they were to
carry, &c. But it does not belong to Charles le Gros, nor to
the ninth century, as M. de Boulainvilliers has somewhat
rashly afiirmed; it is probably of the emperor Conrad II. (1024
— 1039), and certainly belongs to the eleventh century, that
is to say, to an epoch when feudalism had attained its full
development. At the close of the ninth century, we can
meet with nothing so complete and regular

I shall observe, on this occasion, that a great number of
writers, and those most erudite, especially in the two last
centuries, have often fallen into the error of taking historical
documents and testimonies at hazard, without criticism, with-
out examining their authority, without properly establishing
their date and value. This, for example, is the radical defect
of L'Espnt des Lois. In support of his views, liis sketches,
so suggestive, so ingenious, and often so just, Montesquieu
cites at mere chance facts and texts borrowed from the most
various sources. We may see that he read a great number
of travels, histories, writings of all kinds; that he everywhere
took notes, and that these have been to him almost equally
good, that he employed them all with iiciirly the same con-

» T, 1. US— 118. 12nio., 1753,
VOL. Ill M

152 » HISTORY OF

fidence. Th3r.ce arise two unfortunate results: facts, which
he ought not to have admitted, have suggested to him many
false ideas; "sound and true ideas have been based by him
upon false or very uncertain facts, which, their falsity ascer-
tained, have involved his ideas in discredit. The scrupu-
lous examination of the authenticity of documents and testi-
monies is the first duty of the historical critic; on that de-
pends all the value of results.

The second service due by the vassal to his suzerain, and
which is expressed, according to Brussel, by the word Jlducia,
fiance^ was the obligation to serve the suzerain in his court,
in his pleas, whenever he convoked his vassals, whether to
ask for their counsels, or for them to take part in the judg-
ment of the disputes brought before him.

The third service, justitia, was the obligation to acknow-
ledge the jurisdiction of the suzerain. There is some doubt
as to the meaning of the two words, Jiducia and Justitia, and
as to the distinction which Brussel establishes between them.
But the question is unimportant. With regard to the nature
and the forms of these two feudal obligations, I shall return
to them at a later period.

There was a fourth somewhat more uncertain, not in its
principle, but in its extent, I mean feudal aids, auxilia. Aids
were certain subsidies, certain pecuniary assistance which,
in particular cases, the vassals owed to the lord. There was
a distinction, legal aids or a^isistance agreed upon beforehand,
imposed by the mere possession of the fief, and courteous or
willing aids, which the lord could not obtain but with the
consent of the vassals. Legal aids were three in number. The
vassals owed them to the suzerain: first, when he was in prison,
and it became necessary to pay his ransom; secondly, when he
armed his eldest son knight; thirdly, when he married his eldest
daughter. Such, at least, was the common jurisprudence of fiefs.

Sometimes, and during particular periods, extraordinary
aids were considered as obligatory: for example, in the heat
of the crusades, the obligation was introduced of gi\ing an
aid to the lord whenever he desired to go to the Holy Land.
We might find other cases of legal aids thus momentally
accredited; but the three aids which I first mentioned are
those which are found well nigh everywhere, and in constant
operation.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 163

Such were tha duties and genera services imposed on the
vassal towards his suzerain ; such were the legal obligations
attached almost everywhere to that quality. Custom, more-
over, introduced, in favour of the suzerain, some prerogatives
which cannot be considered as primitive and inherent in the
feudal relation, but which in the end became incorporated
with it; the following are the principal of these:

1. The suzerain had what was called the right of relief;
that is to say, that at the death of a vassal, his heir had to pay
the suzerain a certain sum called relief {relevittm, relevamen-
tiim), as if the fief had fallen vacant by the death of the pos-
sessor, and it was necessary to raise it again in order to resume
its possession. At the close of the tenth century, we find the
practice of relief established in France, although with great
variations. In general, relief was not due in the case of in-
heritance in the direct line. Indeed, according to some cus-
toms, in Anjou and Maine for example, relief took place in
the collateral line only beyond the quality of brother. The
amount of relief also greatly varied, and was the subject of
continual dispute and discussion between the suzerain and
the vassals. No fixed and general rule was established on the
subject. As the inheritance of fiefs had long been unsteady,
disputed, and as at each change of possessor it was necessary to
obtain- the confirmation of the suzerain, the right of relief was
very naturally developed in feudal society; but it had not
fallen, like the great feudal services, under the empire of pre-
cise and universal principles.

2. A second right of the same kind, and the introduction
of which was also very natural, is that which the lord gene-
rally had, Avhen his vassal sold his fief to another, of exacting
a certain sum from the new possessor. The feudal relation
being in its origin purely personal, no one could, as may
easily be conceived, impose upon the suzerain another vassal
than him whom he had adopttnl, with whom he had treated.
Accordingly, in the earliest ages, the vassal was not allowed
to sell his fief without the consent of his lord. Still, as this
stagnation, this immobility of fiefs, was very inconvenient,
even impracticable in civil life, the permission to sell fiefs
was soon introduced under one form or another, and on more
or less favourable conditions; but in being introduced it gave
M 2

1G4 HISTORY OP

rise, for the profit of the suzerain, to a right, either for re-
demption or indemnity, at each change.

Accordingly, from the tenth century, the suzerain might in
France either resume the fief, by paying its value to the pos-
sessor, or exact a certain sum from the purchaser, generally
equal to a year'? rent. This right, known under the names of
placitum, rachatnm, reaccapitum, &c., was subject to many
variations, and was manifested under numerous forms, the
study of which has no political importance.

3. Forfeiture {forisfactura, putting-out, forfeiture,) was
likewise a right and a source of revenue for the suzerain.
When the vassal failed in any of his principal feudal duties,
he incurred forfeiture, that is to say, he lost his fief, either for
a limited time, or for life, or even for ever. The avidity of
the suzerain laboured incessantly to multiply the cases of for-
feiture, and to get it pronounced contrary to all justice; but it
was not the less a legal penalty, the chief legal penalty of the
feudal code, and a principle universally admitted in feudalism.

4. The right of wardship, or of garde-noble, must also
be included among the prerogatives of the suzerain. During
the minority of his vassal, he took the guardianship, the ad-
ministration of the fief, and enjoyed the revenue. This right
has never been generally admitted into French feudalism; it
existed in Normandy and in some other provinces.

Elsewhere, in the case of the minority of the possessor of
fief, the administration of his fief was remitted to the nearest
heir, and the care of his person to that of the relation who
could not inherit from him. This last custom was doubtless
much more favourable to the minor. Still the guardianship
of the suzerain was more frequent in France than Mr. Hallam
appears to suppose in his View of the State of Europe in the
Middle Ages}

5. The suzerain had also the right of marriage (marita-
gium), that is to say, the right of offering a husband to the
heiress of a fief, and of obliging her to choose among those
whom he offered her. The obligation of military service, an
obligation of which a woman could not acquit herself, was the
source of this right. The following are the terms in which
the Assises de Jerusalem consecrate it :

» Vol. i.p. 190. Loudou, ]S19.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 1()0

•' When the seigneur desires to summon, as he is entitled to
(\o, a woman who holds an estate of him which owes him
body service, to take a husband, he must present to her three
men of suitable condition, in this way; he must send three of
his men, one to represent himself, and two to represent his
court, and the one who represents him, must say to her; ' Ma-
dam, on the part of my lord so and so, I offer to your choice
three men,' naming them — * and call upon you, on the part
of my lord, by such a day,* naming the day, ' to have taken
one of these three for your husband,' and this he saith three
times."*

The woman could only escape accepting one of the husbands
offered her, by paying to the suzerain a sum equal to that which
they had offered him to have lier as a wife; for he who de-
sired the hand of the inheritor of a fief, thus bought it of the
suzerain.

Mr. Hallam thinks that this right has never been in use in
France -^ this is an error. The right of marriage was so
prevalent in French feudalism, that in the duchy of Bur-
gundy, for exampl(% and in the fourteenth century, not only
did the duke of Burgundy thus marry the minor daughters
of his vassals, but he extended his power even to the daugh-
ters and widows of merchants, coloni, or rich citizens.^

These were the principal prerogatives introduced by cus-
tom, for the benefit of the suzerains. Violence and usurpa-
tion had often contributed to their origin, and were mixed still
oftener with their exercise Still, upon the whole, they were
tolerably conformable with the nature of the feudal relation,
with its fundamental principles; accordingly they were gene-
rally accepted. I might follow these up by tlie enumeration of
many other rights which the suzerains often claimed and pos-
sessed over their vassals; but they would contribute nothing
to the just idea of their relations, and those of wliich I have
just spoken are the only really general and important ones.

When once he had acquitted himself of these various obli-
gations towards his lord, the vassal owed liim nothing more,
and enjoyed an entire independence in his fief; there he

' Assises (if Jrrusdlcm, c. 'i-i'i.

* State of Europe in the Middle Ages, vcl. i. p. 101.

• Memtiires de .Tiioques Duclercq, 1. iii. c. 0, in tbe Collection det Mi
xnotres reUUi/s a I'llistoire dc France, 1. ix. p. 417.

166 HISTORY OF

ttlone gave laws to the inhabitants, administered justice to
them, imposed taxes, &c., and himself was subject to none
but of his own free will. Everything leads me to suppose
that, in origin and principle, the right of coining money
belonged to the possessor of the fief as well as to his suzerain.
It is true, this right was doubtless only exercised by the
possessors of considerable fiefs, and it was not long before it
was vested in them alone; but in principle, and, saving the
feudal duties, the equality of rights between the vassal and
the suzerain, in the interior of domains, appears to me com-
plete.

And not only was the independence of the vassal who
had fulfilled his feudal duties complete, but he also had rights
over his suzerain, and the reciprocity between them was real.
The lord was bound not only to do no wrong to his vassal,
but to protect, to maintain him, towards and against all in
possession of his fief, and all its rights. We read in the
Coutume de Beauvaisis :

" We say, and it is according to our custom, that as the
man owes faith and loyalty to his seigneur by reason of his
homage, the seigneur owes the same to his man. Yet in thus
saying that the seigneur owes as much faith and loyalty to
his man as the man to his seigneur, it is not to be understood
that the man is not bound to much obedience and many
services which the seigneur does not owe to his men, for the
man is bound to attend the summons of his seigneur, and
to execute his judgments, and to obey his reasonable com-
mands, and serve him as I have before said. And in all
these things the seigneur is not bound to his man. But the
faith and loyalty of the seigneur to his man should extend to
this; that the seigneur take care that no one do his man
wrong, and that he treat him debonairly and justly, and that
lie so guard and defend him to the utmost of his power that
no one do him injury. And in this manner the seigneur
may keep faith towards his man, and the man towards his
seigneur." '

We are now acquainted with the relations between vassals
and their suzerain; I have just placed before you the system
of their reciprocal rights and duties. This, however, is but

• Beaumanoir, c. 61, p. 311.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 167

a first portion of the feudal society. To understand it in it?
whole, it remains for us to examine — 1. What relations the
vassals of one sovereign had among themselves. 2. What
guarantees presided over the relations both of the vassals
among themselves, and between the suzerain and the vassalr
that is to say, how, in fact, their reciprocal rights and dutieai
were secured. This will be the subject of our next lecture

168 HISTOEY O:

TENTH LECTURE.

Coiitiuuation of the view of the organization of the feudal society — ftela-
tions which the vassals of the same suzerain had among themselves —
Political guarantees of the feudal society — In what political guarantees
generally consist — Disputes among vassals — Disputes hetween a vassal
and his suzerain — Feudal courts, and judgment hy peers — Means of
securing the execution of judgments — Inefficiency of feudal guarantees
— Necessity under which each possessor of a fief was placed of protect-
ing and doing justice to himself — True cause of the extension and long
duration of the judicial combat and of private wars.

J N order to give a clear idea of the relations of the possessors
Qjf'^fiefs among themselves, I have extricated those relations
from 6very foreign element, from every complex fact; I have
pj.ggg^'ted them under their most simple form; I have reduced
feudal so^'^^^^y *^ ^ suzerain surrounded by a certain number
of vassals '^'^^^^^^*^^*^ of fiefs, of the same nature, of tlie same
rank I have shown what relations were formed between the
chief and the mt™^t!^'S of this little society, what principles
presided over their formation, what obligations resulted from
them We have thub arrived at a clear and complete view
of the system of reciprocal rights and duties of the vassals
and' of the suzerain. Let "s in the present lecture first
jccupy ourselves with the relations which the vassals of one
suzerain had between themselves. This is evidently the
second element of that limited and simple ^««^-'>tion to which
we have confined ourselves. ,

The vassals of one suzerain established around him, u[)on
the same territory, invested with fiefs of the same rank, were
designated in the middle ages by a word which has remained
in the language of modern times— by the word pares, peers.
I know no other word from the tenth to the fourteenth

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 169

century intended to express their relation. All those terms
which, in ancient languages and our own, marked the union,
the relations of the inhabitants of the same country, the
words co-citizens, co-patriots, &c., are unknown in the
feudal language; the only word which resembles them, the
word co-vassalli, co-vassals, is a scientific expression invented
at a posterior epoch, in order to satisfy the wants of learning,
^ut which is not found in the original monuments of feudal
society. I repeat, I have seen there, as far as I can recollect,
no term whose object is to express the association of vassals
among themselves, independently of all contact with the
suzerain, their direct and personal relations. The word pares
is the only one which designates them in common, and by
the same qualification.

This is a remarkable fact, and one which gives reason to
suppose that the vassals of one suzerain possessed very few
relations among themselves, and scarcely formed a society. If
they had been frequently and directly in contact, if close ties
had united them, surely there would have been terms to express
this fact, for words have never been wanting to facts; where-
ever words are wanting, it is most probable that there are no
facts.

It is, in truth, the characteristic of feudal society, that the
relations between vassals of the same suzerain, in this respect
at least, were indirect, rare, and unimportant. In our present
societies, as in the municipal societies of the ancients, the
citizens, the inhabitants of the same territory, are united by
a thousand direct and personal relations; the public power
is not the only centre around which they group; they have
no need to be called before a magistrate, to be rallied round
a common superior, in order to learn that they have a common
situation and destiny, that they are members of the same society;
they know it, and feel it every day, upon a hundred occasions, a
hundred matters which bring them together, and oblige them
to act, to live together. Nothing of the kind existed in feudal
society. Look at it closely; the vassals of the same suzerain
have business with him, rights and duties towards him; they
have among themselves neither business, rights, nor duties;
they found themselves together around the suzerain, when he
convoked them in order to make war or administer justice,
or to indulge in some festival. But beyond these meetings,

170 HISTORY OF

unless they were united to one another by title of suzerain
and vassal, they had no obligatory habitual relations among
themselves; they owed one another nothing, they did nothing
in common: it was only by the medium of their suzerain tha'
they met and formed a society.

This fact, too little remarked, is one of those which bes»
paint and explain the extreme weakness of the feudal society.
There were habitual relations, necessary ties; that is to ?ay«
there was real society, between the superior and the inferiors.
Equals lived isolated, strangers to one another. The feudal
tie, the relation between the suzerain and the vassal, was, so
to speak, the only principle of association, the only occasion
of junction.

Where this failed, nothing replaced it; there was no society,
no legal or compulsory society; men were in entire inde-
pendence.

Yet, despite their legai isolation, from the mere circum-
stance that they inhabited the same territory, that they were
the neighbours of each other, that they met either in war, or
at the court of the suzerain, the vassals of the same suzerain
had accidental, irregular relations; they committed depreda-
tions, acts of violence upon one another; disputes arose
between them. It was absolutely necessary that some gua-
rantees of order and justice should preside over these rela-
tions: they were also necessary for the relations between the
suzerain and his vassals.

What were these guarantees? We know the system of
the rights and duties of the suzerain and the vassals; we know
that among the vassals, despite the absence of positive ties,
of direct rights and duties, occasions occurred when a reco-
gnised power necessarily intervened to maintain or re-establi?h
order and justice. How were the rights and duties of the
suzerain and the vassals protected? How Avere the disputes
which arose between the vassals of the same suzerain termi-
nated? What, in a word, was the system of guarantees in
feudal society?

Allow me, before stating the facts, to establish with some
precision the question itself with which they are con-
nected.

Every guarantee consists of two elements: 1, a means of
recognising the right; 2, a means of making 't erf'ectively
observed.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 171

The object of every guarantee, in fact, is to protect a
right. When, therefore, recourse is had to a social guarantee,
the first question which presents itself is, what is the right?
and the first condition, the first element of the guarantee, is
a means of recognising the right, that is, a means of judging
between the rights in dispute.

The second condition, the second element of the social
guarantee, is a force which shall cause the known right to be
observed; that is, a force which causes the judgment to be
executed. Every system of social guarantees evidently
results in these two terms: 1, a means of constituting right;
2, a means of insuring its maintenance.

What were each of these means in the feudal society? In
what did its guarantees consist, whether the matter in hand
was to ascertain right, or to protect recognised right?

The examination of the question of right, when there is a
dispute between individuals, may be conducted according to
several systems. It may be, for example, that there is in the
society a class of men especially devoted to this duty, charged
by their profession, and on every occasion, to inquire into
and decide the dispute brought before them; that is to say, a
class of judges. It may also be, that no class of the kind
exists; that, according to such or such a form, such or such a
principle, the members of the society themselves judge their
disputes, themselves pronounce concerning the conflict of
their rights; that is, that there are no official" judges, that the
citizens themselves are judges.

It is by one or other of these two ways, that the first aim
of all political guarantee may be attained: that people may
ascertain where the right resides.

In the primitive feudal society, still pure from the mixture
and infiuence of foreign elements, the first system was un-
known; there was no special class invested with the right of
judging ; the members of the society themselves, that is, the
possessors of fiefs, were called upon to examine into and
j)ronounce between the rights in dispute. At a later period,
from causes of which I shall speak, a class of judges Avas
formed in the heart of feudalism, men especially devoted to
the study and declaration of private rights; but originally
nothing of the kind existed; the citizens judged themselves.

In this system, where there is no special class charged

172 HISTORY OF

with judging, great differences may stiil be met with. The
members of the society may administer justice one to another,
in two different ways, and with very different consequences.
It may be that, when there is a dispute between two men,
they address themselves to their equals, and that their equals,
having otherwise no authority or right over them, assemble,
examine, and pronounce upon the rights in dispute. It
may also be that, instead of addressing themselves to their
equals, the contending parties address themselves to their
superior, to a common superior, who is not specially devoted
to the function of judge, who is placed in a situation and
leads a life analogous to that of the other members of the asso-
ciation, but who, in consideration of the superiority of his
social condition, is called upon to pronounce concerning their
disputes. Justice, in a word, even administered by the society'
itself, was administered either between equals, or by the
superior to the inferior.

In general, in the earliest age of societies, these two
systems, these two manners of arriving at the recognition of
right, were combined together. It so happened in feudal
society. Let us see how it proceeded when it had to pro-
nounce, in matters of right, between two vassals of the same
suzerain.

The plaintiff addressed himself to the suzerain ; it was from
the superior that justice was demanded for the inferior. But
the suzerain had-no right tojudge alone; he was bound to con-
voke his vassals, the peers of the accused; and these, met at
his court, pronounced upon the (piestion. The suzerain pro-
claimed their judgment.

The judgment by peers is essential to feudal society. The
following texts, borrowed from the eleventh, twelfth, iuul
thirteenth centuries, will show you this principle always re-
cognised and in vigour at those various epochs.

In the eleventh century (between 1004 and 1037), Eudes,
count of Chartres, wrote to king Robert:

" Lord, I wish to say a few words to thee, if thou wilt
deign to listen. Count Richard (of Normandy) thy faithful,
cited me to come to receive judgment, or to agree on the
subject of the ])laints which thou hast raised against me. For
myself, I placed my whole cause in his hand. Then, with
thy consent, he assigned me a pleading where all was to lie

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 173

terminated. But on the day approaching, he told me not to
trouble myself to come to the pleading, seeing that thou
didst not choose to admit any other judgment or arrangement
except to have it signified to me, that I was not worthy to
hold any benefice of thee, and he added: Hhat it did not he-
long to him to recognise any such difference icithout the as-
sembly of his peers,^ &c." '

In the twelfth century, in, 1109, Robert, count of Flanders,
concluded with the king of England, Henry I., from whom
he held fiefs, a convention, in which we read:
' " The said count shall go and assist king Henry according

to his faith , and he shall not cease to go, until such

time as the king of France shall pass judgment, that count
Robert need not assist his friend the king of England, of
whom he holds the fief, and this by the peers of the said
count, who in right must judge him." ^

In the thirteenth century, 1220, Thibaut, count of Cham-
pagne, swore the following oath to Philip Augustus:

" I, Thibaut, make known to all, that I have sworn upon
the holy altar, to my most dear lord Philip, illustrious king
of the French, that I will serve him well and faithfully as
my liege lord, against all men and women who may live and
die, and that I will not fail in my good and faithful service,
so long as he shall do me right iii his court, by the judgment
of those who may and ought to judge me ; and if ever
(which God forbid) I fail in my good and faithful service
towards my lord king, so long as he is willing to do me
right in his court, by the judgment of those who can and
ought to judge me, the lord king may, without doing ill, seize
all that I hold of him, and retain it in his own hands, ^^ntU
it be amended by the judgment of his court and of those who
can and ought to judge me.''' ^

In 1224. — " When Jolin de Nesle cited Jane, countess of
Flanders, to the court of tlie king (Philip Augustus) on the
ground that she Ixviil failed in right towards him, she, denying
it, said, ' tliat John de Nesle had peers in Flanders by whom
he ought to be judged in the court of the countess, and that
she was ready to do him right in her court by the said
peers.' " *

• Bnissel, Usnrjc dexftrfs, t. i. p. 3^4. * Kymer, i. p. 2.

» Brussfl, I'sajf dcsjlej's, t. i. p. 340 ♦ Ibid. t. i. p. 201,

174 HISTORY OF

I miglit multiply these at my will. The principle was so
powerful, so well established, that, even when the feudal
judicial system had received a profound shock, when, under
the name of baillies, there was a class of men specially charged
with the function of judging, the necessity for judgment by
beers was long continued, side by side with the new in-
stitution, and even in its very heart. The following passage
from the Coutume de Beauvaisis, by Beaumanoir, leaves no
doubt on the subject:

" There are some places where the baillies give judgments,
and other places where the men, who are men of the fief to
the seigneur, give them. Now we say thus; that in the
places where the baillies give judgments, when the baillie has
heard the cause, and it is waiting for j udgment, he should call
to his council the wisest men thereabout, and give judgment
according to their counsel. For if an appeal be made from
the judgment, and the judgment is found to be bad, the baiUie
is excused from blame, when it is known that he decided ac-
cording to the counsel of wise folk. And in the places where
cases are judged by the men, the baillie is bound, in the pre-
sence of the men, to take the words of those who plead, and
must ask the parties whether they are willing to have sen-
tence according to the reasons they have given, and if they
say, ' Yes, sir;' the baillie must call upon the men to pass
judgment." '

You here see the two systems co-existent, and even con-
founded.

Such was the fundamental principle of the feudal judicial
organization, when the dispute arose between the vassals of
the same suzerain. What happened when it took place
between the suzerain and his vassal?

Here it is necessary to draw a distinction: the object of
the dispute was either some of tlie rights and duties of the
vassal towards his suzerain, or of the suzerain towards the
vassal, by reason of their feudal relation and of the lief to
which it gave rise; it was then to be judged in the court of
the suzerain, by the peers of his vassal, like a dispute between
vassals. Or else the dispute in no way ran upon the subject
of the fief, or the feudal relation, but concerned some fact

Beaumanoir. t. i. p. 11.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 175

foreign to this relation, for example, some crime of the
suzerain, or a violence done by him to some right, to some
property of the vassal, other than his fief; and then the
process was not judged in the court of the suzerain, but in
that of the superior suzerain.

The distinction is clearly established in the monuments of
the time. Witness the following from Pierre de Fontaine:

" Concerning an injury which the seigneur should do to his
liegeman, either to his person, or to property of his which
forms no part of the fief he holds of him, prosecution is not to
be conducted in his own court, but an appeal must be made
to the seigneur of whom the offending seigneur holds, for the
man has no power of having judgment in the court of his
seigneur, nor remedy for his misdeeds there, unless in refe-
rence to matters appertaining to the fief of which he is seig-
neur.»i

The following text from Beaumanoir is not more precise,
but it enters more into detail :

" All things which are brought before thebaillie, cannot be
carried to judgment there. For when the case is one touch-
ing the heritage of his seigneur, or its villanage, and the case
is for the men who would aid each other in such matter against
their seigneur, the baillie must not put it to judgment, for
men should never judge their seigneur, but they should judge
one another, and the quarrels of the common people, and if he
who has complaint against the seigneur requires that right be
done, the baillie, by the counsel of his seigneur, must do it him,
according as he shall think reason is; and if he complains of
what the baillie has done, he must carry his plaint to the count,
(the superior suzerain,) and those of his council, and by these
what the baillie has done wrong shall be amended; and this
method we pursue in all cases which may touch the advantage
or profit of all the men against their seigneur; but there are
some cases in which the seigneurs have special plaint against
particular men, or individual men against their seigneur, 08
if the seigneur claims a penalty for some offence committed
in his land, or demands of the man some heritage, or some
moveables whicli he occupies, and which the seigneur says
belong to him, by the custom of the country; and the man re-

' Pierre de Fontaine, Conseil a un ami. c. "21, § 35.

176 HISTORT CP

sists, and says that the penalty is not so great, or not due, or
that the heritage, or moveables, which the seigneur demands
of him, are his own, and thereupon claims his right. All these
disputes the baillie may and should submit to the judgment
of the men."i

Such were the general principles of feudal jurisdiction. I
do not enter into the examination of the rules relative to the
conduct and judgment of the causes : they would form an
interesting inquiry; but we study feudalism only in its rela-
tion with civilization in general, and we must proceed on-
wards.

It must have happened, and in fact, often did happen, that
justice was not administered, or that the complainants found it
ill administered. In the first case, if the lord refused, or, in the
language of the time, veoit(vetavit, hindered) justice in his court,
the plaintiff drew up a complaint called en defaute de droit. He
complained that justice was withheld from him, that his lord
had refused to do him right ; and he carried his plaint before
the court of the superior lord. In the second case, if one
of the parties thought the sentence unjust, he complained,
en faux jugement, and in like manner carried his complaint
before the court of the superior lord. The following are the
texts in which the principles with regard to this subject are
stated. I borrow them from the Coutume de Beauvaisis,
more exact and more detailed than any other monument.

" Defaute de droit is where right is sought for him who
requires it; and it may also be required in another case, as
when the seigneur delays the proceedings in his court more
than he ought to do against the custom of the land.^

" Whoever desires to appeal from his seigneur either en
faux jugement or eii defaute de droit, he must first of all for-
mally, and in the presence of his peers, require his seigneur
to do him right : and if the seigneur refuses to do so he has
good appeal of defaute de droit, and if the man appeals before
he has summoned his seigneur in this manner, he is sent back
to the court of his seigneur, and shall be fined for having
brought him into the court of the sovereign upon so bad a case,

^ Coutume de Beauvaisis, c. i. p. li
4 Id. c. 01, p. 318.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 177

ind the fine is at the discretion of the seigneur, extending at
his will, to all that the appellant holds of him."'

" It is not fitting that he who appeals en faux jugement
should delay his appeal; he should appeal immediately that
the judgment is prondunced, otherwise the judgment shall be
held as good, whether it be good or bad.^

" He who appeals, whether en defaute de droit or de faux
jugement, must appeal to the seigneur immediately above him
in whose court the false judgment was given, and not pass
over him and appeal to the count or to the king; for it is fit-
ting to appeal degree by degree, that is to say, according as
homage ascends from one seigneur to his next superior; and
from the provost to the baillie, and from the baillie to the
king, in the courts where provosts and baillies administer
justice; and in the courts where the men administer justice,
the appeal must be made from degree to degree, in the regu-
lar ascent of homage, without passing over any intermediate
seigneur."^

Now, I suppose these various degrees gone over, the feu-
dal jurisdiction exhausted, definitive judgment given: how
was it executed? in what consisted the second part of the
system of guarantees? what were the means which assured the
re-establishment or the maintenance of the right once ac-
knowledged and proclaimed?

In the same way that originally, in the feudal society,
there was no class of men especially charged with judging, so
there was there no public force charged with causing the
judgments to be executed. But it was much easier to sup-
ply the want of special judges, of magistrates, than the want
of a force capable of causing the judgments to be executed.
The members of society, the possessors of fiefs, might judge;
but, their judgment given, if he whom they had condemned
returned to his castle, in the midst of his men, and refused to
obey, what was the consequence? There was no other way
for the accomplishment of justice than war. The lord in
whose court tlK' judgment was given, or the plaintitF in whose
favour he had given it, summoned his men, his vassals,
and endeavoured to compel to obedience him who had been
condemned. Private war, force employed by citizens them

» Beaiiraanoir, c. CJ, p 31S. ' Ibid. p. 31-2. « lb. j. ?V

VOL. III. N

178 HISTORY OF

selves, such, in fact, was the only guarantee for the execu-
tion of judgments.

I need not say that this was no guarantee at all. The exe-
cution of judgments, the re-establishment of rights judicially
recognised after litigation, were wanting to feudal society.

Was the method of examining into, of ascertaining the
contested rights, was the system of jurisdiction I have just
described, of any higher worth? Was the judgment by
peers and the feudal courts a veritable, efficacious guarantee?
I doubt it very much. That society may effectually exercise
the judicial functions, that a crime, any process whatsoever,
may be properly judged by the citizens themselves, it is ne-
cessary that those who are called upon for this purpose be
promptly, easily, and often assembled, that they live habitu-
ally near each other, that they have common interests and
common habits; that it be easy and natural lor them to con-
sider under the same point of view, and thoroughly to under-
stand, the facts concerning which they are called upon to pro-
nounce sentence. Now nothing of this kind existed in
feudal society. These vassals, convoked from time to time
to judge their peers, were almost strangers to one another,
lived isolated on their estates, without intimate or frequent
relations. Nothing less resembled the institution of the jury,
the veritable type of the intervention of society in judg-
ment. The jury presupposes fellow-citizens, fellow-country-
men, neighbours; it is upon the easy assembling of the
jurors, upon the community of sentiments and habits which
unites them, upon the means which they hence derive of dis-
entangling and appreciating the facts, that most of the advan-
tages of the institution depend. How could these advantages
be met with in feudal society? Often, oftener than not, the
vassals cared little to come to the court of their suzerain;
they would not come. Who could force them? They had
no direct interest in coming; and general, patriotic interest
could not be highly excited in such a social state. Accord-
ingly the feudal courts were but scantily attended; they were
obliged to content themselves with a very small number of
assistants. According to. Beaumanoir, two peers of the
accused were sufficient to judge; Pierre de Fontaine will
have it four; Saint Louis, in his EtabUsseme7its, fixes the
number at three. The loi'd summoned those who suited him;

CIVILIZATION IN FKaNCE, 179

nothing obliged him to convoke all, to convoke one rather
than another. Arbitrary will thus pervaded the compositior
of the feudal court, and those who attended it were mosf
frequently drawn there either by some personal interest, or
merely by the desire to please their suzerain. Here, as you
see, there were no veritable guarantees, and that which did
seem to result from the judgment by peers was rendered
inefficacious by the social state.

Other means were accordingly sought. The feudal courts,
judgment by peers, all that system of jurisdiction which 1
have just described, evidently imposed no confidence on
feudal society, was not of easy and frequent application there.
The possessors of fiefs decided their disputes by other means.

Every one has met in his readings with the judicial com-
bat, private wars, and is aware that these two facts occu-
pied a prominent position in the feudal period, and charac-
terise it. They have, in general, been represented as the
result of the brutality of manners, the violence of passions, of
disorder, and general degradation. Doubtless, these cause*
greatly contributed to it. They are, however, not the only
causes; the brutality of manners was not the only reason
which so long maintained these two facts, and made ihem the
habitual state, the legal state of feudal society. It was because
the system of judicial guarantees was vicious and powerless,
because no one had faith therein, and cared not to have
recourse to them; in a word, it w:<s in default of something
better that men did themselves justi--/e, that they protcv'ted
themselves. What, then, was judicial combat and private
warfare? It was the individual protecting himself and d(>ing
himself justice. He called his adversary to combat because
peaceful guarantees inspired no confidence; he made war
upon his enemy, because he did not believe in any public
power capable of repressing him. There was, doubtless, an
inclination, a taste, a passion, if you will, for this nutliod of
proceeding; but there was also a necessity for it. Accord-
ingly, private wiirfare ami judicial combat became established
institutions, institutions regulated according to fixed prin-
ciples, and with minutely determined forms; principles far
more fixed, forms far more determinate, than were these of
the peacefcl process. AVe find in the feudal monuments far
more details, precautions, directions as to judicial duels

lf<0 HISTORY OF

than upon processes properly so called; upon private wars,
than upon legal prosecutions. What does this indicate, ex-
cept that judicial combat and private war were the only gua-
rantee in which, confidence was placed, and that men insti-
tuted them, regulated them with care, because they more fre-
quently had recourse to them? I shall quote some texts
from the Coutume of Beauvaisis; it was written, as you are
aware, towards the end of the thirteenth century, after all
the efforts of Philip-Augustus and of Saint Louis to abolish
private wars. You will there see how deep were the roots of
this fact, how completely it was still the true feudal insti-
tution : —

" War may be commenced in several ways, either by deed
or by word; it is commenced byword when the one party me-
naces the other, that he will insult or injure his body, or when
he simply defies him and his; audit is commenced by deed
when a meUe takes place, without previous notice, between
the gentlemen on either side. It is to be known, that when
warfare commences by deed, those who are engaged in the
skirmish commence the war forthwith, but the kinsmen on
either side do not commence warfare until forty days after-
wards; and if war is commenced by menace or defiance, he
who is defied or menaced commences the war from that time
forth. But seeing that great inconvenience might arise from
either party premeditately making an attack upon the other,
without previous notice by menace or defiance, and then, after
this sudden assault, sending a menace or defiance as above
set forth, he shall not be excused from the consequences of
opening the war by deed on account of such subsequent de-
fiance or menace. The gentleman who so menaces or defies,
must therefore make no complaint that the party defied forth-
with takes measures for guarding and protecting himself.'

" Whoever declares war byword of mouth, must not make
use of vague or ambiguous terms, but of words so clear and
distinct that he to whom the words are said or sent may
know that it behoves him to put himself on his guard; to do
otherwise were treason." ^

Of a surety, these are most provident and precise for-
malities; and the fact to which they apply should not be con-

« Beaumauoir, c. 50, p. 300 « luid. p. 001.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 181

sidered as the mere explosion of brutality and violence of
manners. Here are other texts still more remarkable:

When war arose between two possessors of fiefs, their kins-
men were engaged in it, but upon certain conditions and
within certain limits, which great care was taken to regu-
late.

" War may not take place between two brothers, born of
one father and of one mother, on no cause or dispute what-
ever; not even if the one have beaten or wounded the other,
for neither has kinsmen who are not as nearly related to the
other as to himself, and none may take part in a war who are
as closely allied to the one of the principals as to the other.
Therefore, if two brothers have a dispute together, or if the
one wrongs the other, the wrong doer may not appeal to the
right of war; nor may any of his kinsmen aid liiin against hia
brother, although they may like him better tlian his brothe
Therefore, when such disputes arise, the seigneurs mu,
punish the wrong doer and decide the dispute justly.'

" But though war may not take place between two brothers
sons of one father and of one mother, if they be brothers,
only on the father's side, and not by one mother, tliere may
by the custom be war between them; for each has kinsmen
that do not belong to the other, and so the kinsmen on the
mother's side may aid each in war against the other." '^

Are not these singular legal precautions? You will, per-
hajjs, have been tempted to believe that in interdicting war
between brother and brother, they rendered homage to a
moral principle, to a natural sentiment: not so. T\nt reason
of the law was, that if there was war between two brothers,
they would not be able to carry it on because they had the
same relations. I might cite a thousand details, a thousand
passages of this kind, which prove to wiiat a degree private
wars were an institution of whicli men had foreseen all the
necessities, all the difficulties, and wliieh they applied them-
selves to regulate.

It was the same with judicial combat. AVe find scarcely
anything in tlie feudal monuments concerning th(! progress of
peaceful ])rocedure; but when judicial combat is tht; matter
in iiand, the details are abundant; the lornialitics wliich were

' JJtuumioioir. c. C'il. p. -liii). * Ibiii., p. liOO.

182 HISTORY OF

to precede the combat are minutely described; every precau-
tion is taken in order that honour and justice may preside
over it. If, for example, it happened that in the midst of the
combat any incident occurred to suspend it, the marshals of
the lists and the heralds at arms present in the arena were called
upon attentively to examine the position of the two adversaries
at the moment of the suspension, in order that they might be
obliged to resume it when the combat again commenced.
Men at this period had recourse to force; it was force which
was to decide the question; but they desired to introduce into
its judgment as much regularity, as much equity, as it would
allow of.

The more you examine the docunaents, the moi-e clearly
will you see that judicial combat and private \var, that is to
say, the appeal to force, the right of each to do justice to him-
self, was the true system of guarantee of the feudal society,
and that the judicial guarantees by peaceful procedure, of
which I have attempted to give you an idea, really occupied
little space in the feudal system.

"We have confined ourselves within the most simple feudal
society. We have studied there, on the one hand, the system
of the reciprocal rights and duties of the possessors of fiefs;
on the other, the system of guarantees which were to protect
those rights. We have now to consider the feudal society in
all its extent and complexity; we have to investigate the past
and examine the influence of the foreign elements which
became joined to it. But I would first completely sum up
the principles of the feudal organization, properly so called,
by estimating its merits and its defects, in fine, foreshow
you, in itself and in its proper nature, the causes of its des-
tiny. I shall endeavour to do this in our next lecture.

CIVILIZATION IN TRA^Cf. 183

ELEVENTH LECTURE.

Ocnftrftl cliiiraclpr of the feudal society — Its good principles: 1. Ntiessity
cf individual consent for the formation of the society ; 2. Simplicity
and notoriety of the conditions of the association ; 3. No new charges
or conditions without the consent of the individual ; 4. Intervention of
society in judgments ; !). Right of resistance formally recognised ;
6. Right of breaking tlirougli the association : its limits — Vices of the
feudal society — Twofold element of every society — Weakness of the
social principle in feudalism — Excessive predominance of individuality
— From what causes — Consequences of these vices — Progress of the in.
equality of force among the possessors of fiefs — Progress of the in-
equality of rights — Decline of the intervention of society in judgments
— Origin of provosts and bailiffs — Formation of a certain number of
petty royalties— Conclusion.

We are acquainted with the organization of feudal society.
We know what relations united tlie possessors of fiefs among
themselves, whetlier suzerain and vassal, or vassals of the
same suzerain. We know what was the system of their
reciprocal rights and duties, and also the system of guarantees,
which insured the accomplishment of rights, the maintenance
of rights, and the redress of wrongs. Before examining what
elfect it produced upon the foreign elements which were mixed
with the society so constituted — before seeking how feudalism,
royalty, and the commons were combined, and what results
were progressively developed, whether by their amalgama-
tion, or by their struggle, let us still dwell upon the feudal
society itself; let us give an exact account of its organiza-
tion, and of the principles which ])resided o\er it; let us
endeavour to catch a glimpse of what it was to become, in
virtue of its proper nature, its proper tendency, independently
oi' all complex inlluence, of every foreign element. It is
important to know what part of the destiny of feudalism

184 HISTORY OF

should be imputed to what it was in itself, and not to what
was done for it by the external causes which combated or
modified it.

I desire to sum up the constitutive principles, good or ill,
of the feudal society, and to estimate both their intrinsic merit
and their natural tendency, their necessary influence.

I shall commence with the good principles, the principles
of right and liberty, which I have already exhibited in feudal
society, and which have often been overlooked.

The first, that is the feudal tie, was only formed with the
consent of those who were engaged in it, of the vassal as of
the suzerain, of the inferior as of the superior; that is to say,
that society commenced only at the will of its members.
Homage, the oath oi fidelity, and investiture were merely, as
you have seen, the reciprocal adhesion of suzerain and of
vassal to the tie which was to unite them. Doubtless, (as I
have already remarked,) this principle was modified, limited
by another principle, which likewise developed itself in feudal
society, the inheritance of social situations and fiefs. A
man was born proprietor, heir of such a fief — that is to say,
vassal of such a suzerain. There was nothing here but what
was conformable with the general course of things. The
hereditariness of social situations and of fortunes is a natural,
necessary fact, which is reproduced in every society. Upon
this fact rest the connexion of generations among them-
selves, the perpetuity of the social order, the progress of
civilization. If men did not succeed to the situation of their
predecessors — if society was in each generation entirely sub-
ordinate to the will of individuals who were incessantly being
renewed, it is evident that there would be no tie between
human generations; all things would incessantly be brought
into question — the social order would, sn to speak, have to be
created every thirty years.

Surely nothing is more contrary to the nature of man, to the
destiny of the human race; or rather, there would then be no
human race, no general and progressive destiny of humanity.
Hereditariness of social situations is then a legitimate, provi-
dential fact, a consequence of the superiority of human nature,
a condition of its development. But this fact did not stand
alone, and has no right to all the empire. By the side of the
hereditariness of social situations must also be placed the free

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 185

concurrence of the individual to his situation, the influence of
his will over his destiny. Whenever a new individual arises
upon the scene of the world, he surely has a good right oi' acting
himself in what regards himsell', of deliberating, and of choos-
ing his situation — at least of trying to do so; and if this choice
be interdicted him — it' his will be absolutely stifled, abolished
by an hereditary situation, there is tyranny. It is in the just
balance of these two principles — the hereditariness of social
situations on the one hand, and the individual consent on the
other — it is, I say, in the just balance of these two principles
that the equilibrium and good state of society consist.

Now, the principle of the hereditariness of social situations
was more and more developed in feudal society, as in every
other; but the principle of the necessity of individual consent
for the formation of the society hkewise subsisted there.
Every time that a new generation presented itself; every
time that, by the renewal of individuals, the tie could be
renewed between the vassal and the suzerain, this principle
was recognised, proclaimed. And not only Avas it recognised
and proclaimetl, but it, in fact, exercised a veritable influence
over feudal relations — it gave them a character which they
would not otherwise have had. This necessity in which the
suzerain found himself of obtaining, from generation to gene-
ration, the homage and the oath— that is to say, the personal
engagement of the vassal, established, to the benefit of the
vassal, an independence, and for both of them a reciprocity of
rights and duties, which would probably soon have weakened,
or, perhaps, vanished altogetlier, if the vassalage had passed by
right froiii generation to generation, without the formal con-
sent of tlie individual incessantly renewing and confirming it.
This is the first of tlie salutary principles, of the principles
of liberty and of right which are met with in feudal society.
It is needless for me to say more in }H)inting out its value.
Let lis speak of the second.

In entering into the feudal society, in becoming the vassals
of the suzerain, men became so upon certain arranged,
determinate, previously understood eonditions; the obliga-
tions, whether material or moral, ot" vassals and suzerains,
the reciprocal services and duties which were imposed upon
them, hud nothing vague, uncertain, or unlimited about them.
When he gave faith and homage, tlie new vassal knew exactly

18G HISTORY OF

wliat he did, what riglits he acquired, what duties he con-
tracted. It is not thus, far from it, in most societies, and
especially in our great modern societies. Men there are born
under the empire of laws with which they are unacquainted,
obligations of which they have no idea; under the empire,
not only of actual laws and obligations, but of a multitude of
contingent possible obligations and laws, in which they have
no part, and which they will not know until the time when
they will have to submit to them. There is, perhaps, in this
evil, something irremediable, and which arises from the extent
of modern societies. Perhaps, in the immense variety, and
continual increasing complexity of human relations, the pro-
gress of civilization will never arrive at such a point that
each individual may know upon what conditions he enters
and lives in society, what obligations he has to accomplish,
what are his rights and his duties. But this fact, be it inevi-
table, will not any the less be a great evil. There lies the
source, if not of all, at least of a large portion, of the clamours
which arise against the present social state. Open the books
impressed in this respect with a character of bitterness and
revolt ; for example, the treatise on Political Justice, by
Godwin; you will there see inscribed, under the head of the
iniquities and calamities of our social state, that ignorance,
that powerlessness in which so many men are placed, as
regards the conditions of their destiny. It is not necessary
to have been long present at the spectacle of the world, in
order to be struck, painfully struck, with that pitiless disdain
with which the social power exercises itself over the thou-
sands of individuals who only hear it spoken of as something
they are to submit to without any concurrence of their intel-
lect or their will.

Nothing of the kind existed in feudal society. Between
the possessors of fiefs, the conditions of the association were
neither numerous, vague, nor unlimited; men knew them,
accepted them beforehand; men knew, in a word, what they
did in becoming citizens of that society, what they did in
the present, what they would have to do in the future.

Thence necessarily resulted a third principle, not less
salutary to right and liberty: this was that no new law, no
new charge could be imposed upon the possessor of the fief,
without his consent. It is true, this principle was very often

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 187

violated; many new charges were imposed by the suzerains
upon their vassals, and that solely by virtue of force. The
legislative power was usurped, after a certain time, by the
majority of the great suzerains. Still this was not the prin-
ciple, the legal state of feudal society. Those maxims which
we continually meet with in modern histories, and which,
despite one violation of them after another, have still passed
down to us: " No tax is legal, unless consented to by him
who is to pay it; no one is bound to obey laws to which he
has not given his consent;" these maxims, I say, belong to
tlie fciudal period; not that feudalism invented them and in-
troduced them into the world, (they existed before feudalism,
they constitute part of that treasure of justice and good sense
which the human race never entirely loses); but they were
explicitly admitted into feudal society, they constituted its
public right. In the same way that each possessor of fiefs
knew, upon entering into this relation, what obligations he
contracted and what rights he acquired, so it was acknow-
ledged that no new charge or law could be imposed upon him,
without his formal consent.

A fourth principle, not leas salutary, and which feudal
society likewise possessed, was the intervention of the public
in the administration of justice, the judgments of disputes
arising among the proprietors of fiefs, by the proprietors of
fiefs themselves. As M. Royer-Collard said, some years
since, in terms as exactly true as they were energetic, a people
which interferes not in judgments, may be happy, tranquil,
well governed; but it belongs not to itself, it is not i'ree, it ig
under the sword. All things, in the social state, lead to
judgments; the intervention of citizens in judgments is there-
fore the veritable definitive guarantee of liberty. Now this
guarantee existed, as you have seen, in feudal society; judg-
ment by peers was the fundamental principle of jurisdiction,
although very irregularly applied.

There is a fifth principle of liberty which is rarely found
written in llie laws, which it is rarely of any use to write,
and which feudal society has formally written and proclaimed,
perhaps more than any other society; I mean the right of
resistance. You have seen what tlie private wars were;
they were not a mere act of brutality, a more usurpation of
force; they were, in reality, a legal means, often the only

188 HISTORY OF

means of redressing many acts of injustice. "What was this
at the bottom, if not the right of resistance? And not only
was this right thus sanctioned in the practice, the manners of
feudalism, we find it recognised, inscribed in the very laws
by which men undertook to repress private wars, and to
introduce more order and peace among the possessors of fiefs.
We read, in the Etablissement de Saint Louis : —

" If the seigneur say to his liege man: ' Come with me,
for I am going to make war against my seigneur the king,
who has refused me the judgment of his court,' the man must
reply in this manner to his seigneur: ' Sir, I will go to
know, from my lord the king, whether it is as you tell m-e.'
Then he shall come to the seigneur the king, and say to him:
' Sir, Messire says that you have refused him the judgment
of your court, and therefore I am come to you to know the
truth, for Messire has summoned me to go to war against
you.' And if the seigneur the king says to him that he
will not give judgment in his court, the man must go forth-
with to his seigneur and aid him at his expense; and if he
did not go to liim he would lose his fee by right. And if
the chief seigneur reply: * I will readily do justice to your
seigneur in my court,' the man must go to his seigneur and
say: ' Sir, my chief seigneur has told me that he will wil-
lingly do you right in his court.' And if the seigneur says:
' 1 will not enter his court, but do thou come with me as I
have summoned thee to do;' then the man may say: ' I will
not come;' for the which refusal he shall not of right lose hie
fee, nor anything else."'

This last phrase indicates a limitation, a condition newly
imposed upon the right of resistance; but the right itself is
positively proclaimed.

I will give a second text, which is not less remarkable. It
is true, it does not belong to the feudal law of France;
it is among the last paragraphs of the Great Charter of the
English, the charter conceded in 1219, by king John. But
th e state of ideas and manners which it exhibits was that of
feudalism at large; and if the right of resistance by force of
arms has been nowhere so regularly instituted, it was every-

Elahlhsement de Saint Louis, 1, i. c. 49 ; Ordonnances des rcis de
France, t. i. p. 143.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 189

where equally recognised. Towards the end of Mayna
Charta occur the following words: —

" But since we have granted all these things aforesaid, for
God, and for amendment of our kingdom, and for better ex-
tinguishing the discord which has arisen between us and our
barons, we, being desirous that these things should possess
entire and unshaken stability for ever, give and grant to them
the security under written, — namely, that the barons may elect
twenty-five barons of the kingdom, whom they please, who
shall with their whole power keep, and cause to be observed,
the peace and liberties which we have granted to them, and
have confirmed by this our present charter, in this manner, —
that is to say, if we, or our justiciary, or our bailiffs, or any
of our officers, shall have injured any one in anything, or
shall have violated any article of the peace or security, and
the injury shall have been shown to lour of the said twenty-
five barons, the said four barons shall come to us, or to our
justiciary if we be out of the kingdom, and making known to
us the excess committed, petition that we cause that excess to
be redressed without delay. And if we shall not have re-
dressed the excess, or if we have been out of our kingdom,
our justiciary shall not have redressed it within the term of
forty days, computing from the time when it shall have been
made known to us, or to our justiciary if we have been out of
the kingdom, the aforesaid four barons shall lay that cause before
the residue of the twenty-five barons; and they, the twenty-five
barons, with the community of the whole land, shall distress
and harass us by all the ways in which they are able, — that
is to say, by the taking of our castles, lands, and possessions,
and by any other means in their power, until tlie excess shall
have been redressed, according to their verdict; saving harm-
less our person, and the persons of our queen and children;
and when it hath been redressed, they siiall behave to us as
they have done before. And whoever of our land pleaseth
may swear, that he will obey the commands of tlie aforesaid
twenty-five barons, in accompHshing all the things aforesaid,
and that with tliein he will harass us to the utmost of his
power; and we publicly and freely give leave to swear to every
one who is willing to swear, and we will never forbid any
to swear. But all those of our land who, of themselves, and
o. their own accord are unwilling to swear to the twenty-five

190 HISTORY OF

barons, to distress and harass us together with them, we will
compel them by our command to swear as aforesaid; and if
any one of the twenty-five barons shall die or remove out of
the land, or in any other way shall be prevented from exe-
cuting the things above said, they who remain of the
twenty-five barons shall elect another in his place, according
to their own pleasure, who shall be sworn in the same manner
as the rest."^

It is surely impossible to establish more positively as a
right, to convert more completely into an institution, that
guarantee of recourse to force, which civilized nations, with
good reason, dread so much to invoke, or even to proclaim.
It is often the only guarantee in barbarous times; and feu-
dalism, the daughter of barbarism, cared not to be so re-
served as civilization, whether in writing it or making use
of it.

Lastly, independently of the right of resistance, there was
also in feudal society a last principle, a last guarantee of
general liberty admitted: this was the right of quitting the
association, of renouncing the feudal relation, its charges as
well as its advantages. The vassal and the lord equally had
this power. Certain cases were expressly provided for, in
which this rupture might take place: for example, if the
vassal thought he had some serious motive for challenging
his lord to judicial combat, he was at liberty to do so; he had
only to renounce his homage and his fief. This is shown in
the following text of the Coiitume de Beauvaisis,

" Also by our custom no one can challenge the seigneur
whose man he is, until he has renounced his homage and
what he holds of him. Therefore if any one desires to ap-
peal against his seigneur, for any otfence for which an appeal
may be had, he must before tlie appeal come to his seigneur
in the presence of his peers, and say to him thus: ' Sir, I
have been for awhile in your faith and homage, and I have
held of you these heritages in fief. Such fief, and homage,
and faith I renounce, because you have done me wrong, of
which wrong I am about to seek redress by appeal.' And
after this renunciation he must summon him to the court of
his sovereign and prosecute his appeal; and if he appeals

■ Magna Cbarta, art. Oi. Thomson's Hist. Essay ]8'29, page 07

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCK. 191

before he has renounced the fief and the homage, he gets no
damages, but shall pay a fine to the seigneur for the ill he
had said of him in court, and to the court also, and the fine
in each case shall be sixty livres." •

The lord -was in the same position; when he desired to
challenge his vassal to judicial combat, he likewise had to
renounce the feudal tie:

" And for this reason in the same way that the man cannot
challenge his lord so long as he is in his homage, neither can
the seigneur challenge his man. Therefore if the seigneur
desires to challenge his man he must resign his homage in
presence of the sovereign before whom he appeals, and then
proceed with his challenge." ^

Vassals often even set up a claim to the power of breaking
tlie feudal tie, and separating themselves from their suzerain,
arbitrarily, without any motive, by the sole act of their will.
But the raontmients of feudal legislation do not recognise this
pretension as legitimate. "We read in Beaumanoir:

" Some think that they can leave the fief they hold of
their seigneur and their faith and homage, whenever it pleases
them, but they cannot do this unless they have got reasonable
cause. If, when they want to give them up, the seigneur
will resume tliem of his good will, it is good; but if it
happen that my seigneur has summoned me, in his own great
need, or to aid the count or the king, and I were then seek
to give up my fief, I should not well observe my faith and
my loyalty towards my seigneur; for faith and loyalty are of a
frank, generous nature, and ought to be observed especially to
him to whom they are promised; for with homage we promise
to our seigneur faith and loyalty, and since they are promised
it were not loyal to renounce them at the time the seigneur
has ntA;d of us. Now let us see, if I renounce my fief, be-
cause I will not aid my .seigneur in his need, what can he do
therein, for ordinarily he has no jurisdiction over me except
in respect of what I hold of him, and this I have given up
and resigned, what will he do then? I say, that if ho please,
he can summon me to the court of the sovereign on appeal;
and can charge it upon me, that I have acted towards him

' Beftumnnnir, Coulume de Beauvai.sif, c. CJ, p. 310, 311.
* ll.id., p. 311.

192 KISTORY OF

falsely, wrongfully, and disloyally, and thereupon he will
have good cause of appeal." ^

They thus assigned limits, forms, to that faculty of sepa-
rating from one another, of breaking the social tie; but it
was not the less the primitive, the dominant principle of
feudalism.

People will perhaps say, that it has always and everywhere
been thus* that any man Avho chooses to abandon his pro-
perty, his position, is free to quit the society to which he
belongs, and to carry his destiny elsewhere. This would be
a great error, and that for more reasons than one. In tiie
first place, in societies based upon the fact of origin, upon
the principle of territory, the legislation everywhere follows
the individual born under its empire. Thus, the French
legislation passes with the French people into a foreigri
country, everywhere imposes the same obligation upon them,
and only recognises their acts in as far as they have been
accomplished under the conditions and in the foi-ms Avhich it
prescribes. This is not all: among us it is in vain for a man to
quit his country, to transplant himself elsewhere; his country
always preserves rights over him, and imposes certain duties
upon him; it will forbid him to carry arms against his old
country, to consider himself entirely as a stranger to it. I do
not discuss the merit of this legislation; I merely speak of
the fact: it is certain that now the actual rupture with the
society in the heart of which a man is born does not com-
pletely separate him from it, does not free him from all con-
nexion with it. How can we be surprised at this? It is the
consequence of the very jirinciple upon which our societies
are at present founded: as soon as the quality of a member
of society does not arise fi-om the consent of the individual,
as soon as it is a fact independent of him, a simple conse-
quence of his being born of such or such parents, upon such
or such a territory, it is evidently not in his power to abolish
that fact; it is beyond a man's power not to be born of
French parents, or upon French territory. Man cannot
therefore, in this system, absolutely renounce the society of
which he has first formed a portion; it is for him prmiitive,
a fatalism; his will has no choice, his will cannot entirely
separate him ^'rom it,

• Beauraaaoir, c. Gl, p. 311.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 193

When, on the contrary, the consent of the individual is
the principle in virtue of which he belongs to society, one
can easily understand that, if he withdraws his consent, if
his will happens to change, he ceases to form part of the
society. Now it thus happened in feudal society. As the
free choice of the individual was the source, the condition at
least of the relation, when he took another resolution, he
resumed his full and primitive independence^ This change
of resolution was, it is true, subject to certain rules; the
rupture of the feudal tie was not completely arbitrary; but
when it did take place it was complete. The vassal no longer
owed anything to the suzerain whom he had renounced.

Such were the principles of right and liberty which pre-
sided over the association of the possessors of fiefs. They
were, assuredly, salutary guarantees, sound elements of poli-
tical organization. Let us, however, penetrate beyond this
first inquiry: let us endeavour to thoroughly estimate the
social value of these guarantees, their meaning and true aim.
To what were they related? What were they destined to pro-
tect? Individual liberty — the independence of the individual
against all external force. Take, one after another, the six
principles admitted by the feudalism that I have just placed
before you ; you will see that they have all the same character,
that they all proclaim the rights of individuality, and tend to
maintain it in its free and energetic development.

Is this the whole society? Is the sole end of social orga-
nization the guarantee of individual independence? I think
not.

What, truly speaking, is individual independence in the
social state? It is the portion of his existence and destiny
which the individual does not put in common, which does not
engage him in his relations with other men, of which he
reserves the exclusive possession and disposition.

But this portion is not the entire man. There is also a
portion of his existence, of his destiny, wliich the individual
does put in common, wliich he docs engage in his relations
with his equals, and wliich, by a necessary consequence, he
subjects to certain conditions, to natural or conventional con-
ditions, to ties which unite him to them.

Society is tlie totality of tliese two lacts. It comprehends,
on the one hand, what men put in common, all the relations

VOL. III. o

194 HISTORY OF

which unite them; on the other, what in each individual
remains independent of all relation, of every social tie; that
portion of the human life and destiny which remains isolated
and independent for each, even in the midst of his equals.

I wish to give a precise account of what is truly the portion
of existence and destiny which men put in common, and
which, properly speaking, constitutes society.

From the moment that individuals are engaged in some
relation, from the moment when, for what end soever, they
act in common, there is society between them, in that respect
at least. Society, in at once its largest and most simple
sense, is the relation which unites man to man.

It is evident that society can subsist independently of all
external guarantee, of every political tie, of every coercive
force. It is suflficient for men to will it. In all the epochs
of the life of nations, in all degrees of civilization, there is a
multitude of human relations which are regulated by no law,
in which no public power interferes, and which are not the
less powerful, the less durable, which do not the less attract
and retain a portion of the existence of individuals in a com-
mon destiny.

At the present day, it is even a common remark, that in
proportion as civilization and reason make progress, that
class of social facts which is foreign to all external necessity,
to the action of all public power, becomes daily larger and
richer. The non-governed society, the society which subsists
by the free development of human intellect and will, goes
on extending itself in proportion as man proceeds towards
derfection. It becomes more and more the basis of the social
state.

By the side of those relations which create and regulate
llie will of those only who are engaged in them, tnere is
placed another social element, the government, which also
creates and maintains relations between men independently of
iheir will. When I say government, I comprehend under that
word the powers of every kind which exist in society, from
domestic powers which extend not beyond the family, up to
dublic powers which are placed at the head of the state. The
entirety of these powers is accordingly a mighty social bond;
they not only give birth to many relations between men which
their will alone would not create, but they impose upon those

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE 195

relations, and upon many others, perpetuity and regularity,
the pledge of the peace and progressive development of
society.

Individual wills and public powers, the free choice of men
and the government, these are the two sources whence are
derived human relationsj. and their transformation into active
and permanent society. Now inquire of feudaliv=4U ; recal to
mind the study which we have just made of it; and you will
see that both the one and the other of these social elements
were there weak, barren^ and could create but a precarious
society. How is it with those free relations which individuals
form among themselves, without any external coaction, and
which hold so great a place among us? Among the pos-
sessors of fiefs they were rare and uncertain; neither a great
movement, nor strong cohesion in society could result from
them. Is it, on the contrary, the government which you
consider, that social principle which resides in the presence
of power, and in its efficacy in laying down and maintaining
the relations of men? This, also, in feudalism, was without
fertility and v/ithout energy. There was no central mo-
narchical power, or scarcely any; nor was there any public
power, that is, any power emanating from society itself;
there was no senate, no public assembly; nothing resembling
the active and vigorous organization of the ancient republics.
In the association of the possessors of fiefs, there were neither
subjects nor citizens. The action of the superior over the
inferior was trifling: action among equals almost null. In a
word, society, properly so called, that is, the common contri-
bution of a portion of the life, the destiny, the activity, of in-
dividuals, was very weak and very limited; tlie portion of
e3d5tence,on the contrary, which remained distinct and isolated,
that is to say, individual independence, was very great. Tlie
inferiority of the social element to the individual element was
tlie peculiar and dominant characteristic of feudalism.

It could not be otherwise. Feudalism was a first step out
of barbarism, the transition from barbarism to civilization.
Now tlie prevalent characteristic of barbarism is the indepen-
dence of the individual, the predominance of individuality;
each man in that state does wnat he pleases at liis own risk
and peril. The empire of wills and the strugizle of individual
forces, is tlie great fact of barbarous society ; that fact was com.-
o2

196 HISTORY OK

bated and limited by the establishment of the feudal systom.
The influence alone of territorial and hereditary property ren-
dered the wills of individuals more fixed, less disordered; bar-
barism ceased to be wandering; this was the first step, and a
great step, towards civilization. Moreover, individual wills
acknowledged duties, rules. The vassal bound himself to moral
and material obligations towards his suzerain, more explicit,
more permanent than were those of the companions towards
their chief in the barbaric life. Therft was then, also, in this
way, under the moral relation, a progress, and a very great
one, towards civilization. Individual independence, how-
ever, still remained the predominant characteristic of the new
social state. Its principles consecrated it; the special object
of its guarantees was to maintain it. Now, it is not by the
predominance of individual independence that society is
founded and developed; it essentially consists in the portion
of existence and destiny which men contribute in common,
by which they are bound to one another, and live in the
same ties, under the same laws. That, properly speaking
is the social fact. Doubtless, individual independence is
worthy of respect, is sacred, and should be preserved by
powerful guarantees; man cannot give his whole life up to
society; a large portion always belongs to him, isolated, foreign
to every social relation. And even in the relations in which he
is engaged, his independence should profit by all the progress
made by his reason and his will. But in the feudal system,
and among the possessors of fiefs, this independence was
evidently excessive, and opposed itself to the formation, to
the true progress of society; it was rather isolation than
liberty. Accordingly, independently of every foreign cause,
by its nature alone, by its own tendency, feadai society was
continually in question, always upon the point of being dis-
solved; incapable, at least, of subsisting rccularly, or of
developing without perverting itself. Soiree general facts
which I shall place before you, will show you this work of
internal disorganization, this impossibility <r. duration, of
Qdelity to its primitive principles, which characterise feu-
dalism.

And, first, an enormous inequality very rapidly introduced
itself among the possessors of tiefs. You have seen that in
the earlier times the increase of fiefs was speedy, and that the

CIVILIZATION IN FKANCE. 197

practice of sub-infeudation gave birth to a multitude of petty
fiefs and petty lords. From the middle of the eleventh cen-
tury, the contrary phenomenon commenced; the number of
petty fiefs and petty lords diminished, the larger fiefs ex-
tended-themselves at the expense of their neighbours. Force
presided almost alone over these relations; nothing could
stop the effects of it; and as soon as inequality exhibited
itself at all, it went on extending itself with a rapidity, a
facility unknown in societies where the weak find protection
and security against the strong. There is no need of any
very great research in order to be convinced that such was
the progress of things from the eleventh to the fourteenth
century. Merely open the second volume of the Art de
verifier les Dates, which contains the history of the principal
fiefs of France; you will there see, in that interval, thirty -
nine fiefs extinguished, absorbed by other fiefs more fortunate
or more powerful. And observe that this is a mere question
of considerable fiefs, which have a celebrated name, a history.
vVhat would it be if we sought the destiny of all the petty
fiefs placed within the grasp of a powerful suzerain? We
should see a large number of them disappear, we should every-
where see inequality develop itself, the suzerains extending
their domains at the expense of their vassals.

When the inequality of forces is great, the inequality of
rights soon becomes so too. You have seen that originally
every possessor of fief had, in his domain, the same rights,
legislative power, judicial power, often even the right of
coining money. It was not long thus. Dating from the
eleventh century, — with regard to jurisdiction, for example, —
the inequality of the possessors of fiefs is evident; some pos-
sess what was called high justice, — that is to say, a complete
jurisdiction, which comprehended every case; otliers have
only low justice, an inferior and limited jurisdiction, which
remitted tlie more important cases to the judgment of the
suzerain. Under the legislative or political point of view.,
the same fact presents itself. The simple mliabitants of a
fief, — coloni, or serfs, — entirely depended, as you have seen,
upon the lord, who exercised pure sovereignty over them.
Alter a certain time, we see tiie suzerain interfering in the
internal government of the fiefs of his vassals, exercising a
right of superintendence, of protection, in the relations of the

198 HISTORY OF

simple lord with the subject population of his domains. This
protection was, doubtless, called for by necessity; it often
repressed the intolerable tyranny of the petty possessor of
fiefs over the unhappy coloni; and, upon the whole, the aug-
mentation of power of the great suzerains was far more
favourable than detrimental to the condition of men, and to
the progress of society; but it was not the less an usurpation,
an abandonment of the essential principles and the primitive
state of feudalism.

Many other changes were accomplished therein at the
same time, and always by the same causes, by the effect alone
of the natural vices of the system, especially from the excess
of individual independence. The fundamental principle in
matters of private dispute was, as you know, judgment by peers,
the intervention of society itself in the judicial power. But
the vassals had few relations among themselves; it was diffi-
cult to assemble them, difficult to reckon upon their intelli-
gence or their equity. Recourse to force, whether by judicial
combat, or by private war, was the commonest way of putting
an end to processes. But force is not justice; the rudest minds
do not long confound them. The necessity for another judicial
system, for a leal judgment, became evident. Judgment by
peers was almost impracticable. Another judicial system
was then introduced into feudalism, a class of men devoted
to the function of judges. This is the true origin of bailiffs,
and even before bailiffs, of provosts, charged in the name of
the suzerain, first with collecting his revenues, the rents of
the coloni, the fines, and afterwards with administering justice.
Thus commenced the modern judicial order, of which the great
characteristic is the having made of the administration of
justice a distinct profession, the special and exclusive task of
a certain class of citizens. In the same way as you have seen,
under the Carlovingian race, Charlemagne obliged to in-
stitute scabini, regular judges, permanent magistrates, in the
place of the free men, who no longer repaired to local places,
and no longer troubled themselves about their rights; so, in
the feudal system, the proprietors of fiefs gave up the judicial
power, ceased to judge among themselves, and the judicial
power fell into the hands of special magistrates, of provosts
and bailiffs.

Thus, solely because the social tie was wanting to feudalism,

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 199

feudal liberties rapidly perished; the excess of individual in-
dependence perpetually compromised society; it found, in the
relations of the possessors of fiefs, neither wherewith regu-
larly to maintain itself, nor to develop itself; it had re-
course to other principles, to principles opposed to those of
feudalism; it sought in other institutions that of which it
had need in order to become permanent, regular, progressive.
The tendency towards centralization, towards the formation
of a power superior to local powers, was rapid. Long before
general royalty, tlic royalty which has become French
royalty appeared; upon all parts of the territory there were
formed, under the names of duchy, county, viscounty, &c.,
many petty royalties, invested with central government, in
such or such a province, and under the rule of which the
rights of the possessors of fiefs, that is to say, local sove-
reignties, gradually disappeared.

Such were the natural, necessary results of the internal
vices of the feudal system, and especially of the excessive
predominance of individual independence. These consequences
developed themselves far more rapidly, far more energeti-
cally, when foreign influences, when royalty and the commons
in their turn, came to impel them onward, and to second
this work of disorganization to which, by its very nature,
feudalism was a prey. The study of these two new elements
of modern France, and of their part in the heart of feudalism,
will be the subject of the following lectures. We shall
oommence with the history of royalty.

200 HISTORY OF

TWELFTH LECTURE,

State of royalty at the end of the 1 0th century — Progressive debilitation of
its various principles — Contradiction between the situation of right and
the situation of fact in Carlovingian royalty — Necessity of its fall — Cha-
racter of the accession of Plugh Capet — Progress of the principle of
legitimacy — State of royalty under Robert, Henry I. and Philip I. — Was
it as weak, as null as it is said to have been ? — Causes and limits of 'ts
weakness — Uncertainty of its character and its principles — New charactc
of royalty under Louis VI. — It disengages itself from the past, ana
places itself in harmony with the social state — Wars and governmem of
Louis VI. — Government of Suger under Louis VII. — State of royalty n»
the death of Louis VII.

Permit me here to recal, in a few words, the plan we have
followed, and the point at which we have arrived.

It is with the feudal period that we occupy ourselves. In
the feudal period, we have distinguished the history of civil
society, the history of religious society, and the history of
the human mind. We can in the present course treat only
of the history of civil society. We have divided it into two
sections. We have promised to study, on the one hand, the
feudal element, the possessors* of fiefs; on the otlier, the non-
feudal elements, which also concurred to the formation and
to the destinies of society, that is to say, royalty and the
commons.

In studying the feudal element, properly so called, we have
considered it under various aspects. We commenced by
confining ourselves to the interior of the simple fief, of the
elementary feudal domain. We first examined the progressive
state of the possessor of this fiei' and of his family, that is to
say, what passed in the interior of the feudal castle; afterwards

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 201

what passed around the castle, in the feudal village, that is to
pay, the state of the subject population.

The simple fief and the internal revolutions which befel in
it from the tenth to the fourteenth century, thus thoroughly
knov/n, we considered the relations of the possessors of fiefs
among themselves, the institutions which presided ov^r those
relations, the feudal society in its organization ana in its
whole.

Finally, we endeavoured to give a precise account of the
general principles of feudalism, its merits and its vices; and
we have thus sought in itself, in its proper nature, the prin-
cipal causes of its destiny.

I will now examine that second portion of civil society
which was not feudal in its origin or in its character; which,
however, coexisted with feudalism, and at first powerfully mo-
dified, and afterwards conquered it; I mean royalty and the
commons. I shall endeavour to follow these two great ele-
ments in their development from the tenth to the fourteenth
century of our civilization. I begin with royalty.

You will recollect what was the state of royalty in France
at the end of the tenth century, at the moment of the fall of
the Carlovingian race, that is to say, at the commencement
of the feudal period, properly so called. I have already
made mention of it.* It had four origins; it was derived
from four different principles. Its first origin was barbarous
military royalty; the warlike German chiefs, those numerous,
mobile, casual chiefs, often simple warriors themselves, sur-
rounded by companions whom their liberality and bravery
attracted, were designated by this same word, kortg, kanig^
king, from which the modern title is derived; and their
power, however limited, however precarious it may have
been, was one of the bases upon which royalty raised itself
alter the territorial establishment.

It also found among the barbarians a religious basis. In
the ditiereut German confederations or tribes, with the Franks
among others, certain families, descended from the ancient
national heroes, were invested, in virtue of this title, with a
religious fliaraeter and an hereditary pre-eminence which
600U became a power.

1 See the ruiirtii lecture o;' tbe present course

202 HISTORY OF

Siifih is the twofold barbaric origin of modern royalty, We
at the same time recognised in it a twofold Roman origin.
We have distinguished, on the one hand, imperial royalty,
the personification of the sovereignty of the Roman people,
and which commenced with Augustus; on the other. Christian
royalty, the image of the Divinity, the representation, in a
human person, of his power and his rights.

Accordingly, 1, chiefs of barbarous warriors; 2, descendants
of heroes, barbarous demi-gods; 3, depositaries of the national
sovereignty, the personification of the state; 4, the image and
representative of God upon earth; such were kings from the
6th to the 10th century. These four ideas, then, these four
origins, concurred in the formation of royalty.

At the end of the tenth century, (unless I am mistaken, "[
have already made the remark,) one of these four character.*
had entirely disappeared. There was no longer any trace oi
religious barbarous royalty. The second race of the Frank-
kings, the Carlovingians, had no pretension to a descent from
the ancient German heroes, to be invested with a national re-
ligious pre-eminence. They were not, like the Merovingians,
a separate family, distinguished by its long hair. Only three
of the primitive characteristics of royalty were united among
them. They were chiefs of warriors, the successors of the
Roman emperors, the representatives of the Divinity.

The Roman idea, the imperial character, first predominated
in the Carlovingian race. This was the natural result of
the influence of Charlemagne. The revival of the empire,
and not merely of the name of the empire, but of the real
power of the emperors ; such, as you know, was the dream
of his thoughts, the constant aim of his efforts. He succeeded
so far as to restore to royalty, considered as a political institu-
tion, its imperial physiognomy, and to strongly impress upon
the minds of the people the idea that the chief of the state wa:?
the descendant of the emperors. But after Charlemagne, and
on the brow of his successors, the crown did not long pre-
serve that glorious and powerful physiognomy. Dating front
Louis le Debonnaire, we find establishing in the kingdom of
the Carlovingians, not exactly a struggle, but an uncertainty, a
continual fluctuation between the descendant of the emperor^,
and the representative of the Divinity, that is to say,
between the Roman idea and the Christian idea, whieh
botU ser\ed as the basis of royalty. It is sometimes froiL

CIVILIZATION IN FBANCE. 203

one, sometimes from the other of those origins, of those
ideas, that Louis le Debonnaire, Charles le Chauve, Louis
le Begue, and Charles le Gros, demand the force and as-
cendancy escaping from them. As military chiefs they were
no longer anything; here also was a source of power become
exhausted for them; only the imperial Roman character, and
the religious Christian character remained to them; their
throne tottered upon these two bases.

Its ruin was an almost inevitable consequence. In virtue of
this twofold title, as descendant of the emperors, and as allied
with the Christian clergy, Carlovingian royalty at the end of
the tenth century was in a false and weak condition. The em-
pire of Charlemagne was dismembered, the central power
the church, to her general constitution, to the frequent hold-
iestroyed; that which essentially constituted imperial royalty,
that omnipotence, that omnipresence, that sole and every-
where active administration had completely disappeared. The
Christian clergy was at the same time greatly fallen from its
ancient grandeur. It had owed much of it to the unity of
ing of^councils, to the ascendancy which these exercised over
men's minds, to the central power which they established in
the bosom of Christianity. By the triumph of feudalism,
and the predominance of local institutions and ideas, this
visible unity of the church underwent, if not an irrepa-
rable check, at least a temporary eclipse. The councils
became rarer and less powerful. In the petty new states,
the importance and power of the lay seigneur prevailed
over the importance and power of the bishop. The clergy
acting much less than before as a body, as a combined whole,
its isolated members fell into a sort of inferiority. Hence a
considerable, though transient enfeeblement of the church in
general, and of all the institutions, all the ideas connected with
it, among others, of royalty, considered in its religious as-
pect, and as an image of the Divinity. It is in the tenth cen-
tury that tliis idea appears to have exercised the least empire.

Carlovingiau royalty thus found itself deprived of its two
fundamental supports, both of them altogetlier in a tottering
condition. Moreover, it found itself in contradiction, in hos-
tility even, with the new state, the new powers of society.
Almost all these recently formed local sovereignties were so
many dismemberments of the central power. These dukes >

204 HISTORY OF

counts, viscounts, marquises, now independent in their do-
mains, were, most of them, former beneliciaries, or ex-officera
of the crown. Ancient royalty, the royalty of Charlemagne,
was, therefore, ever an object of distrust in their eyes, as a
power from which they had usurped much, and which had,
therefore, much to demand at their hands. It had rights supe-
rior to its power, and pretensions still greater than its rights.
It was in the eyes of the feudal seigneurs the dispossessed heir
of a power to which they had once rendered obedience, and on
the ruins of which they had raised their own. By its nature,
then, its title, its habits, its recollections, Carlovingian royalty
was antipathecal to the new regime, to the feudal regime.
Overcome by it, it accused it, and disturbed it by its presence;
it became necessary that it should altogether disappear.

It did disappear. People are surprised at the facility with
which Hugh Capet got possession of the throne; their sur-
prise is unfounded. In point of fact, the title of king con-
ferred upon him no real power calculated to alarm his peers;
in point of right, the title, by its transference to him, lost
that feature which had rendered it a subject of hostility and
mistrust to them. Hugh, count of Paris, was not in the position
of the successors of Charlemagne; his ancestors had not been
kings, emperors, sovereigns of the whole territory; the great
possessors of fiefs had not been his officers or his beneficiaries;
he was one among them, a man from their own ranks,
hitherto their equal; they might not like his self-appropria-
tion of this title of king, but it gave them no serious
umbrage. What had annoyed them in Carlovingian royalty
was its recollections, its past, Hugh Capet had no recollec-
tions, no past; he was a parvenu king, quite in harmony with
the new society about him. It was this which constituted
his strength — at least, which rendered his position more
easy than that of the race he had removed.

He encountered, however, a moral obstacle, which merits
our attention. If the idea of imperial royalty, and even
that of Christian royalty, was become greatly impaired, a
new principle had developed itself, perceptible at the fall
of the Merovingians, but manifestly apparent at that of the
Carlovingians, a principle far more accredited, far more
ibyious — the principle of legitimacy. In the opinion — not
of the people that were saying too much, for there vvas at

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 205

this epoch neither people nor general opinion — but in the
opinion of a great many considerable men, the descendants of
Charlemagne vv^re the only legitimate kings; the crown was
their hereditary property. This idea did not place any very
great or enduring difficulties in the way of Hugh Capet, yet
it survived his success, and continued to operate upon men's
minds. I read in a letter of Gerbert to Adalberon, bishop of
Laon, written in 989 — that is to say, two years after the ac-
cession of Hugh to the throne:

" The brother of the divine Augustus, Lothaire, the heir
of the kingdom, has been expelled from it. His rivals have
been placed in the rank of kings — such, at least, many people
hold them to be; but by what right has the legitimate heir
been disinherited and despoiled of his kingdom?"'

And this doubt as to the right of Hugh was so real that
he seems to have himself respected and perhaps shared it, for,
in speaking of his accession, a chronicle says:

" Thus the kingdom of the French departed from the race
of Charlemagne. Duke Hugh was put in possession of it in
the year of our Lord 987, and possessed it nine years, with-
out, however, being able to assume the diadem."^

Nay more, three centuries afterwards this idea still pre-
served its influence, and the marriage of Philip- Augustus
with Elizabeth (Isabel) de Hainaut, a daughter of the race
of Charlemagne, is considered as a triumph of legitimacy.
We read in the Chronique de Saint Berlin —

" Tims the crown of the kingdom of France departed from
tlie race ot Charlemagne, but it returned to it afterwards in the
following manner. Charles (of Lorraine) who died in prison,
(at Orleans in 992,) had two sons, Louis and Charles, and
two daughters, Hermengarde and Gerberge. Hermengarde
married the count de Namur. Among their descendants
was Baldwin, count of Hainaut, (Baldwin V. 1171 — 1185,)
who had to wife Marguerite, sister of Philip, count of
Flanders. Their daughter, Elizabeth, married Philip II.,
king of the French, who had by her, Louis, his successor in
the kingdom, from whom are since descended all the kings of
the French. Thus it is clear that in the person of this Louis,
and by his mother's side, the kingdom returned to the race
of Charlemagne."'

' llisturi;ius lie Fr&ncf, tome s. p. 402. * ]b. 2.")9, 279. » lb. 29S

206 niSTORT OF

Unquestionably, notwithstanding the extreme facility with
which flugh appropriated the crown, these texts prove that the
idea of the legitimacy of the ancient race was already developed,
and that powerfully. In order to combat it, he adopted the
only efficacious means open to him; he sought the alliance of
the clergy, who professed the idea, and had more than any
other class contributed to bring it into credit. Not only did
he hasten to be crowned at Reims by the archbishop Adal-
beron, but he treated the ecclesiastics, both regular and
secular, with indefatigable kindness; we find him incessantly
seeking to conciliate their good will, lavishing donations upon
them, and restoring to them such of their privileges as they
had lost in the disorders of rising feudalism, and adding to
these new concessions and exemptions. Among other pri-
vileges, he re-established in the monasteries on his domains
the liberty of election, which, for a century past, had scarcely
ever been exercised. He himself abdicated the dignity of
abbot of Saint Germain and that of Saint Denis, with which
he had been invested, as, at that time, was frequently the
case with powerful laymen, and had ecclesiastical abbots re-
gularly elected in his place. His conduct in this respect was
so undeviating, and produced such effect, that near 600 years
after his death, in 1576, at the States of Blois, the chapters
of canons, demanding that the liberty of election should be
restored to them, brought in aid of their application tliis argu-
ment, that the Carlovingian race had been of short duration,
bee luse it arrogated to itself the right of disposing of eccle-
siastical dignities; whilst the Capetian race, which, from its
origin, after the example of its founder, had habitually re-
spected the independence of the church, had reigned foi
more than five centuries.

In this conduct of Hugh, how much is to be ascribed to
sincerity, how much to skilled judgment, I cannot decide.
That it partook of sincerity is not to be denied, for he actei^l
upon the same principle, long before his elevation to the
throne, and when evidently he had not as yet thought of that
elevation; however it maybe, the interests of his position
dictated the same course pointed out by his faith; and he pur-
sued the course so laid down to him. The Roman character
of royalty was almost entirely effaced; that of legitimacy be-
longed to his adversaries; its Christian character alone

CIVI .IZATION IN FRANCE. 207

remained at his disposal; he appropriated it, and omitted
nothing that might give it development.

Aided by the general tendency of things, he succeeded in
this object without difficulty. It was evidently upon the
Christian basis that the royalty of the Capetians acquired its
strength; and during the reigns of the three first successors
of Hugh Capet, Robert, Henry I., and Philip I., it bore the
impress of this system, and lived under its empire. It is
more especially to this cause that several modern historians,
M. de Sismondi among others, have attributed the effemi-
nacy and inertness of these princes. Whilst around them the
warlike spirit was everywhere developing itself, in them, say
these writers, the ecclesiastical spirit was omnipotent; amidst
feudalism in its full force, and chivalry in its powerful
youth, they were the kings of priests, sustained by their
alliance, governed by their influence, and taking but a very
little share in the external and temporary activity of the
period.

I do not, for my part, believe that the insignificance of the
first Capetians, of Robert, Henry I., and Philip L, was such
as is supposed. When we closely examine the documents
and events of their period, we find that they played a more
important part, that they exercised far more influence than is
ordinarily assigned to them. Read their history: you will
find them constantly interposing, either with the sword or
by negotiation, in the affairs of the count of Burgundy, of the
count of Anjou, of the count of Maine, of the duke of Aqui-
taine, of the duke of Normandy; in a word, in the affairs of
all their neighbours, and even in those of remote seigneurics.
There was no contemporary suzerain, except the dukes of
Normandy, the conquerors of a kingdom, whose action waa
tilt so often and at so great a distance from the centre of his
th)inains. Open tlie letters of the period, those, for example,
1)1" Fulbert and of Yves, bishops of Aquitaine, and those of
William IH., duke of Aquitaine, and many others, and you
will nt once perceive that the king of France was not without
importance; that, on the contrary, the most powerful sove-
reigns of the time felt it necessary to keep on good terms
with him. Of these three princes, the most apathetic, the
most averse from all serious and earnest activity, was, per-
haps, Philip I.; and yet his court, or, as it was then termed,

208 HISTORY OF

his famihj. that is to say, the assemblage of young men sent
to form themselves as knights under his p/atronage and direc-
tion, was so numerous as sometimes to supply for him the
place of an army. I will lay before you the official account
of his coronation, a very curious monument in itself, for it is
the earliest narrative extant of such a ceremony, and which
will show you that the position of the king of France v/as
not so insignificant as the statements of many of the histo-
rians might lead you to suppose.

" The year of the incarnation of our Lord, 1059, the 32nd
year of the reign of the king Henry, on the 10th day before
the calends of June (23 May) .... king Philip was crowned
by the archbishop Gervais, in the cathedral, before the altar
of St. Mary, with the following ceremonies:

*' Mass having commenced, before the epistle was read, the
archbishop turned towards the king, and having briefly reca-
pitulated to him the catholic faith, asked him whether he
believed in and would defend it. On his replying in the
affirmative, his profession of faith was brought to him, fairly
written out: he took it. and though only seven years old, read
it and signed it. This profession of faith was conceived in the
following terms: ' I, Philip, being about, by the grace of God,
to become king of the French, on the day of my coronation
promise, in the presence of God and his saints, to preserve
for each of you, my ecclesiastical subjects, the canonical pri-
vileges, the law, and the justice due unto you; and, God
aiding, to the utmost of my power, to defend them with that
zeal which a king should ever exhibit in favour of the bishops,
and of the church committed to him. We will also secure,
by our authority, unto the people at large, the full and legiti-
mate exercise of their rights.'

" This done, he replaced his profession of faith in the
hands of the archbishop, in the presence of — (here follow the
names of fifty-three archbishops, bishops, and abbots.) Then
assuming the staff of St. Remy, the archbishop set forth, in
mild and gentle language and tone, how that to him in pre-
fez'ence appertained the election and coronation of the king,
ever since St. Remy had baptised and crowned king Clovis.
He set forth also, how that pope Hormisdas had given to St.
Remy, and pope Victor to him, Gervais, and to his cliurch,
with that staff, the right of coronation, and the primacy ot

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 205

all G?,ul. Then, with the consent of his father Henry, he
elected Philip king. After this, under the archbishop's formal
protest, that the pope's consent was not necessary in the
matter, the legates of the holy see, not officially, but in
order to do honour to prince Philip and to exhibit their affec-
tion, also proclaimed him king. Next came the archbishops
and bishops, the abbots and priests, and then Guy, duke of
Aquitaine, and then (here follow the names of sixteen grand
feudatories present, either in person, or by their representa-
tives), and then the knights and the people, great and small,
Avho all, with one unanimous voice, gave their consent and
approbation, exclaiming thrice: 'We will have it so!' Then
1 hilip, according to the custom of his predecessors, issued
an ordinance respecting the goods of St. Mary's church,
the county of Reims, and the lands of St. Remy and other
abbeys, which ordinance he signed and sealed.

" The archbishop also signed it. The king then named
the archbishop grand chancellor, as the kings his prede-
cessors had always done in the case of Gervais' predecessors,
and the prelate then crowned him king. The archbishop
having returned to his throne, and being seated thereon, his
officers brought to him the privilege granted to him by pope
Victor, which he read aloud, in presence of the bishops. All
these tilings passed amid general devotion and joy, Avithout
any disturbance, any opposition, any detriment to the state.
Archbishop Gervais received all the persons taking part in
the ceremony with the utmost kindness, entertaining them all
liberally at his own expense, though he owed this to none
but the king; but he did it for the honour of his church, and
out of his generous nature."'

Assuredly, no other suzerain of the period took possession
of his rank with so much solemnity amid so imposing a cortege,
and it is not possible but that a real and decided influence
must have attended a situation so manifestly superior.

With tliis limitation, however, of the prevalent idea, I have
no intention of absolutely contesting its general truth. It is
certain that the first Capetians did not reign with that activity,
that constantly increasing power, which generally accompaniea
the foundation of a new dynasty; and that their inactivity was

' Collect, lie Mem. rdai. a I'llist. de France, vii. 89 — Q'i.
VOL. III. P

210 HISTORY OF

not unobserved by their contemporaries. We read in a
chronicle of Anjou, under the year 959 —

" This year died duke Hugh, abbot of St. Martin, son uf
the pseudo-lving Robert, and father of the other Hugh, who
was afterwards made king with his son Robert, whom we
have seen reigning in disgraceful effeminacy, and whose
apathy is fully shared by his son Henry, our present
kinglet." '

But do not let us too implicitly adopt these representations;
the tone of contempt with which some of the chroniclers speak
of the kings in question, is no just measure of their position.
The fallacy arises in a considerable degree from the writers
having too summarily compared that which the kings were
with that which, in the historian's judgment, they ought to
have been, their real power with the sounding title they bore.
Now this title, the mere name of king, awakened in the mind
ideas of grandeur, of superiority, inseparable from the memory
of Charlemagne, but altogether inapplicable to the new state
of things. It seemed a matter of course that whoever called
himself king, should, like Charlemagne, reign supreme over
an immense territory, command, conquer, soar high above all
other men. Beside this colossal figure of Charlemagne, of
him who formed the theme of each popular romance, and
filled the thoughts of all men, Robert, Henry I., and Philip L,
appeared miserable abortions. They themselves felt this;
they themselves, by their title of king, seemed placed in the
elevated, majestic position which Charlemagne had created,
and called upon to exercise the grand, the enormous power
directed by his sceptre; yet this power they were conscious
they did not possess; they were, in reality, and they knew it,
nothing more than great proprietors of fiefs, surrounded on
all sides by other proprietors of fiefs, as powerful as they,
perhaps even more so. They looked upon themselves as
heirs of the throne of Charlemagne, yet they felt incapable of
filling it. Hence an extreme uncertainty and hesitation, a
sort of stagnation in their position. They did not compre-
hend the new character which it behoved royalty to adapt
itself to, amidst a society so completely changed in all other
respects; they knew not how to play the part of kings of that
new society; and at the same time they were incapable of

' C/ironiijiw d Anjou. iu tlie Ilistoricus d? Prance, viii. '.'52.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 21 L

.arryiug on that old royalty, that sovereign and superb
I'oyalty, of which they deemed themselves the depositaries.

It is perhaps in this inconsistency that we should seek the
cause, the most real if not the most apparent, of the com-
parative inertion and powerlessness of the first Capetians.
They had expelled the last Cai'lovingians, and yet they ruled
in much the same way that these had done — inactive, shut up
in the interior of their palaces, under the imperious influence
of priests and of women, unable either to remain kings after
the fashion of Charlemagne, or to become kings after the
fashion required by the times in which they lived, and
succumbing beneath the weight of this double dilemma.

It was not until the beginning of the twelfth century, at
the end of the reign of Philip I., and in the person of his son
Louis, that royalty comprehended the change which had
taken place in its situation, and thought of assuming the cha-
racter which that change necessitated. From Louis le
Debonnaire down to Louis le Gros, notwithstanding the
usurpation of Hugh Capet, we find it crawling along in the
old beaten track, half imperial, half religious, and losing
itself more and more in the uncertainty of its nature.
With Louis le Gros commences the new royalty, the royalty
of the feudal epoch, the predecessor of modern royalty. I
will endeavour, by the aid of contemporary monuments, to
make you acquainted with this important revolution.

Of all these monuments, the most authentic and the most
instructive is unquestionably the Vie de Louis le Gros, by
Suger — a work which it is impossible to study with too
earnest an attention. It sheds the utmost light upon the
state of French society at that epoch. I shall derive from it
almost all the extracts I am about to submit to you.

And first, with reference to the conduct of Prince Luuis
whilst his fjither still reigned, I read in this history:

" This young hero, gay, conciliating all hearts to him, and
of sucli extreme good nature, that to some men he seemed
almost weak, had no sooner attained adolescence than he
manifested himself a valiant defender of his father's kingdom;
lie was intent upon the real needs of the church, and, a care
long neglected, watciied over the security of the labouring
[leople, the artisans, and helpless poor."'

• Vie de Louis le Gros, piu Suger, c. il, ii- niv Cclk^ctjon, ^ui. ft

p2

212 HISTORY Oi

And, a little further on:

" About this time, in 1101, it happened that there arose
between the venerable Adam, abbot of St. Denis, and
Bouchard, a noble, seigneur of Montmorency, certain dis-
putes touching certain customs, which disputes grew so fierce,
and produced, unhappily, such a degree of irritation, that the
spirit of revolt bursting asunder all the ties of faith and
homage, the two parties assailed each other with fire and sword.
This fact having reached the ears of the lord Louis, he mani-
fested thereat a lively indignation, and rested not until he
had compelled the said Bouchard, duly summoned, to appear
at the castle of Poissy before the king his father, and there
to remit the matter to his judgment. Bouchard, having lost
his cause, refused to submit to the condemnation pronounced
against him, and retired without being detained prisoner — a
detention, indeed, which the custom of the French xoould not
have sanctioned. But he soon experienced all the ills and
.calamities with which the royal majesty is empowered to
pu?iish the disobedience of subjects. The fair and youthful
prince forthwith levied arms against him,"' &c.

Are you not struck with the new attitude here assumed
by royalty, with the new language spoken in its name? We
are evidently in the heart of feudal society; the fiicts are ex-
actly as I have described them: a vassal of the duke of
France, the seigneur de Montmorency, is cited before the court
of his suzerain; the court condemns him; he refuses to submit
to its judgment, and retires in all tranquillity, no one even at-
tempting to arrest him; for this the custom of the French
ivouM not have permitted. So far all is feudal, all is entire
conformity with the ordinary relations of suzerains and vas-
sals. But now a new element intervenes: " He (Bouchard)
soon experienced all the ills and calamities with which the
royal majesty is empowered to punish the disobedience of
subjects." This is no longer feudalism. This same Bou-
chard, whom his suzerain had not dared to arrest, though he
had condemned him, finds a new master, his king, who pur-
sues him, and inflicts upon him all the calamities with which
the royal majesty is empowered to punish the disobedience oj
ttubjects. Royalty here appears independent of feudalism,

• Vie de Louis le Gros, par Suger. c. 11.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 213

i"c.«pecting feudal rights and relations, conforming in the first
instance to its principles, its forms, and then disentangling
itself from them, and claiming and exercising in the name of
other principles, in its own name, the right of pursuing and
punishing the contumacious.

I will not stop here: let us see and attentively observe
more facts of this class: —

" The noble church of Reims," says Suger, " saw its pro-
perty, and that of its dependent churches, ravaged by the
tyranny of the most valiant but very turbulent baron EbWe de
Roussy, and his son William. The most lamentable complaints
against this man, so formidable for his valour, had been
laid a hundred times before the lord king Philip without effect.
Ere they had of late been laid before his son more than
twice, he, in his indignation, assembled a little army of scarce
seven hundred knights — marched in all haste towards Reims,
punished within the space of less than two months, by a
series of incessant attacks, the wrongs theretofore done to
the churches, ravaged the lands of the tyrant and his accom-
plices, and spread through them desolation and flames; —
a laudable act of justice, whereby those who had pillaged
were pillaged in their turn, and those who had harassed and
afflicted men, were in themselves even more severely

punished He acquired equal honour by lending the

aid of his arms to the church of Orleans."^

" It was by such proofs of valour that the future lord of
France exalted himself in the estimation of his subjects. He
sought, with courageous determination, every time that a
favourable opportunity presented itself, to provide with pru-
dence and sagacity for the administration of the kingdom, to
quell the rebellious seigneurs, and to take or reduce to sub-
mission, by all possible means, the castles conspicuous as the
haunts of oppression.^

Philip died, Louis succeeded him. The first idea that
suggests itself to the mind of his historian is this:

" Louis become, by the grace of God, king of the French,
did not lose the habit he had acquired in his youth, of pro-
tecting tlie church<es, succouring the poor and unfortunate,
and watcliing over the defence and peace of the kingdom."'

' Suger, c. V. and vi. 2 Ibid., c. viii.

' Ibid., c. xiv.

214 HISTORY OF

And he proceeds to give several proofs of this, among
which I will select the following anecdote:

" It is well known that kings have long arms ."

A singular phrase for this epoch! Who, think you, would
liave said of Robert, Henry I., of Philip L, that they had
long arms? their flatterers, the priests, by whom they were
surrounded, might have talked to them of the majesty of their
title, of the sublimity of their rank; but no one ever spoke or
thought of the real extent of their power, of the reach of
their arms. This latter idea, however, reappeared in the time
of Louis le Gros, and royalty once more presented itself to
the minds of men as a general power, having right every-
where, and able to enforce that right everywhere.

" It is well known that kings have long arms," says the
historian, and he thus proceeds to develop his idea:

" In order that it might clearly appear that the efficacy of
the royal virtue was not restricted within the narrow limits
of particular places, one named Alard de Guillebaut, an able
man and with a good gift of speech, came from the frontiers
of Berry (in 1117) to the king. He set forth in elegant
language the plaint of his son-in-law, and humbly entreated
the seigneur Louis to cite before him, in virtue of his sove-
reign authority, the noble baron Aymon, surnamed Vair-
Vache, seigneur de Bourbon, who refused to right his son-
in-law; to repress the presumptuous audacity with which
this uncle despoiled his nephew, son of his eldest brother
Archimbaut, and to fix, by the judgment of the French, the
portion of goods which each ought to hav6l Fearing that
private warfare might give occasion to the increase of wicked-
ness, and inflict upon the poor tlie punishment due to the
pride of their superiors in rank, the monarch forthwith cited
the said Aymon. He did so in vain: the latter, doubting
the issue of the judgment, refused to present himself. Then,
without allowing either pleasure or indolence to detain him,
Louis marched to the territory of Bourges at the head of a
numerous army, advanced direct upon Germigny, a strongly
fortified castle, belonging to this Aymon,. and assaulted it
with vigorous determination. Tlicn Aymon perceiving that
no resistance of his would avail, and losing all hope of
saving his person and his castle by force, saw no other chance
of safety than that of going and throwing himself at the f^et

CIVILIZATION IN PRANCE. 215

of the seigneur-king, which he did, prostrating himself
several times, to the great astonishment of the crowd assem-
bled around; he earnestly entreated the king to be pitiful
towards him, surrendered his castle, and placed himself en-
tirely at the disposal of the royal majesty. The lord Louis
kept the castle, conducted Aymon into France to take his
trial there, concluded with equal justice and righteousness
the quarrel between the uncle and nephew by the judgment
and arbitration of the French, and by great personal exertion
and the expenditure of much money put an end to the op-
pression and misery which many people in those parts had
theretofore endured. He subsecjuently made it a frequent
custom to perform similar expeditions, which he fulfilled
with like moderation and success, securing the tranquillity of
churches and of the common people. It would only fatigue
the reader were we to relate all these beneficent excursions
of his; we shall tlierefore abstain from doing so."'

All the facts of this class are summed up by the writer in
this general reflection:

" It is the duty of kings to repress by their powerful
hand, and in virtue of the original right of their office, the
audacity of the tyrants who tear the state in pieces by incessant
wars, who place their pleasure in pillaging, who afflict the poor,
destroy charities, and abanc'on themselves to a licence whicli,
when not cliecked, inflames them with ever increasing fury.''-'

This assuredly is not the effeminate, inert royalty of
Philip I., of Robert; but neither is it the ancient royalty of
the Carlovingians, in the time of its power and its glory.
In the passages I have laid before you, it were vain to seek
the Roman idea or the imperial type. The new royalty claims
not absolute power, the rigiit to rule alone and everywhere —
it makes no claim to that heritance of the emperors of old;
it a<,'knowledges and respects the independence of the feudal
seigneurs; it leaves them to exercise their jurisdiction freely
in their own domains; it neither abnegate,s nor destroys
feuilalism. What it does is to separate itself fVom feudalism;
it places itself above all these j)()\vers as a distinct and
superior power, which, by the original title of its office, is

' Vio df r.ouis le Gros, pur Suetit. in inv 'Jolli'ftion, viii. l(i:l
2 iliia. IM).

216 HISTORY OF

authorized to interfere for the purpose of re-establishirig
order, of protecting the weak against the strong, the un-
armed against the armed; a power of justice and of peace
amidst general violence and oppression; a power whose
essential character, whose real force, consists not in any
anterior fact, but in its harmony with the real, pressing
wants of society, in the remedy which it applies, or at all
events promises to the evils under which society labours.
For — and this is to be carefully observed — the religious cha-
rsuter scarcely occupies any greater place in the royalty of
Louis le Gros than does the imperial character; it has
scarcely any more resemblance to the royalty of Robert than
10 that of Charlemagne. The prince is the friend, the ally
of the church, or rather of the churches; he honours them
upon all occasions, protects them when they need protection,
and receives from them in return useful support; but he
seems very indifferent about the divine origin of his power —
the Christian theory has little place in his mind and in his
administration; he does not invoke it as a sanction for his
assumption of absolute power; it in no way influences the
character of his acts, the turn of his language. There i;^
nothing scientific or systematic in his government; he is no
theorist — he troubles himself very little about the future; all
his care is to provide as best he may, according to the dic-
tates of common sense, for the present; to maintain or re-esta-
blish order and justice to the utmost of his power, in every
direction. He deems it his mission, he holds himself em-
powered to do this, but he proceeds upon no general prin-
ciple, contemplates no broad, mighty design.

This was the true character of the government of Louis
le Gros; a character so entirely conformable with the spirit
and w^ants of the period, that we see it continue and de-
velop itself after his death, under the reign of his son
Louis le Jeune, one of the feeblest sovereigns that ever ruled
over France, one of the most dissolute, the most enslaved to
their personal tastes, the most indifferent to the public wel-
fare. Yet the revolution accomplished in the time of his
father, in the nature and position of royalty, was so natural,
so decided, that in the hands of a priest, the abbot Suger,
th,e royal power under Louis le Jeune followed the same
route, preserved the same physiognom), as under Louis le

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 217

Gros, unquestionably the most energetic, the most warlike
knight of his epoch. You are aware that Suger was the
chief counsellor of Louis VII., and that during the long
absence of that prince in the Holy Land, it was Suger who
really ruled the state. I will lay before you some letters
written to him, or by him, which will give you a clear idea of
his government, and exhibit the development of that which
you have seen the commencement of under Louis VI.

In 1148, while the king, undergoing one disaster after an-
other, was traversing Asia Minor, the citizens of Beauvais
addressed to Suger the following letter: —

" To the lord Suger, by the grace of God reverend abbot
of St. Denis, the community of Beauvais offer salutation and
respect as to their lord.

" We appeal to you and complain to you as to our lord,
since we have been committed to your hands and your guar-
dianship by the lord king. A certain man, a jurat of our place,
having heard that two horses which had been carried away
from his stable during Lent were at Levemont, proceeded
thitlier to claim them on the Thursday in Christmas week. But
Galeran, seigneur of that town, holding in no respect the sacred
season, arrested this man, who had committed no offence, and
compelled him to purchase his liberty at the price of ten sols
Parisis, and that of his horses at fifty. As the man is poor,
and has been obliged to borrow this amount, and several
other sums, at usurious interest, we intreat in the name of
the Lord, that your holiness would by God's grace and favour
do right justice upon Galeran, so that he may restore to our
jurat his money, and henceforth never again dare to harass
any who ai-e committed to your care. — Health."'

Would the commune of Beauvais have used any different
language from this in addressing Louis le Gros himself?

1 will now present you with a letter fi'om Suger, written in
1 149, to Samson, archbishop of Reims, to claim his assistance
in support of the royal power which had been assailed:

" To the venerable Samson, by the grace of God arch-
bishop of Reims, Suger, abbot of the blessed Denis, wishes
health.

" As the glory of the body of Christ, — that is to say, of the

■ Li-ttr.'s ill- rl a iSiii/ir, in the Rtcucil dis I/isturicus dc France, xv 500.

218 HISTORY OF

fihurch of God, consists in the indissoluble union of royalty
with the priesthood, it is self-evident that what benefits the
one must benefit the other; for it is clear to all the wise,
that the temporal power exists by the church of God, and
that the church of God derives benefit from the temporal
power; for the which reason, seeing that during the long
absence abroad of our dearly-beloved Louis, king of the
French, the kingdom is grievously disturbed by the back-
slidings and assaults of the wicked; and fearing that the
church may hence suffer even more heavily than the tem-
poral state, and it being necessary to take immediate steps,
we invite you, we intreat you, we summon you, by the com-
mon bond of the common oath which you and we have sworn
to the throne, to be with us at Soissons, you and your suf-
fragans, on the Monday before Rogation. We have convoked
for the same time and place, the archbishops, bishops, and
chief great men of the kingdom, in order that, according to
our fealty and oath, we may pr'^vide for the safety of the
kingdom, aiding one another to bear the burden, and placing
ourselves as it were a rampart for the house of Israel; for,
be assured, unless we remain firmly fixed in the position
whereof it is said, the multitudes that believed were one heart
and one soul, the church of God will be in peril, and the
kingdom, divided against itself, will be given up to deso-
lation."!

Nor did Suger solicit the assistance of the bishops in vain;
he made valuable use of their co-operation in his exercise of
the royal charge, and in maintaining somewhat of order in
the more remote provinces. The following letter, written to
him in 1149, by Geoffrey, archbishop of Bordeaux, is one
of those which give us the clearest idea of the state of the
country, and of the manner in which power exercised its in-
ervention.

" Geoffrey, archbishop of Bordeaux, to Suger.

" To his reverend and dear brother in Christ, Suger, by
tlie grace of God abbot of Saint Uenis, Geoffrey, called
bishop of Bordeaux, wishes love and respect in the Lord.

" We have been for some time past intending to communi-
cate to you the state of our country, according to the agree -

1 Hist, de Fiance, xv. oil.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE, 219

men*, entered into between us; but we have delayed doing so
until now, in order that we might not announce to you other
than the known and unchanged state of things. In the first
place, you shall understand, that on the day of the Assump-
tion of the blessed Mary, at Mansan, where were assembled
the archbishop of Audi and nearly all the bishops and grandees
of Gascony, we, in the presence of all, assailed the viscount
du Gabardin for having with his people attacked and de-
spoiled the lands of the lord king, and besieged the city of
l>ax, the property of the said king; and we then had read
in the presence of all, and fully explained, the letters of tlic
lord pope, whereby the said viscount and all his people are
excommunicated, unless they desist for the future from dis-
q\iieting the king's lands. The viscount and his people
seemed to think the sentence very severe, and were more-
over greatly displeased that these things should be set forth
concerning them in public. We did not fully attain the end
we wished, but, after considerable difficulty, we effected this
arrangement — that, on a day to be named, the affair shall be
thoroughly investigated, and the case we have put forward
on the part of the lord pope and the loi'd king judged. We
know not what the said viscount may do thereupon, but it is
said he will not long withstand the sentence, if it be carried
into effect rigorously. It is, therefore, necessary that the lord
pope should renew the order for his sentence to be rigorously
executed, and with even additional severity; for there are
people wlio, though they tremble, will not yield at a first
summons. The other great men seem, by the grace of God,
better disposed than is their wont to consult the good and
peace of tlie country. Martin, who was entrusted with the
custody of the tower of Bordeaux, has recently gone the
way of all flesli. The tower, on being returned to our pos-
session, we find, on the rei)ort of persons we have sent to
inspect it, to be altogetlier destitute of munition and victual.
Martin represented that he had faithi'ully and justly expended,
in furnishing the tower with necessaries, and supplying the
wants of himself and his men, the tburteen livres that were
given him last year. But now that he is dead, those who
remain behind him seem ill fitted for executing his charge.
It were well, therefore, since tlie government and the care of
the kingdom rest upon you and upon count Kaoul, — Mbein we

220 HISTORY OF

pray you to salute in our name, and to inform of this mattci , —
it were well for you two, desiring as you do to preserve the
lands of the king, forthwith and diligently to occupy your-
selves with furnishing forth the tower with valorous and
competent keepers, and with a good purveyor, supplied with
all the things they need. As to the officers established by
the king in Aquitaine, and those who are set over them,

brother N , the bearer of these presents, will inform you

touching them and other matters, with which he is well
acquainted. We pray you to give him full credit as to our-
self ; and, indeed, you already know him for a man full of
truth, faithful and devoted to the utmost of his power to the
interests of the king. By him you can communicate to ua
that which you desire we should hear."^

Notwithstanding all his efforts, Suger succeeded but very
imperfectly in maintaining order and in defending the do-
mains and the rights of the king. Pie was accordingly
always urging his sovereign to return. Among other letters
of his, in 1149, is the following: —

" Suger to Louis, king of the French.

" .... Disturbers of the public tranquillity have returned
in numbers, while you, whose duty it is to protect your sub-
jects, remain, as it were, a captive in a foreign land. "What
can induce you, my lord, to leave the sheep intrusted to you
thus at the mercy of pitiless wolves? No, sire, it is not
permissible that you remain any longer remote from us. We
therefore supplicate your highness, we exhort your piety, we
invoke the goodness of your heart, we conjure you by the
faith which reciprocally binds together the prince and his
subjects, not to prolong your stay in Syria beyond the festival
of Easter, least a longer delay render you guilty, in the eyes
of the Lord, of having violated the oath you took on receiv-
ing the crown. You have reason, I think, to be satisfied with
our conduct. We have delivered into the hands of the Knights
Templars the money we had arranged to send to you. We
have also repaid the count de Vermandois the three thousand
livres he had lent us for your service. Your lands and your
men are, for the present, in the enjoyment of entire peK;e.
^Ve keep for you on your return the reliefs paid upon fi'.-fs

' irist. dp Fvinipp, XV. 51.")

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCK. 221

held of you, and the taxes of various kinds received from
your lands. You will find your houses and palaces in excel-
lent condition, owing to the care we have taken to keep them
in repair. I am in the decline of life, in point of age, but the
occupations in which I have been engaged from love of God
and out of attachment to your person, have, I hesitate not to
say, materially contributed to make me older than I am in
mere years. As to the queen your wife, I am of opinion that
it were best for you to conceal the dissatisfaction she occasions
you until you are once more in your kingdom, where you may
deliberate at leisure upon that and other matters."^

Louis at length returned, and in the course of this same
year, while on his way back to France, he wrote to Suger:

" We cannot express on this paper the ardour of heart with
which we desire the presence of your Dilection. But seveial
causes have delayed our progress. On landing in Calabria,
we waited there three days for the queen, who had not yet
arrived. When she came, we directed our course to the
palace of Roger, king of Apulia, who would needs keep us
three days with him. Just as we were about to depart, the
queen fell ill: on her recovery, we proceeded to visit the
pope, with whom we remained two days, and in the city of
Rome one; we are on our return to you at our utmost speed,
safe and well; we order you to come and meet us secretly,
a day before our other friends see us. We have heard cer-
tain rumours touching our kingdom, the truth of which we
know not, and we should be glad to learn from you in what
maimer to comport ourselves towards various officers of our
state and others. Let this be so secret, that none but yourself
know of it."^

The king, on his arrival in Paris, resumed the government,
to which his presence was more detrimental than his absence
had been. In the course of the next year, lloO, I find the
following letter addressed to him by Suger, who was now
living in almost complete retirement in his abbey of St. Denis.
It is tlie last I shall cite in the present lecture:

" We earnestly intreat your majesty's royal highness, in
whom we have ever been accustomed to confide, not to
throw yourself without reflection and without the counsel ut

• Ecc. lies Historiens dt France, xv. 500. ^ Ibid. .'ilH

222 HISTORY OK

your archbishops, bishops, and great men, into the war
against the duke of Anjou, wliom you have created duke of
Normandy. If you were to attack him inconsiderately, you
could afterwards neither draw back with honour, nor proceed
without great difficulty and embarrassment. Therefore, not-
withstanding that you have convoked your men for this pur-
pose, we counsel you and intreat you to pause for awhile,
till you have collected the opinions of your faithful, that is to
say, of your bishops and great men, who then, according to
the faith they owe to you and the crown, will aid you with
all their force to accomplish what they shall have advised."'

Thus, whether Suger writes or is written to, whether he
addresses the king or the king's subjects, in all these docu-
ments royalty appears under the same aspect. It is evidently
no longer either the imperial royalty contemplated by Charle-
magne, nor the ecclesiastical royalty aimed at by the priests;
it is a public power of undefined origin and extent, but essen-
tially different from the feudal powers, and which undertakes
to superintend them, to keep them within certain limits dictated
by the public interest, to protect the weak against them; a sort
of universal justice of the peace for France, as I said on a
former occasion. It is the rise and development of this fact
which communicates to the reigns of Louis le Gros and Louis
le Jeune the character of an epoch in our political history.
From that period modern royalty dates its real existence;
from that period it has played its established part in our
society.

In the next lecture we shall see its progress under Philip
Augustus, and the manner in which that monarch availed
himself of the new instrument bequeathed to him by his pre-
decessors, to advance furtlier than they, royalty, and to
reconstitute that which they had not left him, the kingdom.

' Sec. des Historiens dc France, xv. 5U2.

CIVILIZATION IN PRANCE. 228

THIRTEENTH I.ECTrRE.

Coaditiou and various cbaracteristics of royalty at the accession of Philip
Augustus — State of the kingdom in point of territory — Possessions of
the kings of England in France — Relations of I'liilip Augustus with
Henry' II., Richard Coeur-de-Lion, and John Lackland — Territorial ac-
quisitions of Philip Augustus — Provostries of the king — Progress of the
monarchical power — Efforts of Philip Augustus tr -ally round him the
great vassals, and to constitute of them a means of government — lie
applies himself, at the same time, to separate royalty from feudalism —
The crown emancipates itself from the empire of the clergy — Legislative
labours of Philip Augustus — His efforts to advance material and moral
legislation — Effect of his reign on the mind of the people — Royalty be-
comes national — Manifestation of this result after the battle of Bovines,
and at the coronation of Louis VIII.

I HAVE described the condition jf royalty from Hugh Capet
to Louis le Gros, the causes which first phtnged and then
kept it in an apathy and insignidcance, real, though exagge-
rated by liistorians; and then its revival at the commence-
ment of the 12t]i century under Louis le Gros.

I have now to examine its progress under Pliilip Augus-
tus. But in the first place I should wish to recal to you the
point at which we are now arrived, what royalty actually
was at the accession of that prince, and to describe its new
characteristics in somewhat of detail.

The first of these characteristics, as I have already stated,
was, that royalty had now become a power foreign to the feu-
dal regime, distinct from suzerainty, unconnected with terri-
torial property; a power, sid ffoiciis, standing apart from the
iiierarchy of feudal powers, a power really and purely poli-
tical, with no other title, no other mission than government.

224 mSTOKY OF

This power was at the same time regarded as superior to
the feudal powers, superior to suzerainty. The king was, as
such, placed above all suzerains.

Moreover, royalty was a sole and general power. There
were a thousand suzerains in France, but only one king
And not only was royalty sole, but it had a right over al'.
France; the right was vague, and practically of small effect;
the political unity of French royalty was not more real than
the national unity of France; yet neither the one nor the
other was absolutely chimerical. The inhabitants of Pro-
vence, of Languedoc, Aquitaine, Normandy, Maine, &c. had,
it is true, special names, laws, destinies of their own; the)-
were, under the various appellations of Angevins, Manceaux,
Normands, Provencaux, &c., so many petty nations, so many
petty states, distinct from each other, often at war with each
other. Yet above all these various territories, above all these
petty nations, there hovered a sole and single name, a general
idea, the idea of a nation called the French, of a common
country, called France. Despite the force of local distinc-
tions, the variety, the opposition even of interests and man-
ners, the idea of national unity has never completely disap-
peared from amongst us : we see it appear amid the highest
power of the feudal regime, obscure, doubtless, and weak,
taking no share in the events, in the realities of life, yet al-
ways present, always possessing some influence.

Such was also the case with the idea of political unity,
such the state of royalty, considered as a central and general
power. When all has been said that can be said as to its
weakness, as to the independence of the local sovereigns, we
must still revert to royalty, and admit that, notwithstanding
all this, it existed. In the same way that, despite the variety
of power and of particular destinies in it, there has always
been a country called France, a people named the French, so
there has always been a power called the French royalty, a
sovereign denominated the king of the French: a sovereign,
indeed, very far from governing the whole of the territory
called his kingdom, and exercising no action over the larger
portion of the population inhabiting it; yet known every-
where and to all, and having his name set forth at the head
of all the deeds of the local sovereigns, as that of a superior
to whom they owed certain tokens of deference, who possessed
^-ertain rights over them.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 225

The political extent, the general value, so to speak, of
poyaltj, did not, at the period under consideration, go beyond
tliis; but it went thus far, and there was no other power
which participated in this characteristic of universality.

There was another characteristic of royalty, not less im-
portant to observe: royalty was a power which, neither in
its origin nor in its nature, was well defined or clearly limited.
No one at that time could have assigned to it a special and
precise origin. It was neither purely hereditary, nor purely
elective, nor regarded as solely of divine institution. It was
neither coronation, nor ecclesiastical anointing, nor hereditary
descent, which alone and exclusively conferred the royal
character. All these conditions, all these facts, were requi-
site; and other conditions, other facts, were afterwards added.
You have seen the official account of the coronation of Philip I.,
and have recognised there evident indications of election; the
persons present, the grand vassals, knights, people, expressed
their consent: they said: fVe accept, we consent, we will. In
a word, principles the most various, principles generally con-
sidered as wholly contradictory, combined and met together
round the cradle of royalty^ AH the other powers had a
simple, definite origin; the manner of their erection and the
date were readily assignable; every one knew that feudal
suzerainty was derived from conquest, from the concession
by the chief to his companions of territorial property; the
source of that power was easily traced back, but the source of
royalty was remote, various: no one knew where to fix it.

Its nature was as indeterminate, as vague as its origin. It
was not absolute; had royalty at this epoch claimed absolute
power, a thousand facts, a thousand voices would have con-
travened its pretensions. It accordingly made no such pre-
tension, and said very little about the traditions of the Roman
empire, or the maxims of the church. Yet it was without
known, definite, prescribed limits, whether in the laws or in
the customs. At times, it exercised a ])0wer wliicii, from
tlie loftiness of its language, and the extent of its action,
closely resembled absolute power; and tlien again, it was not
only as a matter of fiict limited and curbed, but itself reco-
gnised limits, itself bowed to otlier powers. It was, in a
word, both in its origin and in its nature, essentially iudo-

VOL. III. (i

226 HISTORY OF

finite, flexible, capable of contracting and expanding itself,
of adapting itself to the most various circumstances, of play-
ing the most different parts; old in name, young in reality,
and manifestly entering upon a vast career, of which no one
could measure the extent.

Such, if I mistake not, was tho true position of French
royalty, when it came into the hands of Philip Augustus.
It possessed, as you perceive, many of the elements of
strength, but of a strength remote and hidden. It is more
especially in the moral order, and in reference to its future
destinies, that royalty, at this period, appears to us already
great and powerful. If we confine ourselves to material, ex-
ternal facts, if, in the twelfth century, we look to the present
alone for the measure of French royalty, we shall find it
singularly weak and restricted, in the extent and in the
efficacy of its power. The territory which Louis le Gros could
really call his own, comprised only five of our present de-
partments, namely — those of Seine, Seine-et-Oise, Seine-et-
Marne, Oise, and Loiret. And within this petty territory, in
order to exercise anything like authority, the king of France
had to maintain a constant struggle, sword in hand, against
the counts of Chaumont, Clermont, the seigneurs of Mont-
morency, Montlhery, Montfbrt-rAmaury, Coucy, du Puiset,
and many others, always disposed and almost always in a
position to refuse him obedience. At one time, during the
reign of Louis VI., the territory of French royalty received
a considerable extension. The marriage of his son with
Eleonore d'Aquitaine added to the kingdom of France
Touraine, Poitou, Saintonge, Augouraois, Aquitaine, that is
to say, nearly all the country between the Loire and the
Adour, as far as the frontiers of the Pyrenees. But you ai"e
aware that the divorce of Eleonore from Louis VI I, trans-
ferred this territory from that monarch to Henry 11. king
of England. On the accession of Philip Augustus, the
kingdom of France had returned within the limits which
bounded it under Louis le Gros; and the new monarch had
scarcely ascended his throne, when the same resistance, the
same coalition of vassals which had called into such exercise
the activity and perseverance of his grandfather, once more
burst forth. He was weak at the time, and but little in a
position to repress them, but in an old chronicle we find

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 227

him saying at this juncture:' "Whatever they do now, they
are so strong I must bear their outrage and villanies; but
•please God, they shall become weak, and I will grow strong
and powerful, and then in my turn I shall take vengeance
upon them." These are the first words that history assigns
to Philip Augustus; they manifest at once his weakness and
his eager desire to relieve himself from it. He did relieve
himself from it, and both the kingdom and royalty were at
his death altogether different from what they were at his
accession.

I have no intention of giving you here a narrative of hig
reign; I shall merely point out its true and leading charac-
teristic. He applied it wholly, first to the reconstruction of
the kingdom, and then to the equalization of royalty de facto
with royalty de jure, to the making its external, real position
harmonize with the ideas already spread about and accepted
as to its nature. As a moral power, and in the common
thought of the time, royalty had already, under Louis le
Gros and Louis le Jeune, recovered much grandeur and force:
but in material grandeur, in material force, it was almost
wholly deficient; with these it was the incessant labour of
Philip Augustus to endow it.

Judging from the state in which he found things, this must
have been a protracted and severe task. Not only was tlie
royalty which he inherited restricted within a very nar-
row territory, and even tliere combated by jealous vassals,
but the instant he essayed to go beyond his own particular
states, to extend their limits, he encountered a neighbour far
more powerful than himself, the king of England, Henry II.,
possessor of all that marriage portion of Eleonore d'Aquitaine
which Louis le Jeune had lost ; or, in other words, master of
nearly the whole of western France, from tlie Channel to the
Pyrenees, and consequently very superior in force to the king
of France, though his vassal.

It was against this vassal and his possessions that the efforts
of Philip Augustus were directed. So long as Henry II.
lived, tliose efforts had but little success, and, indeed, wore
but hesitatingly made. Henry, an able, energetic, stubbornly
pertinacious prince, formidable at once as warrior and as poli-

' IneiiiteJ Chronicle, iu the Art dc verifier lei Dates, i. 078 fol.

u2

228 HISTORY OF

tician, had every advantage of position and of experience
over Philip. He used these advantages wisely, habitually pre-
served a peaceful attitude with his young suzerain, and quietly
frustrated most of the secret practices and armed expeditions
which Philip Augustus set on foot in order to induce him
openly to take the aggressive. So long aa he lived, there
were very few alterations in the territorial relations of the
two states.

But after the death of Henry II., Philip had to do with his
two sons, Richard Cceur de Lion and John Lackland. Richard,
as you are aware, was the very type of the manners and pas-
sions of his time. In him, in full energy, were the thirst for
movement, for action; the constant desire to display his own
individuality, to carry out his own will at the risk not merely
of the happiness and rights of his subjects, but of his own
safety, of his own power, of his crown even. Richard Cojur
de Lion was, undoubtedly, the feudal king par excellence, or,
in other words, the most daring, reckless, and passion-led, the
most brutal, the most heroic adventurer of the middle ages.
Philip Augustus could cope advantageously with such a man.
Philip was a prince of calm, cool temperament, patient, per-
severing, very slightly touched with the spirit of adventure,
ambitious, but not ardent in his ambition, capable of long de-
signs, and not over scrupulous as to his means. He did not
achieve over Richard those sweeping and definitive conquests
which were to restore to France the largerportion of Eleanore's
dowi'y; but he pi'epared the way for these by a multitude oi
petty acquisitions and petty victories, and in assuming to him-
self by slow but sure degrees the ultimate superiority over
his English rival.

Richard was succeeded by John Lackland, a braggart and
coward, at once a knave and a hair-brained coxcomb, pas-
sionate, debauched, indolent, quite the roguish valet of the
comic dramatists, with all the pretension to be the most
despotic of kings. Philip had even greater advantages over
him than he had over his brother Richard, and he made
such good use of these, that after a struggle of some years,
from 1199 to 1205, he deprived John of the greater part of
the territories to which he had succeeded in France; namely,
Normandy, Anjou, Maine, Poitou, and Touraine. Philip
would probably have dispensed with any legal sanction for

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE, 229

these acquisitions, but John himself furnished him with an
excellent pretext for one. On the 3rd April, 1203, he.
assassinated with his own hand, in the tower of Rouen, his
nephew Arthur, duke of Brittany, and, as such, vassal of
Philip Augustus, to whom the unfortunate young man had
just done homage. Philip hereupon cited John as his vassal,
to appear before the Court of the Barons of France, and
justify the act he had committed. The English historian,
Matthew Paris, has left us a circumstantial narrative of
what passed on this occasion, a narrative, it is true, some-
what confused, for it is in reference to the appeal subse-
quently made to the court of Rome against the condemnation
of king Jolui that the historian introduces it, and he conse-
quently mixes up the facts of the case with the discussion
maintained upon the subject before the pope, by the envoys
of France and England, but still a narrative which exhibits
those facts accurately and clearly, and I shall therefore lay
it before you :

" ' It is the custom of the kingdom of the French,' said
the envoy of France, * for the king to have full jurisdiction
there over his liege men, and, as count and duke, the king of
England was liis liege man: thus, though John was a crowned
king, he was, in his quality of count and duke, subject to
the jurisdiction of the lord-king of the French. Now, as
count and duke, if he committed a capital crime in the
kingdom of the French, he could and ought to be adjudged
to death by his peers. Even had l;e been neither duke nor
count, but merely liege man to the king of France, liad he
committed a crime in tlie kingdom of France, the barons
might iiave condemned him to deatli by reason of that
crime. Otherwise, and if the king of England, because he
is a crownc'd king, were not liable to be adjudged to death
for a capital crime, he might witli impunity enter the
kingdom of France, and kill the barons, as he had killed
Arthur.'

" This is tlie truth of the atfair In point of fact, king
John was not legally or justly dej)rived of Normandy, for
after having been despoiled of it, not by due judgment but by
violence, he sent to Philip, king of France, in order to obtain
restitution, ambassadors of great wisdom and consideration,
namely, Eustace, bishop of Fly, and Hubert de Burgh, men

230 HISTORY OF

of a, fluent eloquence, who were charged to say to Philip
on his part, that he would readily come to his court to plead
and implicitly obey judgment, if he were first accorded a
safe-conduct.

" And king Philip replied, but with a ruffled heart and
countenance: ' Ay, let him come in peace and security.
Whereunto the bishop: 'And so return, my lord?' And
the king: ' Yes, if the judgment of his peers allow it.'

" And when the envoys of England entreated that he would
grant it to the king of England both to come and to return
in safety, the king of Fi-ance passionately exclaimed, with
his accustomed oath: ' No, by all the saints of France, not
unless the judgment so permit!'

" Then the bishop, enumerating all the perils that John
would incur, said: ' Sir king, the duke of Normandy cannot
come, without the king of England also come, since the
duke and the king are one and the same person; the baron-
age of England would not let the king come, and if he
essayed it against their will, he would be, as you know,
in danger of his liberty, if not of his life.'

"To which the king: ' What is all this, sir bishop? "VVe
know perfectly well that the duke of Normandy, my vassal,
acquired England by violence. What then! because a vassiil
increases in honour and power, is his seigneur suzerain to
lose his rights over him? Impossible!'

" The envoys seeing they had no valid answer to this,
returned to the king of England, and related to him what they
had seen and heard.

"But the king would not trust himself to the judgment of
the French, who loved him not; and he more especially feared
their assailing him touching the disgraceful death of Arthur;
and according to Horace

" Quia me vestigia terrent.
Omnia te adversum spectantia, nulla retrorsum."

" The great men of France proceeded all the same to judg-
ment, which they were not legally in a position to do,
since he whom they had to judge was absent, and had ex-
pressed his willingness to come if he could. Therefore, wlien
king John was condemned and despoiled by his adversaries,
it was illegally done." '

» Matthew Paris, p. 725.

CIVIMZATION IN FRANCE. 231

Legal or illegal, the condemnation was carried into full
effect, and Philip in virtue of it resumed possession of nearly
all the territory which his father Louis had so briefly held.
After this, he successively added other provinces to his states,
80 that the kingdom of France, limited, as you have seen,
under Louis le Gros to the He de France, and some portions
of Picardy and Orleanois, comprised in addition to these, in
1206, Vermandois, Artois, the Vexin-Francais, andtheVexin-
Normand, Berri, Normandy, Maine, Anjou, Touraine, Poitou,
and Auvergne.

A distinction, however, was still observed in this territory
between the kingdom of France, properly so called, and the
new acquisitions of the king; the proof of which is, that
of the offices established in the thirteenth century, called
Royal Provostries, that is to say, the king's own lands, admi-
nistered by his provosts, there were comprehended under the
name of prevotes de France only those situated within the
territory possessed by Philip before his acquisitions from
England: the other provostries were denominated ^ret?o<e« de
Normandie, de Touraine, &c.

In 1217, Philip Augustus possessed sixty-seven provos-
tries or manorial domains, of which thirty-two had been
added to the royal estates of France by himself; altogether
they produced him a revenue of 43,(K)0 livres.'

Such, in tlie territorial point of view, were the results of
the reign of Philip Augustus. Before him, under Louis VL
and Louis VII., royalty had become once more powerful as an
idea, as a moral force; Philip Augustus gave it a kingdom to
rule. Let us now see how, having secured a kingdom, he
exercised the royal power.

That in which government was more especially wanting
under the feudal system, was, as you are aware, unity, the
presence of a central power. It could not have entered the
mind of even the most ambitious of rulers, at once and directly
to set up royalty as a central power amidst tlie feudal society,
still in all its vigour. Philip Augustus, accordingly, made
no such attempt, but he endeavoured to collect around hiu.
the grand vassals, and to constitute them an assembly, a par-
liament; to give to the feudal courts, to the courts of peers,

• lirussel, Usage dcs Fiefs, i. -i'-'l — 4C.J.

232 HISTORY OF

a frequency, a political activity previously unknown, and thus
to advance her government some steps towards unity. His
personal preponderance had already become such, that he
took the lead without difficulty at all such meetings, and thus
rendered them far more useful than perilous to him. We
accordingly find them occurring under his reign, in political
matters, and even in legislation, far more frequently than
before. Many of the ordinances of Philip Augustus were
rendered " with the concurrence and assent of the barons ot
the kingdom," and thus had the force of law throughout the
extent of the kingdom, or at all events, in the domains of all
the barons who had sanctioned them.

In order to collect around him his great vassals, and to
make use of them as a means of government, Philip availed
himself successfully of the recollections of the court of Charle-
magne. From a series of causes which I shall mention
when we come lo the literary history of this epoch, the name
of Charlemagne and the memory of his reign resumed at this
juncture a very great influence over men's minds. This is
the period of the actual composition and of the great popularity
of the romances of chivalry, more especially of those of which
Charlemagne and his paladins are the heroes. It is only
necessary to open the Philippide of Guillaume le Breton, to
see to what a degree the public mind was then filled with these
productions. Philip Augustus sought to take advantage of
these memories and this taste of his period for the purpose of
collecting around him the barons, so as to renew the court of
Charlemagne, and thus create a principle of unity. The
attempt had no decided results, but it merits attention.

Philip was more successful in his efforts to emancipate
royalty from the ecclesiastical power. As I mentioned in the
last lecture, from Hugh Capet to Louis le Gros, royalty had
lived under the domination and, so to speak, under the banner
of the clergy, national or foreign. Under Philip Augustus
commenced the efficacious resistance of the crown both to
the national clergy and to the papacy. The fact, which has
played so important a part in our history, the separation of
the temporal from the spiritual power, royalty independent,
msisting that it subsists of its own riglit, alone regulating
civil affairs, and witliont intermission defending itself from
the ecclesiastical pretensions, under Philif Augustus we see

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 233

"■•se and rapidlj develop itself. In this design Philip very
skilfully made use of the support of his great vassals. An
example of this is seen in the following letter, which was
addressed to him, in 1203, by twelve of them, when Inno-
cent III. menaced him and his kingdom with interdict, if he
did not imn'cdiately conclude peace with John Lackland.

" I, Eu Jes of Burgundy, make known to all those to whom
the present letters shall come, that I have counselled my lord
Philip, the illustrious king of the French, to make neither
peace nor truce with the king of England, for the violence
or correction of the lord pope or any of the cardinals. If
the lord pope undertakes any violence upon this subject
against the lord king, I have promised my lord king as my
liege lord, and have bound myself by all which I hold from
him, that I will come to his assistance with my whole power,
and that I will make no peace with the lord pope but by the
mediation of the said lord king. Given, &c." '

Any one may here already recognise the language which
the barons and lay officers of the crown of France have often
used since on similar occasions.

It was not only the foreign ecclesiastical power, the pope,
whom Philip could thus resist: he submitted as little to the
yoke of the national clergy. In 1209, the bishops of Orleans
and Auxerre refused their contingent due for the fiefs which
they held from the king. Philip seized their domains, what
has since been called their temporalities. The pope laid an
interdict on him; he braved the interdict, and succeeded in
obliging the bishops to fulfil their feudal duties. We find
many analogous facts under his reign.

To bring some kind of unity into the royal governnipnt, by
making the great barons its centre, and to lay the foundation
of its independence by freeing it from the ecclesiastical
power, were the first two political labours of Philip Augustus.
I approach a third.

He occupied himself with legislation more than any of his
predecessors since Charlemagne and his children. Under the
first Capetians, we find scarcely any general act of legislation;
nay, of 1« gislation at all, properly so called. On the one hand,
as you know, everything was local, and all the possessors of

' Dumonl, Corpus Diplom. t. i. p. I'^f).

234 HISTORI OF

fiefs first, and afterwards all the great suzerains, possessed the
legislative power within their domains. On the other, men
did not trouble themselves as to the regularity of social rela-
tions; no one thought of introducing into them any fixedness,
any order, of of giving laws to them. Philip Augustus re-
commenced taking this part of the government into conside-
ration. We find in the Recueil des Ordonnances des Rois de
France, fifty-two ordinances or official acts, emanating from
him, some entire, others in fragments, others again only
mentioned in some monument of the time. They may be
classed as follows: 1. Thirty are relative to local or private
interests; these are concessions of charters, privileges, mea-
sures taken with respect to such or such a town, such or such
a corporation. 2. Five are acts of civil legislation, which
apply to the burghers, coloni, or peasants established in the
domains of the king; sometimes to authorize them to nomi-
nate a guardian for their children, sometimes to regulate the
rights of the woman on the death of her husband, &c. These
are customs which royalty converted into written laws.
3. Four are acts of feudal legislation decreeing certain points
in the situation of the possessors of fiefs. 4. Lastly, thirteen
may be classed under the head of political legislation, and are,
in point of fact, acts of government. I shall not here go
through their enumeration; several of them, indeed, are ot
no importance whatever; but I will lay before you the prin-
cipal of these acts, the instrument which Philip Augustus left
behind him on his departure for the crusades, and by which
he regulated the government of his states during his absence.
It is unquestionably the most remarkable of all these monu-
ments.

" In the name of the Holy and Indivisible Trinity, amen.
Philip, by the grace of God, king of the French:

" It is the duty of a king to provide for all the wants of
his subjects, and to prefer the public Avelfare to his own per-
sonal interests. As we are eager to accomplish the vow of
our pilgrimage, undertaken for the purpose of carrying
succour to the Holy Land, we have determined first to regu-
late, with the aid of the Most High, the manner in which the
affairs of our kingdom are to be managed in our absence, and
to make our last dispositions in this life to meet the event of
any misfortune occurring to us, according to the condition of
humanity, during our expedition.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 235

** ] . In the first place, then, we order that our bailiffs
Reject for each provostry, and commit to them our powers,
four men of good fame, wise, and trusty. The affairs of the
town and district are not to be managed without their counsel
and consent, or without the counsel and consent of at least
two of them. As to Paris, we order that it have six such,
all of them true and good men, and we name the following:
J , A , E , R , B , N .

" 2. We have also placed bailiffs on our lands, and have
&et forth their names. Once a month each of these in his
bailiwick shall assign a day, called Jour cV Assises, wherein
all those who have an}' complaint to make shall, without
delay, receive justice and satisfaction at their hands. On
tlie same day our bailiffs shall also, on our part, receive satis-
faction and justice. On the same day, further, there shall be
inserted in a book the particulars of forfeitures which may
from time to time accrue to us.

" 3. We will and order, moreover, that our beloved mother,
the queen, Adele, and our dear and trusty uncle, William,
archbishop of Reims, fix every four months, at Paris, a day
in which they will hear the complaints and demands of the
subjects of our kingdom, and do them right for the honour of
God, and the interest of the realm.

" 4. We order, further, that on the same day, men from
each of our towns, and our bailiffs holding assizes, shall come
before them and set forth in their presence the affairs of our
land.

" 5. If any of our bailiffs be found guilty of any other crime
tlian murder, rape, homicide, or treason, and he cannot be con-
victed before the archbishop, the queen and the other judges,
nominated to hear charges against our bailiff;*, we will that
letters be sent to us three times a year, to inform us of the
bailiff who has offended, the nature of the crime, what he
has received, and who the man is whose money, pre.-ents, or
services have made him sacrifice our rights or those of our
])eople.

" 6. Our bailiffs shall make us the same reports concerning
our provosts.

" 7. The queen and archbishop cannot deprive our bailiffs
of their charges, except for tlie crime of murder, rape, homi-
cide, or treason, nor can the bailifis de])rive the pruvuafa

236 HISTORY OF

except for the same offences. For all other cases we reserve
it to ourselves, with the counsel of God, to take such vengeance
upon the wrongdoers, when we shall know the truth of the
matter, as shall serve for a lesson to others.

" 8. The queen and the archbishop shall report to us
thrice a year the affairs and position of the kingdom.

" 9. If an episcopal see or an abbey become vacant, we
desire that the canons of the vacant church or the brethren
of the vacant monastery come before the queen and the arch-
bishop, as they would have come before ourselves, to claim
the right of free election; and we will that this right be
accorded them witliout hesitation. "We advise all such
chapters and monks to elect as their pastor one who will
please God, and do good service to the kingdom. The
queen and the archbishop will retain in their own hands the
revenues until the successor has been consecrated and blessed,
after which they shall transfer it to him without hesitation.

" 10. We moreover desire that if a prebend or an eccle-
siastical benefice becomes vacant, and the revenue thereof ia
placed in our hands, the queen and the archbishop take care
to confer it by the counsel of brother Bernard upon men
of honour and distinction, the best and most honourable they
can discover, reserving such particular donations as we have
made to individuals by our letters patent.

"11. We forbid all prelates of churches to give tax or
impost so long as we shall be employed in the service of God.
And if God our Lord should dispose of us, and we should
happen to die, we expressly forbid all the men of our land,
clerks or laymen, to give tax or impost until our son (whom
God deign to preserve whole and well for his service,) have
attained the age when, with the grace of the Holy Spirit,
he may duly govern our kingdom.

" 12. But if any one should make war upon our son, and
his revenues do not suffice to sustain it, then let all our
subjects assist him with body and goods, and let the churches
give him the same succour that they are wont to give us.

" 13. Moreover, we forbid all provosts and bailiffs to seize
a man or his goods when he shall offer good bail for his
appearance in our court, except in cases of homicide, murder,
rape, or treason.

" 14. We desire that all our revenues, services, and rentu

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE, 237

be brought to Paris, at three particular periods of the year:
\ at the Saint Remy ; 2, at the Purification of the Holy Virgin;
3, at the Ascension ; and delivered to our under-named citizens
and to the vice-marshal. If either of these die, Guilliaume de
Garland is to name a successor.

" 15. Adam, our clerk, shall be present at the reception
of our revenues, and register the particulars. Each of the
persons named shall have » key of all the coffers in which
our revenues shall be deposited in the Temple. The Temple
shall have one also. They shall send to us, of this revenue,
the amount, which from time to time we shall indicate in
our letters.

"16

"17

" 18. We also order the queen and the archbishop to retain
in their own hands, until our return from the service of God,
all the honours which we are entitled to dispose of when
they become vacant — those, at least, that they may retain de-
cently; such as our abbeys, deaneries, and other dignities.
Those which they may not retain they shall be:<tow according

to God, and after the counsel of brother G , and always

to the honour of God and the welfare of the kingdom. But
should we die in our pilgrimage, our will is, that all eccle-
siastical honours and dignities be conferred upon the most
worthy."

I omit some other articles, and I have not time to
snter into any detailed commentary upon those which '
have placed before you; but they exhibit an intention of
regular government, some ideas of administration, some no-
tions of order and liberty. It is evident from this single
document that royalty made, under Philip, great progress,
not only in the amount of territory which it swayed, but also
in the efficacy and regularity of its action.

He in like manner took great pains to draw a distinction
between, to separate, royalty from all the feudal powers. Ik'-
fure his time, tliis distinction was, as you have seen, alreadv
laid down and recognised; royalty was a special power, sui
genejis, completely out of the circle of feudalism, l^hilip
Augustus applied his efforts to render the distinction more
clear, more complete, to remove more and more from royalty
every vestige of a feudal character, and to give it greater

238 HISTORY OF

elevation and effect in its own character. At the same time
that he sedulously availed himself of his suzerainty as a means
of rallying his vassals around him, he lost no opportunity of
})lacing the king apart, of elevating him above the suzerain.
To give proofs of this: the king of France, holding, as you
are aware, fiefs of other persons, was in this respect their
vassal, and consequently owed them homage. Philip Au-
gustus laid down the principle that the king could not, nor
ought to do homage to any one. I find, in Brussel, the fol-
lowing royal ordinance: —

" Philip, &c. It becomes the royal dignity to recompense
by benefits those who are devoted to it, in order that our
recompence, worthily corresponding with their merits, may,
by the example, induce others to imitate them.

" Let all, therefore, present and to come, know that Philip,
count of Flanders, having resigned to us the town and
country of Amiens, we have clearly proved the fidelity and
devotion towards us of the church of Amiens; for not only has
it shown in this aifair infinite devotion, but the dependence of
the land, and of the said country belonging to this church,
and homage, therefore, being paid to it, this church has
benignantly consented and agreed that we should hold its fief
without doing homage to it therefore, for we ought not, and
cannot do homage to any one.

" Wherefore, in consideration of this devotion, we discharge
it from all liability to entertain us or our officers, and enjoin
it to remain tranquil on this head, so long as we and our suc-
cessors, kings of France, shall hold the country and lands of
Amiens. If one day this land should be held by any one
who may do homage to the church of Amiens, he shall do
homage to the bishop for the said fief; and then the bishop,
as the bishops of Amiens have been wont to do of old time,
shall perform the rites of hospitality due to us and our suc-
cessors, kings of France, and our officers."'

There are several other documents which exhibit the
application of the same principle.

Philip did not limit his activity to the extension of his power,
or to the direct and personal interests of royalty. Although we
cannot distinguish in him any regular moral intention, any

' Brussel, Usage des Fiefs, t. i. p. 102.

CIVILIZATION IN VRANCE. 2.'^9

8t*on2 purpose of justice, or of the social welfare of men, he had
n orraightforward active mind, ever full of a desire for order and
p''Ogress; and he effected many things in promotion of what
we should call the general civilization of the kingdom. He had
the streets of Paris paved; he extended and heightened the
walls; he constructed aqueducts, hospitals, churches, market-
places; he occupied himself earnestly with improving the
material condition of his subjects. Nor did he neglect their
moral development. The University of Paris owed to him
its chief privileges, and received even excessive protection.
To him, also, we are indebted for the institution of the
royal archives. It had before his time been the usual
custom of the kings to carry their archives — acts, titles, &c.
of the crown — with them wherever they went. In 1194, in
a Norman ambuscade near Vendome, Philip lost a number of
important securities which he was in the habit of then car-
rying with him. He at once resolved to discontinue the
practice, and founded an establishment in which, for the
future, all government documents were deposited. To these
facts, I might add many others of the same description; but
time presses. Let me, therefore, at once state the general
fact, in which all the rest result. Of the Capetian kings,
Philip Augustus was the first who communicated to French
royalty that character of intelligent and active good-will
towards the amelioration of the social state, and the progress
of national civilization, which for so long a period consti-
tuted its strength and popularity. All our history evidences
this fact, which received its final and most glorious develop-
ment in the reign of Louis XIV. It is traceable back to
Philip Augustus. Before his time, royalty had been neither
strong enough nor high minded enough to exercise such an
influence in favour of the civilization of the country; he gave
it that direction, and enabled it to advance therein.

The effects of this new character of royal power upon
men's minds were speedily manifested. Open the monuments
of that period, the Vie de Philippe Angnste, by Rigord, that
of Guillaume le Breton, the poem T.a Philippide, by the same
author, the minor poem of Nicholas de Bray on the sieges
of Rorliellc and Avignon by Louis VIII., and you will at
oiicc see royalty becoming national, occupying the thought of
the people. You will meet with an enthusiasm, often ridi-

840 HISTORT OF

OTiloug in form, and prodigiously exaggerated, but genuine &t
bottom, the ebullition of a sincere gratitude for the influence
exercised by that royalty, and for the progress which it
enabled society to make. I will quote but two passages, but
these will leave no doubt in your mind on this subject. Tlie
first, which I borrow from Guillaume le Breton, describe.<i
the public rejoicings after the battle of Bovines. Many a
battle had before this been fought by kings of France, many
a great victory achieved; but none of them had been as this
was, a national event, none had in this manner excited the
entire population: —

" Who can imagine, or narrate, or trace with the pen upon
parchment or tablets, the joyful plaudits, the hymns of triumph,
the innumerable dances of the people, the soft chants of the
priests, the harmonious sounds of the warlike instruments in
the churches, the solemn ornamenting of the churches both
within and without, the streets, the houses, the roads from all
the castles and towns festooned with curtains and tapestries
of silk, covered with flowers, herbs, and green boughs ; the inha-
bitants of every condition, of each sex and every age, hasten-
ing from all parts to see so great a triumph; the peasants and
reapers interrupting their labours, suspending at their necks
their sickles, their mattocks, and their nets, (for it was tlien
the time of the harvest,) and hastening in crowds to see in
irons this Ferrand, whose arms they had but lately feared. . . .
The whole road was like this until they arrived at Paris.
The inhabitants of Paris, and especially the multitude of the
scholars, the clergy, and the people, going before the king,
singing hymns and canticles, testified by their gestures the
joy which animated their minds; and it did not sufiice foi
them to give themselves up to mirth during the day, they con-
tinued their pleasure during the night, and even for seven con-
secutive nights, amidst numerous torches, so that the night
appeared as brilliant as the day; the scholars, especially, ceased
not to make sumptuousfeasts, continually singing and dancing."'

No\v, see how Nicholas de Bray describes the entrance of
Louis VIII. into Paris, and the reception which the town
gave him after his consecration at Reims: —

' Giillaume le Breton, Jlc de Philipe-Auguste, in my Collociit^c, t. *i
p. 36 L See also his PhiliiOiiJe. twelfth canto.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE, 241

" Then shone before the eyes of the prince the venerable
town, in which were exposed the riches amassed in former
times by the provident solicitude of *his ancestors. The
splendour of the precious stones rivalled tl^at of the orb ot
Phoebus; the light marvelled at being outshone by a new
light;" the sun thought that another sun illuminated the earth,
and complained to see his accustomed splendour eclipsed.
In the squares, cross-roads, and in the streets, one saw nothing
but clothes all glittering with gold, and on all sides shone
silk stuffs. Men laden with years, young people impatient at
heart, men to whom age had imparted greater gravity, could not
wait for their purple robes; men and women-servants scattered
themselves through the town, happy to bear on their shoulders
such rich weights, and thinking they owed no service duty to
any one, while they amused themselves with seeing all the
splendid costumes around them. Those who had not orna-
ments with which to clothe themselves on fetes so solemn,
paid for the loan of habits. In all the squares, and in
every street, all gave themselves up, in emulation of one an-
other, to each kind of public amusement. The rich did not
banish the poor from the hall of their festivities; everybody
spread themselves in all places, and eat and drank in common.
The temples were ornamented with garlands, the altars sur-
rounded with precious stones: all aromatics united in tlie
perfume of the incense which arose in clouds. In the
.streets and large cross-ways, joyous youths, and young timid
girls formed bodies of dancers; singers appeared, makinir nit-u
marvel with their joyous songs; mimics ran about, dnnvln-?
from the viol sounds full of sweetness; instruments re-
echoed on all sides; here the cithern, the timbrel, the
psaltery, guitars, making an agreeable syn;phony; all 'zave
their voices, and sang friendly sojigs for the king. Then
also were suspended processes, labours, and the studies of
logicians. Aristotle speaks no longer; Plato presents no
more problems, no longer seeks enigmas to resolve: the public
rejoicings have caused all kinds of work to cease. Tlu; roaii
by which the king advanced is agreeably strewn with flowers.
He ar last joyously enters his palace, and places himself in
his royal seat, surruunded by his great men."'

' Nicolas d« Brav, in my Collection, t. xi.
VOL III E

242 HISTORY OF

These fragments, more than many facts, paint truly what
royalty was at this epoch, what influence it exercised over
minds, and how, in the common opinion, its power was con-
nected with the improvement of public activity, the progress of
civilization. This is one of the great results of the reign of
Philip Augustus. Before him, under Louis le Gros, and
Louis le Jeune, the general principles, the moral ideas upon
which royalty rests, had gained vigour; but the fact did
answer to the right; the royal power was very limited in its
compass, and very weak in its action.

Philip Augustus conquered, gave it a large territory, and
the strength to rule it; and, by that natural law which wills
that ideas metamorphose themselves into facts, and facts into
ideas, the material progress of royalty, the result of the moral
ascendancy which it already possessed, gave to that ascendancy
more extension and energy. What use did Saint Louis make
of it? What became of royalty in his hands? This will be
the subject of the next lecture.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 243

FOURTEENTH LECTURE.

Royalty under the reign of Saint Louis — Influence of his personal character
— His conduct with regard to the territorial extent of the kingdom — His
acquisitions — His conduct towards the feudal society — His respect for
the rights of the seigneurs — True character of his labours agaiust feudalism
• — Extensionof the judicial power of the king — Progress of legislation and
of parliament — Extension of the legislative power of the king — Progresa
of the independence of royalty in ecclesiastical aflFaixs — Administration
of Louis within his domains — Summary

We have seen royalty again spring up under Louis le Gros,
the kingdom form itself under Philip Augustus. What did
Louis with royalty and the kingdom? This is the question
with which we shall now occupy ourselves.

Saint Louis began by doubting the legitimacy of what his
predecessors had done. In order to understand properly the
political history of his reign, it is necessary first to know the
man. Rarely has the personal disposition of one man
exercised so great an influence over the general course of
things.

Saint Louis was above all a conscientious man, a man wlid
before acting weighed the question to himself of the moral
good or evil, the question as to whether wliat he was about
to do was good or evil in itself, independently of all utility, of
all conse(|iiences. Such men are rarely seen and still more
rarely remain upon the throne. Truly speaking, there are
hardly more than two examples in history; one in antiquity,
the other in modern times: Marcus Aurelius and Saint Louis.
These are, perhaps, the only two princes, who, on every
occasion, have formed the first rule of their conduct from
their moral creeds — Marcus Aurelius, a stoic, Saint Louis,
a Christian.

k2

244 HISTORY OF

"Whosoever loses sight of this fundamental fact, will form a
false idea of the events accomplished under the reign of St.
Louis, and of the direction which he desired to give to royalty.
The man alone explains the progress of the institution.

Independently of the strictness of his conscience, Saint
Louis was a man of great activity, of an activity not only
warlike, chivalric^ but political, intellectual even. He thought
of many things, was strongly preoccupied with the state of his
country, with the condition of men, required regularity, reform-
ation; he concerned himself about evil wherever he saw it,
and everywhere wished to give a remedy. The need of acting,
and of acting well, equally possessed him. "What more is ne-
cessary to ensure the influence of a prince, and to give to him
a large share in the most general results?

Swayed by his moral exactitude, he began, as I have just
said, by doubting the legitimacy of what his predecessors had
done, especially the legitimacy of the conquests of Philip
Augustus. Those provinces, formerly the property of the
king of England, and which Pliilip Augustus had joined to
his throne by way of confiscation, that confiscation, and the
circumstances which attended it; the continued claims of the
English prince; all this weighed upon the conscience of Saint
Louis. This is not a conclusion simply drawn from his con-
duct; the fact is formally attested by the contemporaneous
chroniclers. I read in the Annales of the reign of Saint
Louis, by Guillaume de Nangis:

" His conscience smote him for the land of Normandy,
and for other lands which he held, which the king of
France, his ancestor, had taken away, by the judgment
of his peers, from king John of England, called Lack-
land, who was father of this Henry, king of England."

He essayed at peace with liis whole power; so that, in
1259, after lengthened negociations, he concluded a treaty
with the king of England, Henry III., by which he gave
up to him, Limousin, Perigord, Quercy, Agenois, and that
part of Saintonge lying between Charente and Aquitaine.
Henry on his side renounced all pretensions to Normandy,
Maine, Touraine, and Poitou. and did homage to Louis as
duke of Aquitaine.'

' Anuaief, du Renne de Saint Louis, by Guillaume de Nangis, p. 245,
folio edition of 17C1.

CIVIUZATION IN FRANCE. 245

The conscience of Saint Louis was then tranquil, and he
considered himself the legitimate possessor of the conquests
which he kept; but everyone was not so particular.

" At which peace many of his council were angry, and said
to him thus: ' Sire, we marvel much that you should give
to the king of England so large a portion of the land which
you and your predecessor have acquired from him and his
predecessors, kings of England, by reason of their misdeeds.
It seems to us that if you consider yourself not entitled to
these territories, you render not enough to the king of
England, unless you render to him all the land which you
and your predecessor acquired from him; and if you consider
that you have right to hold them at all, it seems to us that
you do damage to your crown by restoring that" which you
have restored.' Whereunto the holy king thus replied: ' My
lords, I know that the predecessors of the king of England
justly lost these lands, and that which I give I do not give
because I am bound to him or to his heirs to do so, but to
create love between my children and his, who are cousins
German; and it seems to me that that which I give him is
well employed, since that he who was not my man has now
become so.' "^

The reasons of Saint Louis did not convince every one.
The provinces which thus came under the English rule, com-
plained bitterly; and this anger lasted so long, that we read
in a manuscript chronicle of the time of Charles VI.
with regard to this treaty of 1259 between Louis IX. and
Henry IIL:

" At which peace the Perigordians and their neighbours
were so indignant, that they never liked the king afterwards,
and for that reason, even to the present xlay in the borders of
Perigord, Quercy and other places, although Saint Louis is
canonized by the church, they regard him not as a saint, and
do not keep his festival as is done in other parts of France."*

NotwitlwtiUKling the disapprobation thus manifested both
by politiciuns and by the people, Saint Louis adhered to his
scruples and to his maxims. lie had not deemed it just to
retain, without due compensation to the parties, that which

' JoinviUe, Hist, de Saint Louis, p. 142, ed. of IIGI

* Observations de C. Minard siir JoinviUe, edition of Du Gauge, p. 37L

246 HIETOKY OK

he did not regard as having been legitimately obtained; and
neither by force nor fraud did he attempt any new acquisi-
tion. Instead of seeking to profit by the dissensions which
arose within and around his states, he assiduously applied
himself to allay them, and to prevent their resulting in
ill consequences.

" He was," says Joinville, " ever laboriously intent upon
making peace between his subjects, and more especially be-
tween the great men about, and the princes of the kingdom."^

And elsewhere:

" Touching the foreigners whose quarrels the king had
appeased, some of his council said that he did ill not to_ allow
them to continue their warfare; for were he to let them
mutually impoverish one another, they would not be in so
favourable a position for attacking him. Whereunto the
king replied, that they said not well: ' for if the neighbouring
princes see that I allow them to make war on one another
without remonstrance, they may take counsel together, and
say, it is the king's maliciousness that induces him to let us
go on fighting; it would thus happen that by the hatred they
would have for me, they would come and attack me, whereby
I might very well be lost, not to speak of the hatred of God,
who says: ' blessed are the peacemakers.' "^

Well, notwithstanding this reserve, notwithstanding this
scrupulous antipathy to conquest, properly so called. Saint
Louis is one of those princes who most efficaciously laboured
to extend the kingdom of France. "While he ever refused to
avail himself of violence and fraud, he was vigilantly atten-
tive never to lose an opportunity of concluding advantageous
treaties, and of acquiring by fair means additional territory.
He thus annexed to the kingdom, either through his
mother, the queen Blanche, or by his own means, and some-
times for a pecuniary consideration, sometimes by disherison,
sometimes by other measures:

1. In 1229, the domains of the count de Toulouse on the
right bank of the Rhone, namely — the duchy of Narbonne,
the counties of Beziers, Agde, Maguelone, Nimes, Uzes, and
Viviers; a part of the country of Toulouse; half of the
country of Alby, the viscounty of Gevaudan, and the claims

1 JoinvUle, p. 143. » Ibid., 144;

CIVILIZATION IN FKANCE, 247

of the count of Toulouse, over the ancient counties of Velay,
Gevaudan, and Lodeve.

2. In 1234, the fiefs and jurisdiction of the counties of
Chartres, Blois et Sancerre and the viscounty of Chateaudun.

3. In 1239, the county of Macon;

4. In 1257, the county of Perche;

5. In 1262, the counties of Aries, Forcalquier, Foix, and
Cahors; and at various periods, several towns with their
districts, which would take up too much time to detail.

This you perceive was; in a territorial point of view, not
a fruitless reign; and notwithstanding the entire difference of
the means employed, the work of Philip Augustus found in
Saint Louis a skilful and successful continuator.

What political changes were introduced by his influence
into the kingdom thus extended? What did he for royalty?

I will say nothing to you about the state of weakness
into which it seemed fallen at the period of his accession. A
minority was for the powerful vassals an excellent occasion
of self-aggrandizement, for asserting their independence, and
for escaping awhile that supremacy of the crown which
Philip Augustus had begun to make them sensible of. Such
a movement as this appears throughout the thirteenth cen-
tury, at the opening of each new reign. The ability of
queen Blanche, and some fortunate circumstances, prevented
Saint Louis from experiencing any very enduring conse-
quences from this movement in his instance; and when he
himself began to reign, he found royalty once more in very
nearly the same position in which Philip Augustus had
left it.

Thoroughly to appreciate what it became in the hands of
Saint Louis, it is necessary to consider, on tlie one liand, his
relations with the feudal society, his conduct towards the
possessors of fiefs, great and small, with whom he had to do;
on the other, his administration of the interior of his do-
mains, his conduct towards his subjects peculiarly so called.

Tiie relations of Saint Louis with feudalism have been
presented under two very dififerent asjjects; there have been
attributed to him two wholly contradictory designs. Accord-
ing to some writers, far from labouring as his predecessors
had done to abolish feudalism, and to usurp, for the benefit
of the crown, the rights of the seiijiieurs, he fully accepted

248 HISTORY OF

the feudal society, its principles and its rights, and applied
all his efforts to regulate it, to constitute it, to give it a fixed
form, a legal existence. The other class of writers will have
it that Saint Louis had no other thought, during the whole
course of his reign, but that of destroying feudalism, that he
incessantly struggled against it, and systematically laboured
to invade the right of the possessors of fiefs, and to raise
royalty upon their ruins, sole and absolute.

And accordingly as the writers have been friends or
enemies of feudalism, they have admired and celebrated Saint
Louis for the one or for the other of these his alleged pur-
poses.

In our opinion, neither purpose can be really attributed to
him: both are equally repugnant to the facts, carefully con-
sidered and presented in their real aspect.

That Saint Louis, more so than any other king of France,
spontaneously respected the rights of the possessors of fiefs,
and regulated his conduct according to the maxims generally
adopted by the vassals around him, cannot be doubted. I have
already had occasion to show you the right of resistance,
even to the extent of making war upon the king himself,
formally recognised and sanctioned in his Etablissemens. It
were difficult to render more marked homage to the prin-
ciples of feudal society; and this homage frequently recurs
in the monuments of Saint Louis. He had evidently an
exalted idea of the reciprocal rights and duties of vassals
and suzerains, and admitted that, on a variety of occasions,
they were entitled to prevail over the pretensions of the
king.

And it was not merely in tlieory that he recognised these
rights; in practice, also, he scrupulously respected them,
even when he was the suflxirer by their exercise. In 1242,
he took by storm the castle of Fontenay, afterwards called
L'Abattu, in Poitou, belonging to the count de la Marche,
and which had been for a long time defended by a bastard of
tlie count's, " forty-one knights, eighty sergeants, and a body
of common soldiers under tliem." He wan advised to put
all the prisoners to death, as a punishment for their obsti-
nacy, and the losses which they had occasioned him, but he
refused. " No," said lie, " the leader could not be to blame,

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCR 249

for that he acted in obedience to his father, nor 'the others in
serving their seigneur." '

There is in these few words more than one impulse of
generosity; and there is, what is still rarer, the formal re-
cognition of the right of his enemies. In refusing to punish
them, Saint Louis believed he was doing, not an act of cle-
mency, but an act of justice.

The right of resistance was not the only right which Saint'
Louis recognised in his barons, and carefully respected. It
is only necessary to run your eye over the ordinances of his
which remain, to be convinced that he almost always con-
sulted them whenever their domains were at all in question,
and that he frequently summoned them to take part in the
measures of his government.

Thus, the ordinance of 1228, respecting the heretics of
Languedoe, is rendered with the advice of our great men and
yrudhommes?

That of 1230, concerning the Jews, with the common coun-
sel of our barons.^

That of 1246, concerning levies and redemptions in Anjou
and Maine, runs thus:

" We make known that some people having doubts as to the
custom in force with respect to bail and redemption in
the counties of Anjou and Maine, we, wishing to know the
truth, and make sure that which was doubtful, having called
around us, at Orleans, tlie barons and great men of the said
counties, and having held attentive counsel with them, have
learned, by tlieir common counsel, what is the said custom,
namely, &c." *

We read in the preamble of the Etahlisscmens :

" And these establishments were made by the great council
of wise men, and good priests." •''

The following fact is not of precisely the same description;
for it is no longer barons, the possessors of fiefs, but simple
burghers, who are concerned. An ordinance of 1262, con-
?tn-ning money, ends with the following words:

" This ordiiiHtu'c was made at Chartres, in tiie year 1262,

' Mrittlipw Paris, p. ^■l\. Guillaume de Nanpis, p. 183

* Rccmi! lies Ordotinniit<i, t. i. p. M. ' Jbid., p. .'iH

• Ibid., p. .js. » Ibid., p. 107.

250 HISTORY OF

about the middle of Lent; and to make it there Avcre present
the undermentioned freemen: Clement of Visiliac (Vezelai?)
John, called le Roide, John Hermann, citizen of Paris;
Nicholas du Chatel, Garin Fernet, Jacques Fris, burghers
of Provence; John de Lorry, Stephen Morin, citizens* of
Orleans; Evrard Maleri, John Pavergin, citizens of Sens;
RobaiUe du Cloitre, Pierre des Monceaux, citizens of Laon."'

Is not this a remarkable example of the care taken
by Saint Louis, when he made use of the legislative power,
to seek the advice and the adhesion of all those from whom
he might expect good counsel, or who had any direct interest
in the measures in question.

Here is another proof of the respect of Saint Louis
for the feudal principles and rights. In 1248, says Join-
ville:

" The king cited his barons to Paris, and made them take
oath that his children should receive faith and loyalty, if
anything happened to him on the way. He cited me; but I
would not make oath, for I was not his man."^

And the king saw no harm in one who was not his man
refusing to take the oath, and Joinville was not the less his
friend.

Can it be said that the prince who observes such conduct, and
such language, had systematically undertaken the destruction
of the feudal society, and neglected no occasion of abolishing or
invading the rights of the possessors of fiefs, for the benefit
of royalty?

Or is it any more true that he accepted feudalism entire,
and was not occupied in giving it that regularity, that
general and legal organization which it had always wanted?
I do not think so.

It will be recollected that in examining feudal society in
itself, and particularly in its judicial organization, we found
that it had never been able to arrive at true institutions, that
no regular, peaceful administration of justice had been
established in it; and that, sometimes under the form
of private war, sometimes under that of the judicial duel,
recourse to force was the true jurisdiction of feudal society.

• Becueil des Ordonnances, p. 94.
s Joiuville, p. 25, edit, of ITtil.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE.- 251

To him who penetrates somewhat deeper into its nature, the
private war and judicial combat were not, as you have seen,
simple facts inherent in the brutality of manners; they were
the natural means of ending differences, the only means
in accordance with the- predominant principles and the
social state.

Private wars and judicial combats were therefore the
proper institutions, the two essential bases of feudalism.
Now, these are precisely the two facts which Saint Louis
attacked the most energetically. We have two ordinances
of his upon this subject, which I shall quote entire; be-
cause they are perhaps the two most important legislative
acts of his reign, and clearly show its tendency.

The first institutes that truce which was called Quarantaine
du RoL We find some trace of it before Saint Louis: we
read in the Coutume de Beauvaisis :

" A very ill custom of warfare used to be prevalent in the
kingdom of France; when any person had killed, or maimed,
or severely beaten another, he to whom the injury had been
done, or his friends, if he were dead, looked to revenge him-
self on the relations of the offender, though they lived at
however great a distance, and knew nothing whatever of the
matter; and thereupon they went in search of them, by night
or day, and as soon as they had found one of them, killed him,
or maimed him, or beat him, without any warning or putting
him on his guard, though he Jcnew nothing of the misdeed
that the person of his lineage had committed. In consequence
of the great evils which rose from this custom, the good king
Philip made an ordinance that when any wrong had been
done, they who were present at the wrong doing should hold
themselves on their guard, without further notice, and that
there should be no truce for them until so settled by justice,
or by the intervention of friends; but all the kinsmen of both
sides wlio were not present at the fact have by tliis regulation
of the king forty days' truce, after which forty days they are
at war."'

Tliat is to say, that no one can attack the relations of one
of the pnrties, nor commit any depredation in their lands,
nor do them any harm, for forty days from the breaking

' Beiiuruanoir, Coutume de Beauvaisis, c. CO, p. 306.

252 HISTORY OF

out of the quarrel, and until they may be looked upon as
having knowledge of it, and are put upon their guard.

Although it has often been disputed, it is, in my opinion,
Philip Augustus whom Beaumanoir means by these words, the
good king Philip, and consequently it- is to him that the first in-
vention of the " quarantaine of the king" should be attributed.
But it succeeded ill, and Saint Louis felt the need of .again
prescribing it in much more formal terms. His ordinance
to this effect is given entire in an ordinance of king John,
given the 9th of April, 1353, of which the following is the
text: —

" At this same time, by ordinances of happy memory, St.
Louis of France, our royal predecessor, during his own life-time,
established and ordered that whenever any discords, quarrels,
or skirmish took place between subjects of this kingdom, in
ambush or otherwise, and death, mutilation, or other injury
befel in consequence, as often happened, the relations of those
engaged in the said skirmish should remain at peace for
forty continuous days from the said skirmish, except only
those persons who actually took part in it; which latter per-
sons, for that their misdeed might be taken and arrested, as
well during the said forty days as after, and might be confined in
the prisons of the justiciaries in whose jurisdiction the offence
was committed, until justice were done in their case, accord-
ing to the law; and if within the term of forty days aforesaid,
any of the kinsmen of either of the principal parties engaged,
should assail or maltreat any of the kinsmen of the other
party, to take vengeance upon thean, except the principal
malefactors aforesaid, who might be pursued at once, the
persons so offending, as infringers of the royal statutes and
ordinances, shall be punished by the judge in whose juris-
diction they shall commit the said offence, or by the judge of
the place where they shall be taken; which ordinances, in
various parts of our kingdom, and not without reason, are
still firmly observed for the public good, the safety of the
country, and the protection of the inhabitants of our said
kingdom."'

Such a truce was doubtless a strong barrier against and a
great restriction to private wars. Saint Louis made it hii
constant business to secure its observance.

' Itecueil des Ordonnances, t. i. p. 56 — 5tt.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 258

He at the same time attacked judicial duels; but here his
task was far greater. The judicial duel was, even still more
than private warfare, a regular institution, deeply and widely
rooted in feudal society. The -possessors of fiefe, great and
small, adhered tenaciously to it, as to a custom, a right. The
attempt, to interdict it all at once throu^ihout the kingdom,
was impracticable; the great barons would instantly have denied
the right of the king thus to change the institutions and
practices of their domains. Accordingly, Saint Louis con-
tented himself with formally suppressing the judicial duel in
the royal domains. His ordinance on the subject ran thus:

" We prohibit all private battles throughout our domains;
whatever right of claim, and answer thereto, whatever peaceful
modes, of settling disputes have been in force hitherto, we
fully continue; but battles we forbid; instead of them we
enjoin proof by witnesses, and further, whatever other just
and peaceful proofs have been heretofore admitted in courts
secular.

" We command that if any one seek to accuse another of
murder, he be heard. When he demand to make his charge,
the officer shall say to him: * If you wish to enter an accu-
sation of murder, you shall be heard, but with this under-
standing, that if you fail in your ])roof, you subject yourself
to the penalty your adversary would endure were he found
guilty. And be sure you shall not have trial by battle; you
must make good your charge by witnesses, as best you may,
and shall have all just aid in doing so; no proof heretofore
received in courts secular shall be refused you, except the
proof by battle; and understand that your adversary shall
have full liberty to disprove your witnesses, if he can.' *

" And if he who sought to make accusation, having heard
the officer say thus, does not wish to pursue his plaint, he
shall be allowed to withdraw it without damage. If, on the
other hand, he prosecute it, he shall do so after the custom of
the country, and after such custom in like manner have justice
administered unto him. And when the case comes to that
point at which battle would have taken place, had proof by
battle continued, that which would have been proved by
battle shall be proved by witnesses; and the witnesses shall
attend at the expense of him who requires them, if he is able
to pay.

254 HISTORY OF

" And if the defendant has any reason to allege why tha
witnesses brought against him ought not to be heard, he shall
be at liberty to state his reasons, and if they are found good
and valid, the witnesses shall not be heard; if the reasons,
controverted by the other party, be found inadequate, then
the witnesses on both sides shall be heard, and judgment
shall be given according to the evidence, after it has been
read to the parties.

" And if it should happen that after the said reading the
party against whom the witnesses have appeared should de-
clare himself to have legitimate exception to what they have
stated, they shall be examined again; and after this judgment
shall be given. Such shall be the rule, in all disputes touch-
ing treason, rapine, arson, theft, and all crimes imperilling
life or limb.

" In all the aforesaid cases, when any one is accused before
any of our bailiffs, he shall inquire into the matter up to the
point when proof is to be taken ; and then he shall report the
question to us, and leave it to us to hear the evidence; and
send such witnesses as are fitting, and we will take counsel
thereupon with those who are duly called upon to assist at
the judgment.

" In disputes arising out of serfage, he who claims a man
as his serf shall make his demand, and pursue it as hereto-
fore up to the point of battle. Then, instead of battle, he
shall prove his case by witnesses, or documents, or other
good and legal proofs, such as have been accustomed to be
admitted in courts seculai*. All wc prohibit is the trial by
battle; that which used to be tried by battle, shall now be
made matter of testimony. And if the plaintiff fails in his
proof, he shall be fined at the discretion of the seigneur.

" If any one charge his seigneur with deffaute de droit, the
default must be proved, not by battle, but by witnesses. If
it be not proved, the plaintiff shall pay a fine, according to
the custom of the country; if it be proved, the seigneur shall
do him right, and pay him or restore to him his due.

" In cases of disputed serfage, and when a man appeals
against his seigneur, for deffaute de droit, if, after the evidence
has been read, he who is proceeded against claims to say any-
thing excepting to the witnesses, he shall be heard.

" Whoever is found guilty of perjury in any of these cases,
shall be punished by the hand of justice.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 255

'* And these battles we prohibit in our domains for all time
to come, retaining all our other customs of the said domains,
heretofore in force, but so that we may prohibit or discon-
tinue any of these should we think fit to do so."'

The solicitude with which the king repeats, at the close of
the ordinance, the intimation given in the outset, that it is in
his own domains that he suppresses the trial by battle, is a
clear proof that more extended pretensions on his part would
not have been admitted.

But that which Saint Louis could not absolutely order, he
endeavoured to effect by his example and personal influence.
He negotiated with his grand vassals, and induced several of
them to abolish the judicial duel in their domains. This
practice, so deeply rooted in feudal manners, still continued,
it is true, to subsist for a long time after this, and we come
upon more than trace of it at later periods, but it doubtless
received a powerful shock from the ordinance of Saint Louis,

Thus, while respecting the rights of the possessors of fiefs,
while adopting many of the maxims of feudal society. Saint
Louis assailed its two fundamental supports, its most charac-
teristic institutions. Not that he had conceived any general
and systematic project against feudalism; but the judicial
duel and private wars were not, in his view, consistent with
a regular and Christian society; they were manifestly relics
of the ancient barbarism, of that state of individual indepen-
dence and warfare which has been so habitually designated
the state of nature: now, the reason and the virtue of Saint
Louis botli revolted against this condition of things; and in
combating it, his sole idea was the suppression of disorder,
the institution of peace for war, of justice for brute force, of
society, in a word, for barbarism.

But this fact alone accomplished a change highly to the
advantage of the crown. Throughout all the king's domains,
the vassals, the burghers, the free or demi-free men, instead
of having recourse, as tlieretofore, to the wager of battle for
the decision of their disputes, were now obliged to refer their
quarrels to the king's judges, his bailiffs, provosts, and so
forth. Royal jurisdiction thus took the place of individual
force; its olRcers decided by their sentence questions which

Kccucil (lis Ordonitances, i. 80

256 HJSTOUY OF

before were settled by the champions on either side. Had
this been the only point achieved, it would assuredly liave
been an immense step taken in the judicial power of royalty.

But it was not the only point achieved: Saint Louis effect-
ed many others, which I shall here merely indicate to you.
When we come specially to examine the great legislative
monuments of the feudal epoch, among others the etablisse-
mens of this monarch, we shall see what changes were ope-
rated in the various jurisdictions, and how those powers
which had appertained to the feudal courts were progres-
sively transferred to the coui'ts of the king. Two facts, the
introduction, or rather the considerable extension of the
COS Toyaume and of the appels, were the decisive instrument
of this revolution. By the operation of the cas royQ.ux —
that is to say, the cases in which the king alone had the right
of judgment, his officers, parliaments, or bailiffs, restricted
the feudal courts within narrower and narrower limits. By
the operation of the appeals, which greatly aided the con-
fusion of sovereignty and royalty, they made these courts
subordinate to the royal power. Thus feudal jurisdiction
witnessed the decline at once: 1, of its true and natural in-
stitutions, judicial combat, and private warfare; 2, of its
extent; 3, of its independence; and it soon found itself
under the necessity of recognising in the judicial power of the
crown, a conqueror and a master.

Much the same thing took place with reference to legis-
lative power. We read in the chronicle of Beauvaisis:

"Kings are supreme sovereigns, and have of right the
general guardianship of the kingdom; wherefore they may
make such ordinances as they think fit for the common advan-
tage; and what they establish must be observed,"^

Had this maxim been received as a general and ab-
solute rule, it must at once have destroyed the legislative
independence of the proprietors of fiefs, for it was nothing
less than the clear and unqualified recognition of the general
legislative power of the king, and of the king alone. But
practically, no such sovereignty was attributed to him; and,
as you have just seen, Saint Louis, for the most part, made
it a point in legislation to summon to his counsels the

' Coutume de Beauvaisis, c. 31, p. 181.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 257

barons, or others of his subjects, who were directly interested
in the matter. Yet it is quite certain that the legislative
sovereignty of the king was gaining ground at this tftne.
To be convinced of this, we need only glance at the ordi-
nances rendered by Saint Louis in the course of his reign,
from 1226 to 1270. Of these the Louvre collection cor*
tains or mentions fifty, which I have thus classified:

20 on subjects of private interest, local privileges, parish
matters, &c.
4 on the Jews, and their position in the kingdom.
24 of political feudal penal legislation, viz. :

1. In 1235, an ordinance touching the relief or

redemption of fiefs.

2. In 1245, an ordinance touching private wars,

called *' la quarantaine du roi."

3. In 1246, an ordinance touching the leasing and

redemption of fiefs in Anjou and Maine.

4. In 1 248, letters, whereby the kmg, on his depar-

ture for the crusades, confers the regency on the
queen mother.

5. In 1250, letters, touching the regulation of Lan-

guedoc,

6. In 1254, ordinance touching the reformation of

manners both in Languedoc and in Languedoil.

7. In 1254, further ordinance on the same subject.

8. In 1256, ordinance for the general improvement of

the kingdom, and on the administration of jus-
tice.

9. In 1256, ordinance touching the mayoralties

throughout the kingdom.

10. In 1256, ordinance touching the election of

mayors in the good towns of Normandy.

11. In 1257, ordinance touching private war?, and the

qxiarantaine du roi.

12. In 1259, letters containing regulations for Lan-

guedoc.

13. In 1260, ordinance on the judicial duel.

14. In 1261, ordinance respecting the prosecution jf

debtors in the royal domains.

15. In 1262, ordinance on the coinage.

VOL. HI. s

258 HISTORY OF

16. In 1263, ordinance on the retreat at Pont Au-

demer.

17. In 1265, ordinance on the circulation of English

money.

18. In 1265, on the coinage.

19. In 1268, ordinance on ecclesiastical election, &c.

20. In 1268, ordinance against blasphemers.

21. In 1269, ordinance respecting tithes.

22. In 1269, letters to the two regents of the king-

dom during his last crusade.

23. In 1269, ordinance respecting tithes.

24. In 1269, ordinance against blasphemers,
2 miscellaneous.

In this table I have not included either the Estahlisse-
mens of Saint Louis, or the Establissemens des Metiers de
Paris, his two greatest legislative labours; and yet, in the
simple series of legislative acts I have enumerated, who would
not recognise a character of sovereignty which has not been
exhibited in the preceding reigns? The fact alone that the
acts relating to matters of general interest are far more
numerous there than those which have reference to local or
private interests, this fact alone, I say, clearly shows the
immense progress of the legislative power of royalty.

The same progress becomes visible under the reign of
Saint Louis, in what concerns ecclesiastical affairs. I shall
at present merely speak of it in passing. When we treat of
the history of religious society during the feudal period, we
shall see what then were its relations with the civil autho-
rity, and how they were successively modified. It is only
necessary to call to mind that famous ordinance of Saint
Louis, called la Pragmatique, by which he so positively
affirmed and maintained the independence and the privileges
both of his crown and of the national church, in their relation
with papacy. It has been printed so often that I shall
dispense with quoting it here. And it must not be supposed
that this ordinance was an isolated act, an insignificant pro-
test on the part of Saint Louis. In the habitual conduct
of affairs, this, the most pious of kings, the only one of his
race who obtained the honours of canonization, acted effec-
tively and constantly according to the principles laid down in
*<ie Prn<jmntiqne, and allowed no ecclesiastical influence to

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 259

invade, or even to direct his government. The following
fact, related by Joinville, will prevent all doubt upon the
subject:

" Archbishop Guy, of Auxerre, spoke for all the prelates of
the kingdom of France: — " Sire, the archbishop and bishops
here present, have charged me say to you that Christianity
becomes deteriorated and falls away in your handsj and will
fall away still more, unless you take counsel so that no one
may have further cause to fear. We require you, sire, to
command your bailiffs and sergeants to compel such as have
been excommunicated a year and a day, to give satisfaction
to the church;" and the king answered them that he would
readily command his bailiffs and sergeants to take measures
against the excommunicated as required, on condition of his
being first made acquainted with the particulars of the case,
so that he might know whether the sentence were a just one.
To which, aftfr consulting with one another, they replied,
that th(;y considered they were not called upon to give him
cognisance of matters connected with religion. Thereupon
the king replied, that if they would not give him cognisance
of these matters, neither would he command his sergeants to
compel the excommunicated, right or wrong, to submit them-
selves to the church; " for if I were to do so I should act
against God and against justice; and I will give you an
example of this. The bishop of Brittany held the count of
Brittany for seven years under excommunication, and yet
after all he was absolved by the court of Rome; so that had
I constrained him to submit himself to the bishops in the first
vear, I should have done wrong."^

Such was the government ot' Saint Louis in its general
features; and such under his reign was the progress of roy-
alty, both in its relations with feudtilism and with the church.
Let us now follow liim into his domains: there he was free,
and administered at his own will.

Two gri'at ordinances of his for the reform of that in-
ternsd administration, have reached us. One is of the month
of December, 1254, in thirty-t'ight articles; the other of
125G, which contains twenty-six. They are nearly alike,
but the second is more general and more definitii. I will

« Joinville. p. 140.
S2

260 HISTORY OF

analyse it article, by article; its character deserves to bf)
thoroughly known.

In articles 1 — 8, the king imposes on his seneschals,
bailiffs, provosts, magistrates, viscounts, mayors, foresters,
sergeants, and other officers, high and subalterns, an oath to
make or receive no present, to administer justice without
regard to persons; and then he enumerates a number of
abuses and frauds which have introduced themselves into
the administration, and which he desires to prevent. The
eighth article runs thus: —

" And in order that this oath may be the more firmly
adhered to, we will that it be taken in full court, before all
clerks and laymen; so that, having sworn it before us, he
may hesitate to incur the crime of perjury, not only for fear
of God and of us, but for shame of the people."

This appeal to publicity is a remarkable circumstance, and
indi(!ates a firm design to ensure the efficacy of regulations,
often in themselves illusive.

Articles 9 — 12 interdict public games, evil places, and
blasphemies: regulate the police of taverns and of all places
where the inferior population meet.

Articles 13 — 15 forbid all superior officers of the king,
bailiffs, seneschals, or others, to purchase moveables, to give
their children in marriage, to procure them benefices, or
to make them enter monasteries, in places where they exer-
cise their office.

Articles 16 — 21 are directed against a number of abuses
detailed, such as the sale of offices without the permission of
the king, too great a number of sergeants, excessive fmes, the
intercepting the free transport of grain, &c.

Article 25 runs thus: —

" We will that all our seneschals, bailiffs, and other
officers, after they have quitted their offices, remain for forty
days' space in the districts which they have administered,
either in person or by deputy, so that they may appear
before the new senesclials, bailiffs, or other official commis-
sioners, to answer any who may have complaint against
them."

Is not this a real responsibility imposed upon the adminis-
trators? a lesponsibility efficacious in itself, and perhaps the
only one which was then practicable.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 261

Lastly, by the 26th article, the king reserves to himself
the right of amending his ordinance, according as he shall
learn the state of the people and the conduct of his officers.'

In order to learn this he took a measure which has been
too little remarked: he re-established the missi do?ninici of
Charlemagne. We read in the Vie de Sai7it Loins, by the
confessor of queen Marguerite his wife:

" The blessed king hearing many times that his bailiffs and
provosts wronged the people of his land, either by iniquitous
judgments, or by tyrannically depriving them of their goods,
appointed certain commissioners from time to time, either
minorite brothers and preachers, or secular priests, or occasion-
ally knights, to inquire into the conduct of the various bailiffs
and provosts and sergeants throughout the kingdom; and hfi
gave the said commissioners power, whenever they found that
goods had been wrongfully taken from any person by the said
bniliffs or other ofiicers, forthwith to restore the goods, and
to dismiss the wrong-doing provosts or other oflicers."-

Indeed, in the history of Saint Louis, we find many inspec-
tions of this kind, and from which practical results accrued. A
bailiff of Amiens, among others, in consequtmce of a similar
inspection, was deprived of his office, and forced to give up
all that lie had taken from the people.

Upon the state and administration of the provostship of
Paris in particular, Joinville has given us details which show
tiiat the relbrming activity of Saint Louis was everywhere
and truly efficacious: I will place these details before you.

" The provostry of Paris was at that time sold to the
citizens of Paris or to any one who chose to purchase it;
wlience it happened that the persons who had bought it so
supported their sons and nephews in their outratrcs, tliat the
young men went on offending without fear, having full con-
lidtnce in their relations and in their friee.ds wiio stood Ijy
tlieni. Whence the lower people came to be grievously
)p()ressed, having no means of obtaining redress for the
injuries of the rich, who by great gifts and presents gained

over the provosts By v.'.iicii great injuries and

S]K)liation committed in that provo.-try, the common people

' Ei-niril dts OrdoinintiCfS, t. i. p. 7n — Hi.

- J'ie lit: Saint Louis, by ihe ctufessor yf iiueen Miirgucnte, p. o87, edit
1701.

262 HISTORY OF

were deterred from remaining in the king's land, and went
to live in other provoptries and lordships, whereby the king's
land became so depopulated of the more creditable common
people, that when he held his pleas there were not more than
ten or twelve persons who attended them. All this while
Paris and its suburbs were full of malefactors and thieves,
who daily and nightly scoured the country around. The
king, who was earnestly desirous that the common people
should hiJve full protection, diligently inquired into the truth,
and thereupon commanded that the provostry of Paris should
never again be sold, but be given to trusty and worthy per-
sons who should receive good wages for the discharge of its
duties; all the evil customs by which the people had been
aggrieved he put down, and sent commissioners throughout the
kingdom to do good and rigid justice, not sparing the rich
man more than the poor. The first provost so appointed was
Stephen Boileau, who so well executed his charge that no
malefactor, robber, or murderer could remain in Paris without
being hanged or thrown into prison; neither kinsman nor
friends, nor gold nor silver, could save the ill-doer from
punishment. The king so improved the condition of his land
that the people came there for the sake of the inflexible jus-
tice which he administered. The population thus increased
to such an extent that rents and redemptions and reliefs of
lands and other property produced twice as much as before
the king took the matter in hand.'

Stephen Boileau was the principal author of one of the
great legislative works of Saint Louis, the Etablisseinents des
Corps et Metiers of the town of Paris. This curious document,
still in manuscript in the king's library, gives the enumera-
tion and internal regulations of all the industrial corporations
which then existed at Paris, regulations of which the largest
portion were the work of Stephen Boileau himself.

Such was the administration of Saint Louis in the interior
of his domains. You clearly see that there, as in his rela-
tions with the possessors of fiefs, was nothing systematic,
nothing which seemed to have a general principle for a
starting point, and wliicli tended towards a sole, long pre-
meditated end. He undertook neither to constitute, nor to

« Joiuville, p. 140.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 263

abolish feudalism. Despite the strictness of his conscience
and the influence of his devotion, there was, in his practical
life, a remarkably sensible and free spirit, which saw things
vs they were, and gave them the remedy which they needed,
without troubling himself as to whether they were conform-
able with such or such general view, whether they led to
such or such distant consequence. He went to the actual
pressing fact; he respected right wherever he recognised it;
but when beliind right, he saw an evil he directly attacked it,
not in order to use that attack as a means of invading the
right, but really to suppress the evil itself. I repeat: a firm
good sense, an extreme equity, a good moral intention, the
taste for order, the desire for the common weal, without
systematic design, without forethought, without political com-
bination, properly so called, is the true character of the
government of Saint Louis ; it was hence that feudalism
was greatly weakened under his reign, and royalty in progress.
In our next lecture we shall see what it became after
Saint Louis, especially under the reign of Philip le Bel and
his three sons, to the end of the feudal epoch, properly so
called.

264 HISTOBY OF

FIFTEENTH LECTURE.

State of royalty after the reign of Saint Louis — In right it was neither ab-
solute nor limited — In fact, incessantly combated, and yet far supe-
rior to every other 'power — Its tendency to absolute power — Thin
tendency appeared under Philip le Bel — Influence of the personal cha-
racter of Philip le Bel — Various kinds of despotism — Progress of abso-
lute power in the legislation — Examination of the ordinances of Philip
le Bel — True characters of the composition and of the influence of na-
tional assemblies under his reign — Progress of absolute power in judi-
cial matters — Struggle between the legists and the feudal aristocracy —
Extraordinary commissions — Progress of absolute power with regard to
taxes — Reaction of the feudal aristocracy against absolute power under
the three sons of Philip le Bel — Associations of resistance — Embarrass-
ment in the order of succession to ^he throne — Enfeeblement of royalty
at the end of the feudal epoch.

We have already been present at the progressive develop-
ment of royalty during about three hundred years, from the
accession of Hugh Capet, in 987, to the deatli of Saint Louis,
in 1270. Let us recapitulate in a few words what it was at
this period.

In right, it was not absolute ; it was neither imperial
royalty, founded, as you know, upon the personific;>tion of
the state, nor Christian I'oyalty, founded upon the representa-
tion of the Divinity. Neither one nor the other of the prin-
ciples predominated in French royalty at the end of the
thirteenth century; neither one nor the other gave it abso-
lutism.

Still, if it was not absolute in right, neither vvas it
limited. In the social order there was no institution which
balanced it; no regular counterpoise, either by any great
aristocratical body, or by any popular assembly. In the

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 265

moral order, there was no principle, no powerful idea gene-
rally admitted, and which assigned limits to the royal power.
Men did not believe that it had a right to do everything, to
extend to all things; but they knew not, they did not even
seek to know where it ought to stop.

In fact, royalty was limited and incessantly combated by
independent, and to a certain point, rival powers — by the
power of the clergy, and especially by that of the great pro-
prietors of fiefs, direct or indirect vassals of the crown. Still,
it possessed a force infinitely superior to any other — a force
which, as you have seen, was formed by the successive
acquisitions of Louis le Gros, Philip Augustus, and Saint
liOuis, and which, at the end of the thirteenth century, with-
out any doubt, placed the king beyond compari-son at the
head of the great lords of France.

Thus, in right, here was no sovereignty systematically
unlimited, but no limits converted into institutions or into
national doctrines; in fact, adversaries and embarrassments,
but no rivals; such, in truth, was the condition of royalty,
wlien Philip le Hardi succeeded Saint Louis.

There was here, I need hardly say, a fertile germ of ab
solute power — a marked inclination towards despotism.
Hitherto, we have not seen this germ develop itself. It would
be totally unjust to pretend that, from the tenth to tlie middle
of tlie thirteenth century, royalty laboured to render itself
absolute; it laboured to re-establish some order, peace,
justice; to raise some shadow of society and general govern-
ment. There was no question of despotism.

There is nothing to be surprised at in this. All institu-
tions, all social forms begin, in their development, by the
good they are to do. It is by this title, as they are more
or less useful to society, more or less in harmony with it§
existing general wants, that it becomes acredited and in-
creases. Such was the progress of royalty under the reigns
of Louis le Gros, Pliilip Augustus, and Saint Louis: Louis
le Gros, by repressing a number of petty tvrants in and about
his domains, and by giving to royalty its cliaracter of a public
power ;;nd j)rot(?ctor; Philip Augustus, by reeonstructing the
kingdom, and by again giving to the nation tiirough his wars
against foreigners, the splendour of his court, and his etTorts at

266 History of

civilization, the sentiment of nationality; Saint Louis, by
impressing upon his government the character of equity,
respect for rights, love of justice and the public good, which
is seen in all his acts, assuredly rendering to France the most
important, the most essential services; and it may be said
without hesitation that, during this epoch, good prevailed
over evil in the development of French royalty, and moral
principles, or at least principles of public interest, over prin-
ciples of absolute power.

Still the germ of absolute power was there, and we now
arrive at the epoch when it began to be developed. The
metamorphosis of royalty into despotism is the characteristic
of the reign of Philip le Bel. If we believe a somewhat old-
fashioned theory, but one which has resumed in our times
confidence in itself, and some degree of credit — if it be true
that all things here below are necessarily, fatally connected,
without human liberty having anything to do or anything
to answer for — we should simply understand that at the end
of the thirteenth century, the circumstances amidst which
royalty was displaying itself, the social and intellectual state
of France, made of that invasion of absolute power, a necessity
which no one brought about or could prevent; that, accord-
ingly, it can be attributed to no one, and that no one is guilty
of this evil. Fortunately, the theory is false.

In fact, as I have already remarked, the personal character,
the free-will of the kings who reigned from the eleventh to
the thirteenth century, powerfully influenced the course of
things, especially the destinies of royalty. You have seen,
among others, hoAv great a part Saint Louis, in person, took
in the turn of the institutions under his reign. It was the
same under Philip le Bel; his personal character had much to
do with the new phase wliich royalty then assumed. Inde-
pendently of all the general causes which doubtless concurred
to it, evil in himself and despotic by nature, he impelled it,
perhaps, more violently than any other cause towards absolute
power.

There are great varieties in despotism; I do not merely
speak of great inequalities as regards the degree of despotism,
but of great varieties in the very nature of despotism and in
its effects. For some men absolute power has scarcely been
more than a means; they were not governed by completely

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE- 267

egoistical views; they turned over in their minds plans of public
utility, and made use of despotism to attain them. Charle-
magi^, for example, and Peter the Great in Russia, were
true despots, but not exclusively egoistical despots, occupied
solely with themselves, consulting merely their own caprices,
acting only with a personal end in view. They, each of
them, in his own country, had general and disinterested
views and wishes concerning the destiny of men, views in
which the satisfaction of their own passions held but the least
place. Despotism, I repeat, was for them a means, not an
end — a means vicious in its nature, and which carries evil
into the bosom of the good which it accomplishes; but which
serves, at least sometimes, to hasten the progress of good,
while giving it an impure alloy.

For other men, on the contrary, despotism is the end itself,
because they blend egoism with it; they have no general views,
form no design of public interest, seek, in the power of which
they have the disposition, the satisfying of their passions and
caprices, of their miserable and ephemeral personality. Such
was Philip le Bel. During the whole course of his reign,
we encounter no general idea which relates to the good of his
subjects. He is a selfish despotic, devoted to himself, who
reigns for himself, and asks of power only the accomplish-
ment of his own will. Just as great as was the place which
the personal virtue of Saint Louis held in his government, so
great was the influence exercised by that personal wickedness
of Philip le Bel over his, and as powerfully did it contribute
to the new turn — to that moral and despotic turn which
royalty took under his reign.

I shall not recount the Jiistory of Philip le Bel; I always
take some knowledge of events as granted. It is more espe-
cially in original documents, in the legislation or political acts-
of all kinds, that I seek the history of institutions, and that
of royalty in particular.

It is only necessary to open the ordinances of the Louvre,
in order to be struck witli the dilferent character which
the royal power assumed in the hands of Philip le Bel, ami
the changes introduced into its mode of action. I ha\ij
hitlicrto placed before you, in each reign, the number anL
nature of tiie ordinances and other political acts which
remain to us of dilferent princes. Under Philip le Bel, the

26S HISTOXY OF

Lumber of these acts, all at once, became infinitely greater.
The collection of the Louvre contains 354 of them, which
may be classed in the following manner:

44 of political legislation and of government properly so
called ;

101 of civil, feudal, or demesne legislation;
58 concerning coinage, whether royal coinage, coinage of
the lords, or foreign coinage;

104 concerning affairs of local privilege or private in-
terest, concession or confirmation of boroughs, privileges
granted to certain places and to certain corporations, or to
certain persons, &c.;

21 concerning Jews, and Italian and merchants traders;
38 upon various subjects.

Royalty is evidently far more active, and interferes in a
far larger number of affairs and interests than it had hitherto
done.

If we entered into a detailed examination of these acts,
we should be still more forcibly struck with this fact, by fol-
lowing it in all its forms. I have made a complete summary
of these 354 ordinances or acts of government of Philip le
Bel, in order properly to understand the nature of each. I
shall not place this table before you in its whole extent, but I
will give you an idea of it. You will see what was the
variety of interests in Avhich royalty interfered under this
reign, and how much more decisive and extensive was its
action than it had hitherto been.

I will rapidly analyse the ordinances of the first years of
the reign of Philip le Bel, and of these, those only which
are contained in the first volume of the collection of the
Louvre.

In 1286, I find but two acts without interest in the pre-
sent day: instructions in matters of redemption, and a local
concession.

In 1287, there are three ordinances, two of which are very
important: the object of the one, in ten articles, is the mode
of acquiring the burgesship, and regulates how he w'iio
wishes to establish himself in a town may become a
burgher; what formalities he will have to fulfil; what re-
lations will subsist between him and the lord whose do-
mains he has quitted, or him whose domains he has entertd

CIVILIZATION IN FKANCE. 269

&c. This ordinance is general, and for the whole extent of
the king's domains.

The second is conceived in the following terms:

" It is ordered, by the council of the lord king, that the
dukes, counts, barons, archbishops, bishops, abbots, chapters,
colleges, knights, and all those in general who possess the
temporal jurisdiction in the kingdom of France, shall institute
and exercise the said jurisdiction, a bailiff, a provost, and
lay "Serjeants, not clerks — to the end, that if the said officers
should happen to fail, their superiors may proceed against
them, and if there be any clerks in the said offices let them
be dismissed.

" It has likewise been ordered that all those who have, or
shall have, after the present parliament, a cause before the
court of the king and the secular judges of the kingdom of
France, nominate lay attorneys. Nevertheless, chapters may
name attorneys from among their canons, and the abbots and
convents from among their monks."

Assuredly, to exclude every ecclesiastic from every kind
of judicial function, and not only in the courts of the king,
but in those of the lords, and wherever any temporal jurisdic-
tion whatever existed — is one of the most important and
the most energetic acts of power which could then be accom-
plished.

In 1288, two ordinances: the one upon private interests;
the other forbids any religious person, of whatever order he
may be, to imprison a Jew, without informing the lay judge
of the place to which the Jew is taken.

In 1289, an ordinance concerning private interests.

In 1290, six ordinances: I shall speak of two. The one
takes from the Templars the privileges of their order, when-
ever they do not wear the habit. This is one of the first
symptoms of the ill-will of Philip towards the Templars. The
other grants various privileges to ecclesiastics, especially to
bishops; among others that the causes of the latter shall
always be carried before parliament, never before the inferior
jurisdiction.

In 1291, four ordinances. The most important contains, in
eleven articles, the iirst precise organization of tlie parUa-
nient of IV.ris. The king orders the formation of a special
chamber for the examination of requisitions, poiuts out what

270 HISTORY OF

persons shall possess seats there, upon what days they shall
meet, how they shall proceed, &c. Another ordinance con-
tains dispositions favourable to the clergy, with regard to
domains acquired by churches.

In 1292, four unimportant ordinajices: the last is a frag-
ment of an ordinance concerning fishing, which, contains singu-
larly minute provisions. There is no certainty of its belonging
to Philip le Bel.

In 1293, two without importance.

In 1294, three, one of which i& a sumptuary ordinance to
which I shall soon return-
In 1295, four. The principal one grants privileges to
Italian merchants, in consideration of a duty upon their mer-
chandise.

In 1296^ six, of which the first is an ordinance to interdict
private wars and judicial combats during the war of the king
in Flanders.

2. The king secures to the duke of Brittany the maintenance
of his rights in matters of citation before the court of the king.

3. A detailed confirmation of a regulation upon the salt
mines of Carcassonne.

In 1297, tliree. One establishes free commerce between
France and Hainault, so loi)g as the alliance of the two
princes shall last.

In 1298,. three. The king orders the duke of Burgundy to
forbid foreign money.

In 1299,. four. The king forbids the bailiffs of Touraine
and Maine to trouble the ecclesiastics within tlieir jurisdiction.

He prescribes measures against the robbers of game and
fish.

In 1300,. two. He reduces the number of the notaries to
the chatelet to sixty.

He declares clerks punishable, even when absolved in the
ecclesiastical court, if the crime be evident.

In 1301, four. He orders the provost of Paris to cause
the execution of his ordinance as to the number of notaries
to the chatelet, and regulates their functions.

He regulates tiie succession of bastards who die in the
domains of the lord.

In 1302, seventeen. 1. He limits the powers of the. se-
neschals over the churches of Languedoc

CIVILIZATION IN FRANQE. 271

2. He represses the seneschals who, under the pretext of
private wars, invade the jurisdiction of the lords, especially
of the archbishop of Narbonne, in all cases of public dispute
and troubles.

3. He exempts men who are very poor from military service
for the army of Flanders.

4. He appropriates to himself the plate of his bailiffs, and
jiartially that of his subjects, on condition of a future and
incomplete reimbursement.

5. He confiscates the domains of bishops, abbots, &c., who
leave his kingdom in spite of his prohibition.

6. He levies a subsidy for the war in Flanders upon his
subjects whether noble or not. He forbids the lords to levy
any upon those of their men whom he has exempted

7. He forbids the exportation of corn, wine, and other
provisions.

8. He regulates the number and the functions of the various
officers of the chatelet.

9. A grand ordinance for the reformation of the kingdom.
He regulates the functions and duties of seneschals, bailiffs,
sergeants, &c.

'' For the advantage of our subjects, and for the despatch of
causes, we shall every year hold two parliaments at Paris,
two courts of exchequer at Rouen, and twice a year two day^'
court at Troyes. There sliall be a parliament at Toulouse,
if the people of that province consent that there be not
appeal from the presidents of that parliament."

10. He levies a subsidy for the war in Flanders, exempting
all those who pay it from various other charges. He gives an
instruction to his commissaries which ends with these remark-
able words:

" Ami do not raise these finances in the lands of the barons
against their will; and keep this ordinance secret, even the
article about the lands of the barons, for it would be great
injury to us if they knew of it. And by every conciliatory
means that you can bring them to consent; such as you
shall find opposed to it, write to us forthwith their names
that we may take counsel how to- make tliem withdraw their
opposition. Be careful to give them fair and courteous
words, and let no unseemly disputes arise."

I must desist; it were easy for me in this way to analyse

272 • HISTORY OF

the 354 ordinances of Philip ie Bel; but those cited are suffi-
cient to show you to what various subjects royalty applied itseli
under his reign, and what the progress of its intervention
was in almost all things. A last example will show you to
what a point of minuteness this intervention was carried;
I extract it from that sumptuary ordinance of 1294, which I
just spoke of. We there read:

" 1. No woman citizen shall keep a car.

" 2. No citizen, male or female, shall wear fur, grey or
ermine, and they shall discontinue such as they now hav(
within a year from next Easter. They shall not wear any
ornaments of gold, nor precious stones, nor gold nor silver
fillets.

" 4. A duke, count, or baron of six thousand livres a year
and upwards from land may have four suits a year and no
more. Their ladies as many and no more.

" 8. A knight or baronet with three thousand livres and
upwards from land may have three suits a year and no
more, and one of them shall be a summer suit.

"11. Boys shall have only one suit a year.

" 14. No one shall have more at dinner than two dishes
and a potage au lard. And at supper one dish and a oy-
dish; and if it be fast day, two dishes of herrings and souo
and two other dishes, or three dishes and one soup, and each
dish shall only consist of one piece of meat, or one sort of
soup.

" 15. It is ordered, in further declaration of the rule
touching dress, that no prelates or barons, however high vn
rank, shall wear a suit of more than twenty-five sols
Tournois the Paris ell.

" And these ordinances, ^c, are commanded to be kept
by the dukes, counts, barons, prelates, priests, and by all
manner of people whatsoever of this kingdom under our faith.
Whatever duke, count, baron, or prelate shall do anything
against this ordinance, shall be fined 100 livres Tour-
nois for each offence. And they are bound to have this
establishment observed by their subjects of whatever rank,
and to fine any banneret who acts in disobedience thereto
fifty livres Tournois, and any knight or vavasour twenty-
five livres Tournois. The informer to have one-third of th»j
penalty." '

' 111 i2!j4. Rccueil (In Ordonnmues, t. i. p. "i^l — 543.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 273

"We have hitherto met with nothing resembling this in acts
of French royalty. This is the first time we observe the
appearance of that claim to mix itself with all things, that
regulation mania which has played so great a part in the
administration of France. Its rapid development is more
especially attributable to two causes, to the double circum-
stance that power was exercised both by ecclesiastics and
by jurisconsults. It is the constant tendency of ecclesiastics
to consider legislation under a moral point of view, to
desire to make morality thoroughly pervade the laws. Now
in morality, and particularly in theological morality, there
is no action in life indifferent ; the slightest details of
human activity are morally good or evil, and should conse-
quently be authorised or interdicted. As instruments or
counsellors of the royal power, the ecclesiastics were governed
by this idea, and endeavoured to introduce into penal legis-
lation all the foresight, all the distinctions, all the prescrip-
tions of theological discipline or casuistry. The jurisconsults,
from a different cause, acted with the same tendency. What
predominates in the jurisconsults is the custom of pushing a
principle to its last consequences; subtleness, logical vigour,
the art of following a fundamental axiom in its application to
numerous different causes without losing its thread, such is
the essential character of the legist spirit; and the Ronian
jurisconsults are the most striking examples of this. Hardly
then had royalty given to the lawyers, its chief instruments, a
principle to apply, than by that natural tendency of tli».'ir
profession they laboured to develop that principle, and ca(;h
day to draw new consequences from it, and thus to make
the royal power penetrate into a multitude of affairs and
details of life, to which, naturally, it would have remained a
stranger.

Such is the character which this power began to take
under tlie reign of Philip le Bel. Although he had excluded
tlu'in from the judicial order, the ecclesiastics still enjoyed a
large share in his government, and the jurisconsults daily
j)layed a larger part in it. Now both of tliese classes, Ironi
different causes, exercised an analogous influence over royalty,
and impelled it in the same direction.

What is no less remarkable is, that the greater portion of
these ordinances emanate from the king alone, without mcn-

VOL. III. T

274 mSTORY OF

tion being made of the consent or even the counsel of the
barons or other great possessors of fiefs. With regard to
legislation, royalty evidently isolates and frees itself from
feudal aristocracy; it scarcely ever deliberates except with
counsellors of its own choice, and who hold their commission
from it alone. Its independence increases with the extent of
its power.

There is but one kind of acts in which, under this reign, we
see the interference not only of the barons, but of other
persons also; and these are precisely the acts which, accord-
ing to modern theories, least call for such a concurrence, that
is to say, acts of peace and war, and all which concerns ex-
ternal relations. People conceive in the present day, that
affairs of this kind appertain to the royal power only, and
that the collateral powers have no i*ight of interference therein,
unless very indirectly. Under Philip le Bel, the directly
contrary fact prevailed. The acts which we call legislative,
which regulated at home the condition of persons and pro-
perties, very frequently emanated from the king alone. But
when the question was of peace or war, negotiations with
foreign princes, he often invoked the concurrence of the
barons and other notables of the kingdom. Practical necessity,
and not any particular theory, then decided all things. Since
the king could not make war alone, and as, in order to treat
with foreigners, he wished to be and to appear supported by
his subjects, it was necessary that he should prosecute no
great enterprise of that kind without assuring himself of
their good will, and he called upon them simply because he
could not dispense with them.

It was the same cause which, at this epoch, sometimes
introduced a certain number of deputies of the principal
towns into the counsels of the prince. It has often been
asserted that Philip le Bel was the first who called the third
estate to the states general of the kingdom. The phrase is
too grand, and the fact was not new. Under Saint Louis, as
you have seen, deputies of towns, whose very names we know,
were called around the king to deliberate upon certain legis-
lative acts. There are other examples of this. PhiKp le
Bel, then, had not the honour of the first call; and, with
regard to assemblies of this kind which occur under his reign,
far too great an idea of thtm "- formed. These meetings

CIVIUZATION IN FRANCE. 275

were very bri^f, almost accidental, without influence upon
the general government of the kingdom, and in which deputies
of towns held but a very inferior place.

The fact thus reduced to its just dimensions, it is true that
under Philip le Bel it became more frequent than it had yet
been.

In ] 302, engaged in his great quarrel with Boniface VHP.,
and wishing to present himself at the fight with the support
of all his subjects, Philip convoked the states general, and
their assembly was held at Paris in the church of Notre
Dame, from the 23rd of March to the 1 0th of April. The
three orders, the nobility, the clergy, and a certain number
of deputies from large towns had seats there. Their deli-
berations were very brief; each order merely acceded to the
desires of the king, by writing a letter to the pope. That tf
the burghers is not preserved, and we only know of it from
the answer of the cardinals, which is addressed, " To the
mayors, sheriffs, freemen, and consuls of the communities,
towns, cities, and boroughs of the kingdom of France."

In 1304, we find Philip treating with the nobles and com-
mons of the seneschal jurisdictions of Toulouse, Cahors,
Perigueux, Rhodez, Carcassonne, and Beaucaire, to obtain
subsidies for his expedition into Flanders.

In 1308, he convoked the states general at Tours to deli-
berate upon the proceedings of the Templars; and the canon
of Saint Victor, tlie chronicler of the time who gives us most
details concerning this assembly, speaks thus of it: —

•' The king caused the assemblage at Tours of the nobles
and commons of all the castellanies and towns of his kingdom.
He wished, before repairing to the pope at Poitiers, to receive
their counsel as to what it was desirable to do with the
Templars after their confession. The day was assigned, to all
those who were invited, on the first of the month following
Easter, (it was that year the 14th of April.) The king
wished to act with prudence; and, that he might not be
censurtnl, he wislied to have the judgment and consent of
men of every condition in tlie kingdom. Accordingly, he not
only wished to have the deliberation of tlie nobles and men
of learning, but also of tlie burglicrs and laymen. The latter,
appearing personally, pronounced, almost with one voice, that
the Templars deserved death. The University of Paris, and
T 2

276 HISTOKY OK

especially the masters in theology, were expressly required
to give their sentence, which they did, by the hands of their
notary, the Sunday after Ascension."'

We read also in VHistoire de Languedoc : —

" Aymar of Poictiers, count of Valentinois; Odilon de
Guarin, lord of Tournel; Guarin de Chateauneuf, lord ot
Apchier; Bermont, lord of Uzes and Aymargues; Bernard
Pelet, lord of Alais and Calmont; Amaury, viscount Nar-
bonne; Bernard Jourdain, lord of the isle of Jourdain; and
Louis of Poitiers, bishop of Viviers, gave procuration to
Guillaume de Nogaret, knight of France, to go in their
name to this assembly. The prelates of the province of
Narbonne, on their part, deputed the bishops of Maguelonne
and of Beziers, and they levied a tax upon the clergy of the
country for this journey. Finally, they had letters of the
king given at Tours the 6th ]\tay, in the year 1308, to order
the seneschal of Beaucaire to cause the deputies of that town
who were sent to Tours to be paid by all the inhabitants of
the town of Bagnols, in the diocese of Uzes.^

It is almost always, you see, in cases of peace and war, or
important foreign relations, that these convocations took place.
In almost every other part of the government, and especially
in what we look upon in the present day as essentially legis-
lative, neither the deputies of towns, nor even the barons
interfered; the king decided alone.

Such under this reign was the development of royalty,
considered in a legislative point of view. There is here a
remarkable progress towards absolute power. Royalty mixes
itself with a great number of atfairs, in which it had not
formerly interfered: it regulates them in their smallest details;
it declares its acts valid throughout the whole extent of the
kingdom, independently of the diversity of domains; it finally
puts them forth, for the most part at least, without the con-
currence of the possessors of fiefs; and when it calls either
the possessors of fiefs or the burghers to concur with it, it is
from motives entirely foreign to the internal government of
\he country, from purely political and temporary necessities.

The judicial power of royalty at the same time received a
development of the same kind.

' John, canon of Saint Victor, p. 456. Continuation of Guillaume de
Nangis, p. 61. « T. iv. p. 139.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 277

You will recollect the details which I have given of the
judicial system of feudalism. Its fundamental principle, as
you know, was the judgment by peers, the vassals judging
among themselves at the court of their lord, of their common
suzerain. You have seen that this principle was found to be
well nigh impracticable: the vassals were so isolated, such
strangers to one another; there were so few relations and
common interests between them, that it was very difficult to
collect them in order that they might judge among them-
selves. They came not, and when some did come, it was
the suzerain who arbitrarily selected them. That great and
beautiful system, the intervention of the country, therefore,
incessantly fell into decline from the most powerful of causes,
from its inapplicability.

We have seen another system progressively rise in its
place, that of a judicial order, of a class of persons especially
devoted to the administration of justice. This was the great
change which, in this respect, was brought about from the
eleventh to the thirteenth century, and of which I spoke
while we were occupied with feudalism.'

At the end of the thirteenth century, then, royalty had at
its disposition real magistrates, under the names of seneschals,
bailiffs, provosts, &c. It is true, these magistrates very often
did not judge alone; they called upon some of the men of the
place to give judgment with them. This was a reminiscence,
a remnant of the judicial intervention of society; and I have
cited many texts of B<'aumanoir, among others, which for-
mally sanction this practice. Those accidental assessors of
magistrates, wliom tliey called jugeurs, in certain places
even rendered actual judgment, and the bailiff merely
pronounced it. For some time the small possessors of
fiefs, who came to fulfil the functions of jugeurs, met thus
around the bailiffs. Tlie bailiffs tiieniselves were at tirst
considerable possessors of fiefs, barons of the second class,
who accepted functions whicli the great barons did not care
for. But, after a certain lapse of time, from the incapacity
of the ancient possessors of fiefs, from their ignorance, from
their excessive taste for war, the chase, he., th.ey abandoned
this last wreck of judicial power; and in place of knight-

• See Lectures 10 and 11, in the present \olunip.

278 HISTORY OP

judges, of the feudal judges, there was formed a class of men
solely occupied with studying both customs and written laws,
and who gradually, by the title either of bailies, or oi jugeurs
associated with bailiffs, remained in almost exclusive posses-
sion of the administration of justice. This was the class of
lawyers; and after having been taken for some time, in part at
least, from the clergy, they ended by all, or almost all, coming
from the bourgeoisie.

Once instituted in this way, in possession of the judicial
power, and separated from all others, the class of lawyers
could not fail to become an admirable instrument in the
hands of royalty against the only two adversaries whom it
had to fear, the feudal aristocracy and the clergy. It so
happened, and it is under the reign of Philip le Bel that we
see it engaging with distinction in that great struggle which
has held so important a place in our history. In that struggle
the lawyers rendered immense services, not only to the throne,
but to the country; for it Avas an immense service to abolish,
or almost to abolish, the feudal and the ecclesiastical power
from the government of the state, in order to substitute for
them the power to which that government should belong, the
public power. Such a progress was doubtless the condition,
the indispensable preliminary of all the others. But, at the
same time, the class of lawyers, from its origin, was a terrible
and fatal instrument of tyranny. Not only did it on many
occasions take not into consideration the rights, the real
rights of the clergy and the proprietors, but with regard to
government in general and injudicial affairs in particular, it
laid down and established principles contrary to all liberty.
The history of the epoch which now occupies us offers an
indisputable proof of this. It is after Saint Louis, under
Pliilip le Hardi, that we see the commencement of those
extraordinary commissions, those judgments by commission,
which have since so often saddened and sullied our annals.
The seneschals, bailiff's, jugeurs, and other judicial officers,
then nominated by the king, were not for life; he dismissed
them at will, and even selected them on any particular oc-
casion, and according to necessity, perhaps from a recollec-
tion of the feudal courts, where, in fact, the suzerain almost
arbitrarily summoned such or such of his vassals. It hoice
happened that, in great trials, the king found himself at

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 279

liberty to. institute what we call a commission. Now it
should be observed, that great processes, great criminal
affairs, had necessarily at that time one or other of these two
characters — either royalty pursued a formidable enemy, eccle-
siastic or layman, a great lord or a bishop; or else, after a
reaction, the feudal aristocracy or the clergy, having resumed
their ancient influence with royalty, in their turn employed
its force or its agents to pursue their enemies. In either
case the royal judicial order, the lawyers, served as an instru-
ment to the enmities, to the revenge of party, of power; and
one or other of these parties, as conqueror, selecting commis-
saries at its will, judged its enemies as arbitrarily, as ini-
quitously as it had been judged itself before.

I find, from the death of Saint Louis to the accession of
Philip de Valois, five great criminal trials which have become
historical. You shall see the character of them; and if the
general fact which I have just asserted is not the faithful
summary of them.

The first is the prosecution in 1278 of Pierre de la
Brosse, favourite of Philip le Hardi.

" This Pierre de la Brosse," says Guillaume de Nangis,
" when he first came to court, was chirurgeon of the holy
king Louis, father of this Philip. He was a poor man, a
native of Touraine. After the death of Louis he was cham-
berlain to Philip; and this king loved him so much, confided
so thoroughly in him in all things, and raised him so high,
that all the barons, the prelates, and knights of the kingdom
of France testified the profoundest respect for him, and often
brought him rich presents. In reality they greatly feared
him, knowing that whatever he desired of the king he always
obtained. The barons in secret felt great disgust and indig-
nation at seeing him exercise so much power over the king
and the kingdom."'

In 1278, after a struggle, the account of wliioh will be
found in all histories of France, Pierre de la Brosse suc-
cumbed; he was sentenced by a commission composed of the
duke of Burgundy, the duke of Brabant, and the count of
Artois, and was hanged on the 30th of June, after a prose-
cution so secret, so unjust, that his crime and the legal

Guillaume de Nangis, Ocsta PhU.-Aud., p. ."iiiU.

280 HISTORY OF

grounds of his condemnation are still unknown. Here is
evidently a case of the feudal aristocracy revenging itself
upon, and hanging a parvenu.

About 1301, Philip le Bel engaged in a quarrel with Ber-
nard de Saisset, bishop of Pamiers, legate of Boniface VIII.
He set upon him his lawyers, Pierre Flotte, Enguerrand
de Marigny, Guillaume de Nogaret. The prosecution against
the bishop of Pamier is a pattern of iniquity and violence.
I have not time to speak of it in detail. It is a case of
royalty sustaining its political struggle against the clergy
by the hand of the lawyers and at the expense of the ac-
cused party.

From 1307 to 1310 the prosecution of the Templars, from
1309 to 1311 the process instituted against the memory of
Boniface VIII., offer upon a larger scale a renewal of the
same facts. It is always the lawyers, the judicial com-
missioners, putting justice at the service of policy and at
the orders of royalty.

Philip le Bel died; the chance turned; feudal aristocracy
resumed the ascendant: Woe to the upstart lawyers! In
1315, Enguerrand de Marigny, one of the principal of them,
was in his turn judged by a commission of knights, and hung,
the 30th of April, at Montfaucon, after the most odious pro-
cedure and the most absurd accusations.

Thus the history of the judicial order, scarcely created,
is a series of continual reactions between the feudal aris-
tocracy and the clergy on the one hand, and the lawyers
on the other. Each party judged in its turn, according to
the system, and by the arbitrary, violent prosecutions which
the lawyers had introduced, and which they had partly bor-
rowed from the Roman law, from the ecclesiastical law, and
from perverted feudal customs, and partly invented for the
occasion, as might be necessary.

Is not this the introduction of despotism into the adminis-
tration of justice? Is it not clear that, under the judicial as
under the legislative relation, royalty at this epoch took an
immense step in the direction of absolute power?

There is a third, which 1 shall merely point out; it con-
cerns taxes.

Philip le Bel arrogated to himself the right of taxing, even
beyond his domains, and more especially by the medium of

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 281

the coinage. The right of coining money, as you know, did
not belong exclusiveiy to royalty; most of the possessors
of fiefs had originally possessed it, and more than eighty
of them enjoyed it even in the time of Saint Louis. Under
Philip le Bel this right was gradually concentrated, although
as yet incompletely, in the hands of the king. He bought it
from some of the lords, usurped it from others, and soon
found himself, as regards the coinage, if not absolutely the
sole master, at least in a condition to give the law throughout
the kingdom. There was here a convenient and tempting
way of taxing the subject. Philip made use of it largely,
wildly. The alteration of coin appears almost every year
in his reign; and out of fifty-six ordinances emanating from
him with rrgard to coin, the subject of thirty-five is the
debasement of the coinage.

He did not, however, confine himself to this, merely for
taxing his subjects arbitrarily; sometimes by express sub-
sidies, sometimes by taxes upon provisions, sometimes by
measures which aflTected internal or external commerce, he
occasionally procured large resources. He did not succeed
in founding any regular right for the benefit of royalty; in
getting it admitted that it belonged to royalty to tax its
people at will; he did not even raise a general and syste-
matic pretension; but lie left precedents for all kinds of
arbitrary imposition and in every way opened that fatal path
to his successors.

It cannot be misunderstood in a legislative relation, in a
judicial relation, and with regard to taxes, that is to say, in
the three essential elements of all government, royalty at
this epoch took the character of absolute power; a cliaracter
which, I repeat, was never acknowledged as aright, and which
did not completely prevail as a fact, for resistance arose
every moment and at all points of society, but wliicli was not
the less dominant in practical application, as in the moral
physiognomy of the institution.

At the death of Philip le Bel, and in the interval which
elapsed till the extinction of his family, and the accession of
Philip de Valois, that is to say, under the reigns of his three
sons, Louis le Ilutin, Philip le Long, and Charles le Bel, c
strong reaction broke out against all these usurpations or
new pretensions of royalty. It did not even wait till the

282 HISTORY OP

death of Philip IV.; in 1314, that is, in the last year of liia
reign, rLdny associations were formed to resist him, and they
drew up their designs and their engagements in the following
terms:

" We, the nobles and commons of Champagne, for our-
selves, for the countries of Vermandois, Beauvaisis, Ponthieu,
La Ferre, Corbie, and for all the nobles and commons of
Burgundy, and for all our allies and associates within the
limits of the kingdom of France, to all who shall see and
hear these presents, health. It is known unto you all that
the very excellent and puissant prince, our dearly beloved
and redoubtable lord Philip, by the grace of God king of
France, has made and imposed various taxes, subsidies,
undue exactions, depreciations of the coinage, w^hereby and
by several other things which have been done, the nobles
and commons have been sorely aggrieved and impoverished,
and great evils have ensued and are still taking place. Nor
does it appear that, on the other hand, these things have
turned out to the honour and profit of the king or his king-
dom, nor to the common benefit in any way. We have
at various times devoutly requested, and humbly suppli-
cated the said lord king to discontinue and utterly put an end
to these grievances, but he has not attended to our entreaties.
And just lately, in this present year, 1314, the said king
has made undue demands upon the nobles and commons of
the kingdom, and unjust subsidies which he has attempted
by force to levy; these things we cannot conscientiously sub-
mit to, for thereby we shall lose our honours, franchises, and
liberties, both w'e and those who shall come after us. Where-
fore, we the said nobles and commons, for ourselves, our
relations and allies, and others throughout the kingdom of
France, as above set forth, have sworn and promised by our
oaths, for ourselves and our successors, to the countries of
Auxerre and Tonnerre, to the nobles and commons of the
said countries and their allies and associates, that we will aid
them at our own cost, to the best of our ability in resisting
the said undue subsidy of this yeai", and all other unjust
exactions and innovations, made or to be made by the king
of France now and to come, upon us and our successors.
Always provided, that in doing so we preserve entire and
unimpaired all lawful obedience, fealty^ and homase. sworu

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 283

or not sworn, and all other rights justly due from us and our
successors to the king of France and his successors." *

There are in the archives of the kingdom, in the Tresors
des chartres, in the case entitled Ligues des nobles, several
other acts of similar associations of the same epoch — namely,
those of Burgundy, of the counties of Auxerre and of Ton-
nerre, of Beauvaisis, of the county of Ponthieu, of Cham-
paigne, of Artois and of Fores. Can we conceive a
stronger and more official protest agiinst the turn that Philip
le Bel had given to royalty?

This protest was not without eyfect. The time presse.8,
and I cannot describe to you in detail the struggle entered
into, under the sons of Philip le Bel, between royalty and the
feudal aristocracy. But let us look at the following ordi-
nance of Louis le Hutin, given in 1315, almost immediately
after his accession, and which is nothing moi'e than a redress-
ing of the grievances of the aristocracy. You will there see
what was the extent and momentary efficacy of the re-
action.

" Louis, by the grace of God, king of France and Navarre,
&c., to all present and to come: the nobles of the duchy of
Burgundy, of the bishoprics of Langres, and Ostun, and of
the county of Fores, for themselves, the ecclesiastics and com-
mons of the said districts, have complained to us that since
the time of the lord Saint Louis, our great grandfather, the
ancient franchises, liberties, usages, and customs of the said
countries, have been infringed upon in various cases and in
various ways, and that various grievances and unjust inno-
vations have been introduced and attempted to be introduced
there by the people of our predecessors and our own officers,
to tlie great grief, injury, and prejudice of the said districts,
and they have transmitted to us articles setting forth a portion
of the said alleged grievances, which articles are herein con-
tained, and tliey have supplicated us to ajjply a fitting remedy.
We who desire peace, and are anxious to promote the wel-
fare of our subjects, having maturely delibi-rated and taken
counsel upon the said alleged gri(!vanct>s and innovations,
have ordered, and do order, of our royal and undoubted
authority, the following — that is to say:

' Bouliiinvilliers, Ltttrrs sur Us iiiinum ndvlemeiis, t. ii. p. '29 — 31.

284 HISTORY OF

" The first article given in to us runs thus: ' It is required
that persons may not, on a charge of crime, proceed against
the said nobles, by mere denunciation, or on mere suspicion,
nor judge, nor condemn them by inquiry, unless they them-
selves consent thereto. In a case where the suspicion is great
and notorious, let the suspected person remain in the castle
of his seigneur for forty days, or twice forty days, or thrice,
at the utmost, and if within that period no one accuses him,
'et him go forth free. If accused, let him have the trial by
battle.' We grant this, except in cases where the guilt of
the party is so manifest and undoubted that the seigneur
should of his own authority apply a direct remedy. As tc
the trial by battle, it may be resorted to, as in former times.

" The second article

" The third article is this: ' That the same nobles and their
men, and their subjects, be not compelled to take part in
open war, or other, unless the menace and declaration of
war be public and known.' "VVe grant it.

" The fourth article is this: ' /ife?^, that the king do not
encroach upon the baronies, fiefs, and arriere-fiefs, of the
said nobles and ecclesiastics, unless by their own consent.'
"VYe grant this, saving our right to that which may accrue
unto us by forfeiture, or by failure of lineage, in which cases
we will institute a tried and competent man who shall govern
the fee in like manner to him from whom we have derived
it.

" The fifth article is this: ^ Item, that the king and his
people levy no penalty higher, in the case of a noble, than
sixty livres tournois, and in the case of one of the common
sort, of more than sixty sols tournois.' We grant this, and
order that it be as an invariable custom; such cases only
being excepted, as, from some horrible atrocity, do not fairly
come within the ordinary rule; these cases shall be decided
upon by those to whom the cognizance appertains.

"The sixth article is this: ^ Item, that the said nobles may
resort to arms whenever they please, and make war upon
each other." We grant them the use of arms and private
warfare in the manner observed in former times. We will in-
quire into the mode in which it was carried on then, and this
mode we will declare and have adhered to.

" The seventh article is this: ^ Item, let not the king sum-

CIVILIZATION TN FRANCR 285

mon from among the said nobles those who are not his men,
and if such be summoned, let them not be bound to attend:
for the barons cannot serve the king, nor their own men, if
the king takes away from them those who should be always
ready to attend them !' We will ascertain the custom in this
respect, and have it observed.

" The eighth article is this: ' Let the king order his jus-
ticiaries not to interfere in the lands and places where the
said nobles and ecclesiastics have customary high and low
justice. Let tlie said nobles and ecclesiastics administer
justice there in all cases, except in that of appeal duly made
to the king or his people, by reason of default of trial, or
ill judgment.' We grant this, reserving such cases as apper-
tain to us of right, as judge in the last resort and supreme
sovereign.

" The ninth and tenth articles are: ' Item, that the king
put the coinage in the same state, as to weight and alloy,
that it was in the time of the lord Saint Louis, and so main-
tain it perpetually. The silver mark was then worth fifty-
two sols tournois. Iteniy that the king do not prevent the
free circulation of money in his kingdom, or out of it.' We
reply that we coin good money, of the same weight and
alloy as under Saint Louis, and we promise that we will con-
tinue to do so.

"The eleventh article is this: 'That the nobles, eccle-
siastics, and commoners be not summoned nor compelled to
attend out of their estates, or provostries or wherever they
live, unless in case of appeal by reason of refusal of trial, or
ill judgment; and let not the nobles be tried except by their
equals.' We grant this in all cases, except such as are
reserved to our court, by reason of our royal sovereignty,
and which cases it appertains to our bailiffs, provosts, and ser-
geants to take cognizance of. And if these do other tlian
justice, we will punish them and make them give reparation.
And as to the nobles being tried by other nobles, their peers,
we will inquire into the custom in this respect, and so ordaiu
for the future.

* Tne twelfth article is this: ' Item, several sergeants and
officials of the king, who for their misdeeds had upon inquiry
been condemned in penalties, and ordered to lose their otiices
for ever, have been restored to their places; we require that

286 HISTORY OF

these be once more removed, and made to pay the penalties
adjudged against them, and that those who put them back
into their offices be punished; and that for the future no
sergeant ordered to be permanently dismissed the king's ser-
vice be reinstated. "We grant this, and order that the thing
complained of never occur again; and we will send persons
into the provinces to examine into the matter, and put the
sergeants upon a proper footing.

" The thirteenth article is this: ' Item, that the king forth-
with send into the said districts persons to inquire into the
grievances wliich the king, his predecessors and their people,
have inflicted upon the said nobles, their men, and the said
ecclesiastics, and into the encroachments made upon their
rights, customs, and usages, and remedy those grievances,
and put an end to them. Whatever other grievances there
may be not specified, let them not continue to the prejudice
of those concerned.' We grant this.

" The fourteenth article is this: ' Item, let the king com-
mand that his baililFs, sergeants, and otlier officers, on their
coming into office, and at the opening of each of their sit-
tings, swear publicly to avoid all such grievances and op-
pressions, and not to suffer others to do them; and if they
do otherwise, let none be bound to obey them.' We grant
this, and promise severely to punish all who shall disobey our
commands, and do wrong to our subjects.

" Which ordinances, granted and conferred as above, and
the ordinances published by our beloved father, we order and
appoint to be carried out and accomplished for the benefit of
the said nobles, ecclesiastics, and commoners. And we com-
mand all our seneschals, bailifls, provosts, and other officers,
and ministers whatsoever, to carry out our said ordinances
without delay or impediment: and we declare that we bear
no ill will to the said nobles, or any of them, for the alliances
they have hitherto formed among themselves, and that we
and our successors will never make any unjust demand upon
them or their successors. And for the greater surety oi
these aforesaid things, we have Iiereunto set our setxls.

" Given in the Wood of Vinceimes, the year oi p-^jce
13 lo, in th:; month of April." '

' Eecuvll des Ordounanccs, i. 558..

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 287

We find; under Louis le Hutin, nine other ordinances of
the same kind, given for the benefit of the nobility and clergy
of the other provinces.

After such a struggle, and one which led to such results,
royalty must have found itself, and, in fact, did find itself,
very much weakened. It had set aside all collateral rights,
invaded all powers; instead of being a principle of order
and peace in society, it had become a principle of anarchy and
war. It arose from this attempt, far less firm, far more
frequently contested and resisted, than it had been under
the more prudent and more legal reigns of I'hilip Augustus
and Saint Louis.

At the same time, a new cense of enfeeblement to royalty
arose, the uncertainty of the succession to the throne. You
know that, at the death of Louis le Hutin, who left the queen,
Clemence, pregnant, the question was raised as to whether
women had a right to succeed to the crown — the question
which it has been pretended to solve by the Salic law. It
was decided in 1316 in favour of Philip le Long; it arose
again in 1 328, at the death of Charles le Bel, and was then
disputed between powerful rivals, each capable of maintaining
his rights or pretensions. At the end of the feudal period,
royalty therefore found itself attacked in two quarters — with
regard to the order of succession, and with regard to the
nature of its power. Was anything further needed to com-
promise a power already great, doubtless, but which had
extricated itself with great difficulty from the first crises of
its formation? Accordingly, this institution, this force, which
we have just s-een increase and develop itself almost without
interruption, fi-om Louis le Gros to Philip le Bel, appears
to us, at the commencement of the fourteenth century, tot-
tering, dilapidated, and in a condition much resembling de-
cay. The decay was not real; the principle of life in the
heart of French royalty was too energetic, too fertile, to perish
in this way. It is very true, however, that the fourteenth
century saw the commencement for it of a period of reverses
and depression, from which the most laborious eff"orts were
scarcely able to raise it. But this period belongs not to the
epoch which at present occupies us; as you are aware, it is
to the end of the feudal period, that is, at the commencement
of the fourteenth century, that we must stop.

288 BISTORT nr

I have brought to this point the history of royalty, and
its part in the civiHzation of our country. In our next lec-
ture, I shall touch upon the history of the third estate, and
the boroughs during the same interval. It will complete
the view of the progressive development of the three great
elements which have concurred to the formation of our
•ociety.

CIVILIZATION IN FEANCK. 28?

SIXTEENTH LECTURE.

Of the third estate in France — Importance of its history — It has been the
most active and decisive element of our civilization — Novelty of this
fact ; nothing resembling it had hitherto been found in tlie'history of tlie
world — Its nationality ; it was in France that the third estate took it!4
whole development — Important distinction between the third estate and
the boroughs — The formation of boroughs in the 11th and I2th centurie.?
— Extent and power of this movement — Various systems to explain it —
They are narrow and incomplete — Variety of the origins of the bour-
geoisie at this epoch — 1. Towns in which the Roman muuicipal system
survived — 'i. Cities and towns in progress, althongli not erected into
boroughs — .'5. Boroughs, properly so called — Combination of these va-
rious elements for the formation of the third estate.

I AT first placed before you feudal society, properly so
called, its various elements, their relations and their vicissi-
tudes. We have just seen a power arise and increase, botit
within and without feudal society, a power foreign to feudal
powers, of anoiher origin, another nature, destined to con-
tend with and to abolisli tliem: I mean royalty. We shall
now sec another society likewise arise and increase, bcti>
within and without feudal society, of another origin, an
other natin-e, likewise destined to contend with, and to abolisl?
it; 1 speak of the commons, the bourgeoisie, the thinj
estate.

Tlie importance of tliis part of our history is evident.
Every one knows the important part which the third estate
has played in France; it has b(-en the most active, the most
decisive element of French civilization, tliat wliich, after all
tiiat can be said, has determined its direction and its cha
racter. Considered uiuler a social point of view, and in its
rehttion with the various classes which co-existed in our ter-

VOL. III. u

290 • UISTOKY OF

ritory, what has been called the third estate has progressively
extended and elevated itself, and at first powerfully modified,
then overcome, and finally absorbed, or nearly absorbed, all
the others. If it is seen in a political point of view, if we
follow the third estate in its relations with the general
government of the country, we first see it united for six
centuries with royalty, incessantly labouring for the ruin of
the feudal aristocracy, and to establish in its place an unique,
central power, pure monarchy, closely neighbouring, in prin-
ciple at least, upon absolute monarchy. But when it had
carried this victory, and accomplished this revolution, the
third estate pursues a new one; it encounters this unique,
absolute power, which it had so greatly contributed to esta-
blish, undertakes to change pure monarchy into constitutional
monarchy, and equally succeeds in it.

Accordingly, under whatever aspect it is viewed, whether
we study the progressive formation of society, or that of
the government in France, the third estate is an immense
fact in our history. It is the most powerful of the forces
which have presided at our civilization.

This fact is not only immense, it is new, and without
example in the history of the world; until modern Europe,
until France, nothing resembling the history of the third
estate is visible. I will rapidly place before you the principal
nations of Asia and ancient Europe: you will see in their des-
tinies almost all the great facts which have agitated our
own; you will see there the mixture of various races, the
conquest of a nation by a nation, conquerors established over
the conquered, profound inequalities between classes, frequent
vicissitudes in the forms of government and the extent of
power. Nowhere will you encounter a class of society which,
setting forth low, weak, contemned, almost imperceptible at
its origin, elevates itself by a continued movement and an
ijicessant labour, strengthens itself from epoch to epoch,
successively invades and absorbs all which surrounds it, power,
wealth, rights, influence, changes the nature of society, the
nature of government, and at last becomes so predominant
that we may call it the country itself. More than once, in
the history of the world, the external appearances of the
social state have been the same as those of the epoch which
occupies us; but they are mere apj^earances. I will place

. CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 291

before you the four oi' five greatest nations of Asia; you will
find tliat they offer nothing resembling the fact which I now
point out to you.

In India, for example, foreign invasions, the passage and
establishment of various races on the same soil, are frequently
repeated. V/hat is the result? The permanence of castes
was not affected; society remained divided into distinct and
almost immovable classes. There is no invasion of one
caste by another; no general abolition of the system of castes
by the triumph of one among them. After India, take
China. There also history shows many conquests analogous
to that of modern Europe by the Germans; more than oni'e
barbarous conquerors were established amidst a nation or
conquered people. What was the consequence? The con-
quered almost absorbed the conquering, and immovability
was still the predominant character of the country. Look at
the Turks and their history in AYestern Asia; the separation
of the conquerors and the conquered remained invincible. It
was not in the power of any class of society, of any event of
history, to abolish this first effect of conquest. The state of
Asia Elinor, of the portion of Europe which the Turks invaded,
is at present almost what it was at the outset of the invasion.
In Persia, analogous events followed one another; various
races collected and mingled; they only ended an immense,
insurmountable anarchy, which has lasted for centuries, with-
out the social state of the country changing, witliout there
being any movement and j)rogress, without our being able to
distinguisli any development of civilization.

I only present to you very general, very curs•^ry views;
but the great fact I seek is there shown suilicicntly; you will
not find, in all the history of Asiatic nations, des])ite the
similitude of certain events and of some external appearances,
you will not find, I say, anything which resembles what
happ<Mied in Europe in the history of the tliird estate.

Let us approaeli ancient Europe, Greek and Koman
Europe; at the first instant you will think you recognise some
analogy; do not deceive yourseli': it is only cxtrrnal, and the
rescmbhuice is not real ; there also there is no example
of the third estate, and of its destiny in modern Europe. I
m^ed not detain you with the history of the Greek repub-
lics; they evideiuly offer no analogous feature. The only

292 HiSToKtr OF

fact which, tb intelligent minds, at all resembles the struggle
of the burghers against the feudal aristocracy, is that of the
plebeians and the patricians of Rome; they have been more than
once compared. It is an entirely false comparison ; and before
I say why it is so, see the following simple and striking
proof. The struggle between the Roman plebeians and
patricians commenced from the cradle of the republic. It
was not, as it was with us in the middle ages, a result of the
slow, difficult, incooplete development of a class long far
inferior in power, wealth and credit, which gradually extends,
elevates itself, and ends by engaging in an actual combat with
the superior class. The plebeians struggled against the
patricians at once, from the origin of the state. This fact
is clear in itself, and the line researches of Niebuhr have
fully explained it. Niebuhr has proved, in his History of
Rome, that the struggle of the plebeians against the patricians
was not the progressive and laborious enfranchisement of a
class for a long time debased and miserable, but a consequence,
and, as it were, a prolongation of the war of conquest, the
effort of the aristocracy of the cities conquered by Rome to
participate in the rights of the conquering aristocracy.

The plebeian families were the principal families of the
conquered populations; transplanted to Rome, and placed,
by defeat, in an inferior position, they were not the less
aristocratic, rich families, surrounded with clients recently
pov.erful in their city, and capable, at once, of disputing
for power Avith their conquerors. Assuredly there is nothing
here which resembles that slow, obscure, painful labour, of
the modern bourgeoisie, escaping with infinite trouble from
the heart of servitude, or from a condition neighbouring
upon servitude, and employing centuries, not to dispute the
political power, but to conquer its civil existence. Our third
estate is, I repeat, a new fact, hitherto without example in
f he history of the world, and which exclusively belongs to the
civilization of modern Europe.

Not only is this a great and a new fact, but for us it has
quite a peculiar interest; for, to use an expression wliich is
much abused in the present day, it is an eminently French
fact, essentially national. Nowhere has the bourfreoisie, the
third estate, received so complete a development, had so vast
•vo fertile a destiny as in France. Tliere have been boroughs

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 293

in all Europe, in Italy, in Spain, in Germany, in England, as
well as in France, and not only have there been boroughs
everywhere, but the boroughs of France are not those which,
as boroughs, under that name, and in the middle ages, have
played the greatest part and held the most important place
in history. The Italian boroughs gave birth to glorious
republics; the German boroughs have become free, sovereign
towns, which have had their particular history, and have
exercised great influence in the general history of Germany;
the boroughs of England were united to a portion of the
feudal aristocracy, have formed with them one of the houses
of parliament, tlie preponderating house of the British par-
liament, and thus early played a powerful part in the liistory
of their country. The French boroughs, in the middle ages
and under that name, were far from being elevated to that
political importance, that historical rank; and yet it was in
France that the population of the boroughs, the bourgeoisie,
was the most completely, the most efficaciously developed,
and finished by acquiring the most decided preponderance
in society. Tliere have been boroughs throughout Eui'ope,
tliere has been a third estate in France only. That third
estate which in 1789 brought on the French revolution,
is a destiny and power which belongs to our histoi'y, and
which we should vainly seek elsewhere.

Thus, under every relation, this fact has a right to our most
lively interest; it is great, it is new, it is national; no source
of importance and attraction is wanting to it. AV'e must
therefore give it a particular attention. I cannot in the
present course present it to you in its whole extent, nor make
you present at the progressive development of the third estate;
but I shall endeavour, in the short time which remains, to
point out with some precision what were the ])rincipal phases
of it from the eleventh to the fourteenth century.

For a long time men connected the origin, the first forma-
tion of the French boroughs to the twelfth century, and tht-y
have attributed that origin to the policy and the intervention
of kings. In our time, this system has been disj)uted, au(\
with advantage; it has been maintained, on the one hand,
that the bort)Ughs were much more ancient than has been
supposed; that under this name or under analogous names,
they ascend far beyond the twelfth century; on the othei

294 HISTORY OF

hand, that they were not the work of royal policy and conces
sion, but rather the conquest of the burghers themselves, the
result of the insurrection of the towns against the lords.
It is this last system that my friend, M. Augustiu Thierry, has
set forth and defended with rare talent, in the last half of
his Lettres sur VHistoire de France.

I fear that both of the systems are incomplete, that all the
facts cannot there find their place, and that to properly
understand the real origin, the real character of the third
estate, it is necessary to take into consideration a far greater
number of circumstances, and to look at the same time more
closely.

Doubtless, in the twelfth century there was accomplished a
great movement in the boroughs of France, which forms a
crisis in their position, and an epoch in their history. A
simple outline will suffice to convince you of this. Open the
" Recueil des Ordonnances des Rois," you will there see, in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a very considerable number
of acts relative to boroughs. They evidently arose on all
sides, acquired more importance every day, and became an
important affair of government. I have drawn up a state-
ment of acts, both charters and concessions of privileges of
all kinds, internal rules and otlier documents which emanated
from the royal power, relative to boroughs, in the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries. There results from this that the col-
lection of the ordinances contains in it alone: of king Louis
le Gros, 9 acts relative to boroughs; of Louis V^II.^ 23; of
Philip Augustus, 78; of Louis VIIL, 10; of Saint Louis,
20; of Philip Je Hardi, 15; of Philip le Bel, 46; of
Louis X., 6; of Philip le Long, 12; of Charles le Bel, 17.

So that, in the course of the single epoch which occupies
us, in a single collection, we find 236 acts of government, of
which the commons are the subject.

Upon no other matter does there remain of this epoch so
large a number of official documents.

And observe that the question here is not merely of acts
emanating from royalty. As to each of the principal suzerains
who shared the territory of France, there might be made an
analogous work. The kings, as you know, were not the only
persons who gave charters, and who interfered in the affairs
of the boroughs; every lord, when he had any borough or

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 295

town in his domains, had the power to regulate its de&tinies
or rights; and if we could collect all the acts of this kind to
which the boroughs have given rise from the twelfth to the
fifteenth century, we should have an enormous number.
But the view which I place before you, although confined
to royal acts, fully suiRces to give an idea of the prodi-
gious movement which broke forth about this epoch, in the
existence of the boroughs, and the development of the third
estate.'

The moment we look at these acts, and without pene-
trating deeply into the inquiry, we see that it is impossible
to make them all enter into either of the two systems which
I have just recalled to mind with regard to the origin and
primitive history of the French boroughs. The most cursory
inspection shows in these 236 acts three classes of facts entirely
distinct. Some speak of towns, of municipal liberties and
customs, as of ancient uncontested facts; they do not even
recognise these facts expressly, they do not feel the need of
giving them a precise form, a new date; they modify them,
extend them, adapt them to new needs, to some change in the
social state. Other acts contain the concession of certain privi-
leges, of certain peculiar exemptions, for the benefit of such or
such a burgh, such or such a town, but without constituting
it a corporation, properly so called, without conferring an in-
dependent jurisdiction upon it, the right of nominating its
magistrates, and, as it were, of governing itself; they freed the
inhabitants of certain places from such or such a tax, from
such or such a service; they made them such or sucli a pro-
mise; the concessions are excessively various, but they confer
no political independence. Lastly, there are acts which con-
stitute corporations, properly so called, that is to say, which
recognise or confer upon the inhabitants the right of confe-
derating, of promising each other reciprocal succour, fidelity,
assistance against every external enterprise or violence; of
nominating their magistrates, of meeting, of deliberating, in a
word, of exercising within their walls a kind of sovereignty,
a sovereignty analogous to that of the possessors of fiei's in
the interior of tlieir domains.

' See this view uml analysis of the acts herp mentioned at *be end of the
volume

296 HISTOKY OF

You see these are three classes of distinct facts ; and vp-hich
show essentially different municipal systen^s. Well, this dif-
ference which is manifested in the official documents of the
twelfth century, is likewise found in history, in events; and
by observing them, we arrive at the same results as by
reading the charters and diplomas.

And first, it will be recollected that I spoke of the conti-
nuance of the Roman municipal system in many towns after
the invasion of the barbarians. It is a point at present reco-
gnised that the Roman municipal system did not perish with
the empire; I have shown it to you still living and active
during the seventh and eighth centuries, particularly in the
cities of southern Gaul, which was far more Roman than
northern Gaul. "We equally find it in the ninth, tenth, and
eleventh centuries. M. Raynouard, in the latter half of the
second volume of his Histoire du Droit Municipal en France,
has placed this fact beyond doubt. He has collected from
epoch to epoch, for a large number of towns, among others,
for those of Perigueux, Bourges, Marseilles, Aries, Toulouse,
Narbonne, Nimes, Metz, Paris, Reims, &c., the traces of
a municipal system in uninterrupted vigour from the eighth
to the twelfth century. "When, therefore, at this last epoch,
that great movement which characterizes it was brought
about in the situation of the boroughs, there was nothing to
be done for these towns, already in possession of a muni-
cipal system, if not similar to that which was about to
take birth, at least sufficing for the needs of the population.
Accordingly, there are many towns whose names are not met
with in the communal charters of the twelfth century, and
which did not the less enjoy the chief municipal institutions
and liberties, sometimes even under the name of commune
(communitas), as the town of Aries, for instance. These
are evidently Roman municipalities which had survived the
empire, and had no need of an act of the new powers to
recognise or create them.

It is perfectly true that, from the eighth to the end of the
eleventh century, the existence of these municipalities ap-
pears rarely and very confusedly in history. "What is there
to be surprised at in this? In this confusion and obscurity
there is nothing peculiar to the towns or the municipal sys-

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 297

tem. In tlie ninth and tenth centuries, feudal society itself,
that society of conquerors, of masters of power and of the soil,
has no history, it is impossible to follow the thread of its des-
tinies. Property was then so much abandoned to the chances
of force, institutions were so ill secured, so little regular,
all things were a prey to an anarchy so agitated, that no
concatenation, no historical perspicuity can be found. History
requires some order, some sequence, some light; it exists
upon no other conditions. In the ninth and tenth centuries
there was neither order, sequence, nor light, for any class of
facts, or for any condition of society; chaos reigned every-
where, and it is only at the end of the tenth century that
feudal society escapes from it, and really becomes a subject
for history. How could it be otherwise for the municipal
society, far more weak and obscui-e? ' Many of the Roman
municipalities subsisted, but without influence upon any ge-
neral event, without leaving any trace. We therefore need
not be surprised at the silence which the rare monuments and
miserable chroniclers of this epoch observe with regard to
them. This silence arises from the general state of society,
and not from the entire absence of institutions, of municipal
existence. The Roman municipality perpetuated itself in
the same way that the feudal society formed itself, in the
midst of universal night and anarchy.

When all tilings became a little calm and fixed, other
municipalities soon appeared. I have already repeatedly
mado you observe, that one of the principal changes intro-
(liic(>d into the social state of Europe by the invasion of the
barbarians was the dispersion of the sovereign population,
of the possessors of power and the soil, amidst tlic rural
districts. Hitherto, and especially in the Roman world, it
was in the hearts of towns that the population was con-
centred, and that the proprietors, more especially the con-
siderable men, the aristocracy of the time, lived. The
conciuest overthrew this great fact; the barbaric conquerors
('Stal)lished tlwuiselves in preference, amidst their' estates, in
their strong castles. The social preponderance passed from
cities to the country districts. A population specially em-
jiloyed upon the cultivation of the estates soon grouped
themselves around the castles. The new agglomerations had

298 HISTORY OK

not all the same destiny; many remained but little extended,
poor and obscure; others were more fortunate. The progress
of fixedness, of regularity in existences, led to new wants;
new wants provoked a more extended, more varied labour.
The population assembled around the castle was the only one
which worked. We do not see it everywhere and exclusively
attached, in the state of coloni or serfs, to the cultivation of
the earth. Industry, commerce, reanimated and extended
themselves. They especially prospered in some places, from
a multitude of various and accidental causes. Some of those
agglomerations of 'pulation which formed themselves around
castles, in the domains of the possessors of fiefs, became great
burghs or towns. After a certain time, the possessors of
the domains amidst which they were situated acknowledged
that they profited from their prosperity, and had an interest
in aiding its development; they then granted them certain
favours, certain privileges, which, without removing them from
feudal domination, without conferring a true independence
upon them, had still the aim and effect of attracting the
population thither, and of increasing wealth. And in their
turn the more numerous population, the greater riches, de-
manded and led to more eflficacious favours, to more ex-
tensive concessions. The collections of documents are full of
documents of this kind, accorded by the sole influence of
the course of things to the boroughs and towns of new
creation, and whose independence did not extend beyond
these more or less precarious concessions.

I seek an example which shall make the fact which I have
just described thoroughly understood; I find none more appli-
cable than that of the colonies. "What did men do when they
aimed at founding colonies? They conceded lands, privileges,
to men who established themselves there, engaging themselves
for a certain number of years, and on payment of a fixed rent.
This is precisely what frequently happened in the country-
districts, around the castles, in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries.

We see a large number of possessors of fiefs conceding
lands and privileges to all those who established themselves
in the towns situated in their domains. They there gained
not only an increase of revenue, but also an increase of ma-
terial strenirth The inhabitant- of these boroughs and

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 299

to«irn3 were bound to certain military services towards their
lord; we find the citizens at a very early period marching to
war, generally grouped around their priests. In 1094, in an
expedition of Philip I. against the castle of Breherval —

" The priests lead their parishioners with their banners."

In 1108, at the death of Philip I. —

" A popular community," says Orderic Vital, " was estab-
lished in France by the bishops; in such a way that the priests
accompanied the king to battle and sieges, with banners, and
all the parishioners."

Accoi-ding to Suger:

" The corporations of the parishes of the country took part
in the siege of Thoury, by Louis le Gros."

In 1119, after the repulse of Brenneville, the following
counsel was given to Louis le Gros:

" Let the bishops and counts and all the powerful men ot
thy kingdom, repair to thee, and let the priests with all their
parishioners go with thee where thou slialt order them. . . .

" The king resolved to do all these things. ... he sent out
prompt messengers, and sent his edict to the bishops. They
willingly obeyed him, and threatened to anathematize the
priests of their diocese, with their parishioners, if they did
not hasten to join themselves, at about the time fixed, to the
expedition of the king, and if they did not fight the rebel
Normans with all their strength.

" The people of Burgundy and of Berry, of Auvergne,
and of the country of Sens, of Paris, and of Orleans, of Saint
Qucntin, and of Beauvais, of Laon and of Etanipes, and many
others, like wolves, rushed gi-eedily upon their prey. . . .

*' The bishop of Noyon and he of Laon, and many others
went to this expedition; and by reason of tlie ill estimation
in which they held the Normans, sanctioned all sorts of crimes
in their people. They even allowed them, as in virtue of a
Divine permission, to pillage the saered edifices, in order
thus to increase their legions by flattering them in everyway,
and to animate them against their enemies by promising them
all things."

This need of increasing the legions which followed them
to war was indisputably one of the principal motives which
induced the pi-oprietors of fiefs to favour these agglomerations
of population upon their domains, and consequently to the

800 HISTORY OF

ceding of privileges which alone could attract new inhabit-
ants. These very incomplete privileges, dictated solely by
personal interest, incessantly violated, often revoked, did not,
I repeat, constitute true corporations invested with an inde-
pentlent jurisdiction, nominating their magistrates, and almost
governing themselves; but they contributed none the less
powerfully to the general formation of that new class which,
at a later period, became the third estate.

I now come to the third of these origins, to that which
M. Thierry has so well pointed out and developed; that is
to say, the violent struggle of the citizens against the lords.
This is a source of the boroughs properly so called, and one
of the most efficacious causes of the formation of the third
estate. The vexations which the lords put upon the inhabit-
ants of the boroughs and towns situated in their domains
were of daily occurrence, often of an atrocious cliaracter,
immensely irritating; security was wanting even more than
liberty. With the progress of wealth, the attempts at re-
sistance became more frequent and more energetic. The
twelfth century saw the insurrection of the citizens break
forth in a thousand directions; they formed into petty local
confederations to defend themselves against the violence
of their lords, and to obtain guarantees. Thence arose an
infinity of petty wars, some tei-minated by the ruin of the
citizens, others by treaties which, under the name of communal
charters, conferred upon many boroughs and towns a kind
of intra muros sovereignty, then the only possible guarantee
for security and liberty

As these concessions were the result of conquest, they
were generally more extensive and efficacious than those
which I just spoke of. It was, accordingly, to the struggle at
the sword's point that must be attributed the formation of
the strongest and most glorious boroughs, those which have
taken a position in history. You know, however, tliat they
did not long preserve their political independence, and thac
their condition ended by being very similar to that of other
towns which had not carried on the same combats.

Such are the three origins of the French bourgeoisie, of
the third estate. 1. The Roman municipal system, which
continued to exist in a large number of towns. 2. The ag-

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 801

plomeration of population which .was naturally formed upon
the estates of many of the lords, and which, by the sole in-
fluence of increasing wealth, by the need which the lords had
of their services, successively obtained concessions, privileges,
which, without giving them a political existence, still ensured
the development of their prosperity, and consequently of their
social importance. 3. Finally, the corporation, properly so
called — that is to say, the boroughs and tow^ns which, by
force of arms, by a struggle of greater or less duration,
wrested from their lords a considerable portion of the sove-
reignty, and constituted petty republics of them.

Here we have the true character of the municipal move-
ment in the eleventh and twelfth centux'ies; here it is seen in
all its truth, far more various and extensive than it is generally
represented. We shall now penetrate into the interior of
the different kinds of corporations which I have described to
you; we shall apply ourselves to distiiiguisli them one from
another, and to determine,, with some precision, what was the
municipal system, in the municipalities of Roman origin, in
the boroughs which possessed simple privileges conceded by
the lords, or in the true corporations formed by war and
conquest. We shall thus arrive at a very serious question,
and one which, in my opinion, is very much neglected; at
the question what essential difference exists between the
ancient Roman municipality and the corporation of the
middle ages. Doubtless, there was Roman municipality in
the boroughs at the middle ages, and it is by far too generally
overlooked. But it is also true, that in the middle ages there
was brought about, even in the towns of Roman origin, a
considerable change, a true revolution, which gave another
character, another tendency to their municipal system. I will
first, and in a few wtu'ds, j)()int out what has occurred to me
as being the essential ditference: the predoiuiuaut charac-
teristic of Roman municipality was aristocracy; the prcdo-
miiumt cliaractcristic of the modern corjxiration was demo-
cracy. Tliis is the result to which we shall be led by an
attentive examination of this question.

In a word, when we shall have tlioroughly studied, on the
one hand, the ibrmation of the borouglis and cities of the
middle ages, and on the other their interior .-ystem, we shall

302 HISTORY OF

follow the vicissitudes of their history trom the eleventh to
the fourteenth century, during the course of the feudal
period; we shall endeavour to determine the principal revo-
lutions to which they were subjected during that period, and
what they were at the commencement, and what they were
at the end. We shall then have a somewhat complete and
precise idea of the origin and early destinies of the French
third estate.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCK. 303

SEVENTEENTH LECTURE.

Why it is importixnt never to lose sight of tlie diversity of the origins of tba
third estate — 1. Towns in which the Roman municipal system was per-
petuated— Why the documents relating thereto are rare and incom-
plete— Perigneux — Bourgcs — 2. Towns which, without having been,
properly speaking, erected into boroughs, received various privileges from
their lords — Orleans — Customs of Lorris in Gatinais — 3. Boroughs,
properly so called — Charter of Laon — True meaning of this charter and
of the communal revolution of the eleventh century — Birth of modem
legislation.

I HOPE you will not for a moment lose sight of the true
question which occupies us at this moment; it is not only the
formation and the first development of the boroughs, but the
formation and the first development of the third estate. The
distinction is" important, and I insist upon it here for many
reasons.

First, it is real, and founded upon facts. The word third
estate is evidently more extensive, more comprehensive than
that of the borough. Many social situations, indi\idual8
which are not comprehended in the word borough, are com-
prehended in that of the third estate ; the ofiicers ol" the king,
for example, the lawyers — tliat cradle wlience have issue*/
ahiiost all tlie magistrates of France — evidently belong to the
chiss of tlie third estate; they have been for a long time in-
corporated in it, and have only been separated I'rom it in
ages immediately neighbom-ing upon our own, while we
cannot rank them among the boroughs.

Moreover, tlu' distinction has often been overlooked, and
the result has been errors in the manner in which the facts
have been presented. Some historians, for example, have
seen, especially in the third estate, the Dortion derived from

304: HISTORY OP

the officers of the king, lawyers, various magip'^rates, anu
they have said that the third estate had ah^ays been closely
united to the crown, and that it had always sustained its
power, shared its fortune; that their progress has always
been parallel and simultanecus. Others, on the contrary,
have almost exclusively considered the third estate in the
boroughs, properly so called ; in those boroughs, those
towns formed by means of insurrection against the lords,
in order to escape from their tyranny. These have affirmed
that the third estate claimed all the national liberties; that
they had always been in a struggle, not only against the
feudal aristocracy but against the royal power. According
as men have thus given such or such an extent to the word
third estate, according as they have particularly considered
such or such of its primitive elements, they have deduced
from it concerning its true history and the part which it has
played in our history, consequences absolutely 'different, and
all equally incomplete, equally erroneous.

In fine, the distinction upon which I insist alone explains
an evident fact in our histoiy. By the admission of all, the
boroughs, properly so called, these independent, half sovereign
towns nominating their officers, having almost the right ot
peace and war, often even coining money — these towns, I say
have gradually lost their privileges, their grandeur, tlieii
communal existence. Dating from the fourteenth century
they have been progressively effaced; and at the same time,
during this decay of the boroughs, the third estate developed
itself, acquired more wealth and importance, daily played a
greater part in the state. It was then necessary that it
should imbibe life and strength from other sources than those
of the boroughs, from sources of a different nature, and
which furnished it with means of aggrandisement when the
boroughs fell into decay.

The distinction is very important, and characterises the
point of view under which I wish to make you consider the
subject. It is with the formation and development of the
third estate in its whole, in its various constitutive elements,
and not with the commons alone that we are occupied.

In our last lecture, I placed before you the lii'st forma-
tion of the elements of the third estate, and endeavoured to
make you thoroughly understand the variety of its origins

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE, 305

We shall now study the internal organization of those towna>
of those boroughs where that new class was formed which
has become the third estate.

It is evident from the fact of these origins having been
various, that the organization of these towns, their internal
constitution must have been so likewise. I have already
pointed out what, in my opinion, were the three sources of
the third state: 1. Tlie towns which, in a great measure at
least, preserved the Roman municipal system, where it always
predominated, though modifying itself; 2. The towns and
boroughs which gradually formed themselves in the domains
of the great proprietors of fiefs, and which, without having
been erected into corporations, properly so called, without
ever having obtained that independence, tliat local govern-
ment, that semi-sovereignty which characterizes true corpo-
rations, still received privileges, successive concessions, and
arrived at a high .degree of wealth, population, and social im-
portance; 3. Lastly, the boroughs, properly so called, whose
existence rested upon distinct complete cliarters, which
formally erected them into boroughs, and gave them all tlie
rights geneially inherent to that name. Such are the three
origins of the French bourgeoisie, of our third estate.

I am iibout to take successively these three classes of
towns, ot municipal as.-ociations, and endeavour to describe,
with some precision, what was their internal organization at
the twelfth century.

Let us first regard the towns of Roman origin, where the
Roman municipal system continued to subsist, or nearly so.

For these, it will be easily understood, formal and precise
monuments are wanting to us. Tlie sole fact that this
organization was ess(;ntially Roman is the reason that we do
not find it written under such or sucli a date, in the middle
ages. It was an ancient fact wiiich had survived the inva-
sion, tlie formation of modern states, which no one thought
of drawing up and proclaiming. Thus one of tlie citie.i
which after the invasion preserveil. as it appears, tlie Roman
municipal system in its most complete, most pure form is
Perigueux. Well, we encounter no .leeiiineiit of any ex-
tent upon the constitution of the town of Lerigiieux, no
ciiarter wliich regulates or modifies its internal or<rani.:atioii,
ihe riglits of its magistrates, its relations with its lords or its

"OL. 111. X

30f> HISTORY OF

neighbours. I repeat it, this organization was a fact, a
wreck of the ancient Roman municipal system; the names of
the Roman magistrates, consuls, duumvirs, triumvirs, ediles,
are met with in the history of Perigueux, but without their
functions being in any way instituted or defined. Many
other towns are in the same situation, especially in the south
of France. It is an incontestable fact, that the towns of
southern France appear the earliest in our history, as rich,
populous, important, playing a considerable part in society:
we see them such from the tenth, almost from the ninth
century, that is to say, far sooner than the boroughs of the
north. Still it is concerning tlie borouglis of the south that
we possess the lesser number of legislative details, of formal
documents. The communal charters are much more nume-
rous for the France of the north than for the France of the
south. Why is this? Because a large portion of the towns
of the south having preserved the Roman system, it has not
been felt necessary to write their municipal organization.
It was not a new fact which it was necessary to institute,
proclaim, or date. We therefore should not be surprised at
knowing the internal organization of the new towns, of the
boroughs, properly so called, with more precision and detail
than that of towns where the municipal system was of Roman
origin and subsisted by tradition. This proves absolutely
nothing against the reality of the institutions and the extent
of the municipal liberties, attested besides indirectly by a
multitude of facts, INI. Raynouard, in his Ilistoire du Droit
Municipal en France, has collected for many towns the
texts, the facts which prove the continuance of the Roman
municipal organization, and make it in some degree known,
in the absence of any formal institution, any detailed docu-
ment. I will give the results of his labours with regard to
the city of Bourges.' This example will suffice to give a
clear and just idea of this third source of the French third
estate, the most ancient and perhaps the most abundant.

At the time of the barbaric invasion, Bourges had arenas,
an amphitheatre, everything which characterized the Roman
city.

At the seventh century, the author of the Vie de Sainte

' Raynouard, Ilistoire du Droit Municipal en Frtuicr, t. ii. p I'^'J -"lUt

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 307

Estadiole, born at Bourges, says. " that she belonged to
illustrious parents, who, according to worldly dignity, were
commendable for senatorial nobility." Now, they gave the
title of senatorial nobility to those families upon whom the
government of the city had devolved, who occupied the mu-
nera or great municipal charges. Gregory of Tours, at the
same epoch, cites a judgment given by the chiefs (primores,)
of the city of Bourges. There was therefore at this epoch,
in Bourges, a true municipal jurisdiction, analogous to that
of the Roman curia?.

It was the general characteristic of Roman municipalitie.s,
of cities properly so called, that the clergy, in concert with
the people, elected the bishop. Now we find at Bourges,
under the Merovingian and Carlovingian kings, many bishops,
Sulpiciu.s, Didier, Austregesilius, Agiulphe, elected absolutely
as they would have been under the Roman emperors.

We find also coins of this epoch on which is imprinted
either the name of the city of Bourges, or that of its in-
habitants. One of these coins of the time of Charles le
Chauve, and another of the time of king Lothaire, formally
bear the inscription: Biturices (the inhabitants of Bourges.)

It was in 1 107 that Philip I. bought the viscounty of
Bourges of the viscount Ilerpin, who disposed of it in
order to set out for the crusades. We find that there then
existed at Bourges a municipal body whose members wer<!
called jinicT- homnies, without any further detail being
found.

Under archbishop Volgrin, upon his advice, and according
to the prayer of tlie clergy and the people, Louis le Gros
published a charter which gives no new right to the city (if
Bourges, nor institutes any public power in it, but relbrnis
some ill customs which were introduced into it, and which
apparently the royal autliority alone was capable of re-
pressing.

In 114o, Louis YII. confirmed tlie charter of Louis VI.
In this confirmation, the principal inhabitants of Bourges,
tJiose who in tlie seventh century were still called seuafors,
were designated by the name t)t' bo?is homvtes. The word
has changed with the language, but it is evidently the same
persons, tlie same social condition.

Another name is also given in this charter to the principal
x2

308 HISTORY OF

inhabitants of Bourges. The ninth article is expressed in the
following terms. —

•' It was ordered by our father, that if anj one did wrong
in the city, committed an offence, he should have to repair the
said wrong, according to the estimation of the barons of the
city." Barons is a feudal word which shows the new con-
dition of society, but which corresponds, as well as that of
bans hommes, with the senators of the Roman city.

In 1118, Philip Augustus granted a new charter to Bourges.
These various concessions, assured by various titles, relate
only to subjects of legislation and local policy. There is no
question of mayors, sheriffs, or freemen, for the corporation,
the municipal jurisdiction having existed from time imme-
morial at Bourges, it was by senatores {boni hominis, probi
homines, barones,') that the city was administered.

I shall pursue no further this history of the city of Bourges,
which M. Raynouard has brought down to the end of the
fifteenth century. It is a faithful image of what happened in
many other towns of similar origin and situation. You continu-
ally see here, from the fifth to the fourteenth century, in these
facts, inconsiderable it is true and little detailed, but very signi-
ficant and very clear — you here see, I say, the Roman munici-
pal system perpetuate itself, with modifications in names, or
even in things, and corresponding with the general revolu-
tions of society, without anywhere encountering any precise
or new details with regard to the internal organization of
those cities, their magistrates, or their relations with feudal
society. We are only able to trace back to the ancient Roman
municipal system, to study what it was at the moment of the
fall of the empire, and then collect scattered facts from epoch
to epoch, which show at once the permanence of this system,
and its progressive alteration. It is thus only that we can
give ourselves any correct idea of the state of towns of Roman
origin at the twelftli century.

We encounter a difficulty, if not equal, at least analogous,
when we desire to study towns whicli may be called of modern
creation — those which are not related to the Roman city,
which received their institutions, or even their existence
from the middle ages, and which, however, have never been
erected into boroughs, properly so called, have never acquired
a true charter, which, dating from a fixed day, has assured
them a real and complete municipal constitution 1 will give

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 309

you an example of this kind. It is the city of Orleans. Tt
was ancient, and had prospered under the empire; still, the
perpetuity of the Roman municipal system does not appear
there clearly, as you have just seen it in the case of the city
of Bourges. It was from the middle ages and the kings that
Orleans derives its municipal freedom, and its privileges. It
was, as you know, next to Paris, the most important town of
the domain of the Capetians, even before their accession to
the throne. I will give you the series of acts of the kings of
France, from Henry I. to Philip le Hardi, in fovour of the
city of Orleans. This analysis will make you, understand its
true character better than any other means.

We find in the Kecueil des Ordonnances, from 1051 to
1300, seven charters relative to Orleans.

In 1051, king Henry I., at the request of the bishop and
people of Orleans, (the bishop appears in this charter as the
chief of the people, as the man who takes its interests in
hand, and speaks in its name, a situation which oorresponds
to what, in tlie Roman munici|)al system, in the fifth cen-
tury was called defensor civitatis,) orders that the gates of
the city shall not be cjosed during the vintage, that all shall
enter and go out freely, and that his officers shall no longer
take the wine that they unlawfully exacted at the gates.
This is an abuse, an exaction which the king causes to cease
in the city of Orleans. It is no concession of municipal
constitution, nothing which resembles a charter of incorpo-
ration properly so called.

In 1137, Louis le Jeune interdicts "the provost and
sergeants of Orleans from . . . ." The words alone iiulicuto
that the city had no independent municipal constitution, that
it was governed in the name of tlie king by provosts and
sergeants — that is to say, by royal oflicers, and not by its own
magistrates. I resume the ordinance: Louis Vll. inter-
dicts the provosts and sergeants of Orleans from all vexation
over the burghers; he promises not to detain tlu' burghers
violently when they shall be summoned to liis eoiU't, nor to
make any alteration in the coin of Orleans, i*ce., i<ie. In con-
sideration of this last promise, the king is to liave a duty upon
eacli measure of wheat and wine.

These are declarations against abuses, concessions fa\ot.r-
able to tlie security and prosperity of tlie city of Orleans, but
which give no idea of numicipal constitution.

310 HISTORY OF

In 1147, the same king abolished the right of main-morte
in the city of Orleans. This, as you know, was a very
variable right, which was exercised at the death, whether of
serfs or of men of an intermediate condition between complete
liberty and servitude. They had not the right of making a
will, of leaving their property to whom they wished. When
they had no children, no natural and direct heirs, it was the
king who inherited from them. In some places they might
dispose of a portion of their property, but the person who
inherited was obliged to pay a certain sum to the king. I
shall not stay to explain all the forms, all the varieties of this
right of main-morte. It is sufficient to say that it was a
source of great revenue to the king, and from which the popu-
lation, in proportion as it increased and prospered, incessantly
sought to free itself. In 1147, then, Louis VII. abolished
the right of main-morte in Orleans, a new progress for the
security and fortune of the citizens, but no change in their
municipal system.

In 1168, there was another charter of the same king, which
abolished many taxes and abuses unlawfully introduced into
Orleans. He published many regulations favourable to the
transactions, to the liberty of commerce: he exempted from
all taxes the vender of wine, who only offered his merchandise
and stated its price. He interdicted duels, or judicial combats,
in cases of dispute for the value of five sous or under.

In 1178, Louis VII. abolished yet more taxes and shackles
upon liberty of commerce in Orleans. He authorized "the
payment in kind of the duty which he received upon wine, in
virtue of the ordonnance of 1 1 37.

In 1183, Philip Augustus exempted the present and future
inhabitants of Orleans, and some neighbouring towns, from
all taxation, and granted them various privileges: for example,
th.at of not going further to plead than Etampes, Yevres le
Chatel, or Lorris; that of never paying a fine of more than
sixty sous, except in certain determinate cases, &c., &c.

These concessions were made in consideration of a duty of
two deniers upon each measure of wheat and of wine. Every
year the king sent one of the sergeants of his house, who, in
concert with the sergeants of the city and ten notable burghers,
legitirai,) elected communiter by all the burghers, fixed the
*imount of this duty for each house.

CIVILIZATION' IN FRANCE. 311

In 1281 Philip le Hardi renewed and confirmed these
concessions of Philip Augustus.

You here see, during about a hundred and fifty years, a
series of important concessions, w'hich, more or less completely
observed, followed and favoured the progress of the popula-
tion, the wealth, and the security of the city of Orleans, but
which in no way erected it into a true borough, and always
left it in a state of complete political dependence.

It was thus with a large number of towns. I say more:
there were some which received very positive and very detailed
charters, charters which seem to accord them rights as con-
siderable as those of real boroughs; but when we inspect
them closely, we see that it is nothing of the kind, for these
charters in fact only contain concessions analogous to those
to Orleans which I have just placed before you, and by no
means constitute of the town a true borough, give it no special
and independent existence.

There is a charter which played a great part in the middle
ages, because it was formally conceded to a large number of
towns, and served as a model for the internal state of others:
this is the charter given by Louis le Jeune, and which appears
to have been only a repetition of a charter of Louis le Gros,
to the town of Lorris in Gatinais. I beg permission to give
it entire, although it is somewhat lengthy, and relates to the
details of civil life. It is important as enabling us to
estimate with some precision the meaning and extent of
concessions of this kind. People have almost always spoken
of boroughs (I must insist anew upon this point,) and char-
ters of boroughs in too general a manner; they have not
examined the facts closely enough, nor properly distinguished
those which really differ. This confused and incomplete
knowledge carries the imagination beyond the truth; it is
not present at the view of things such as they really were;
and reason in its turn wanders at random among the con-
sequences which it has deduced from thorn. This is why I
place before you the very text of some of those charters which
have been generally looked upon as being similar to one
another; you will see how different tlicy are at bottom, how
they emanate from ditTtTont principle-, and reveal, in the
municipal system of the middle ages, variolii'S too often over-
looked. Here, then, is this charter of ihe borough of Lorris

312 HISTORY OK

which the collections call Coutumes de Lorris en Gattnuis
{Consuetudines Lauriacenses).

" Louis, &c. — Let it be known to all, &c.

" L Let whoever shall have a house in the parish of Lorris
pay a quit-rent of six deniers only for his house, and each
acre of land which he shall have in this parish; and if he
make such an acquisition, let that be the quit-rent of his
housfe.

" 2. Let no inhabitant of the parish of Lorris pay a duty
of entry nor any tax for his food, and let him not pay any
duty of measurement for the corn which his labour, or that
of the animals which he may have shall procure him, and let
him pay no duty for the wine which he shall get from his
vines.

" 3. Let none of them go to an expedition on foot or
horseback, whence he cannot return home the same day if he
desire so to do.

" 4. Let none of them pay toll to Etampes, to Orleans, or
to Milly, which is in Gatinais, nor to Melun.

" 5. Let no one who has property in the parish of Lorris
lose any of it for any misdeed whatsoever, unless the said
misdeed be committed against us or any of our guests.

" 6. Let no one going to the fairs or markets of Lorris,
or in returning, be stopped or inconvenienced unless he shall
have committed some misdeed that same day; and let no one
on a fair or market day at Lorris, seize the bail given by
his security; unless the iDail be given the same day.

" 7. Let forfeitures of sixty sous be reduced to five, that of
five to twelve deniers, and the provost's fee in cases of plaint,
to four deniers.

" 8. Let no man of Lorris be forced to go out of it to plead
before the lord king.

" 9. Let no one, neither us nor any other, take any tax,
offering, or exaction from the men of Lorris.

" 10. Let no one sell wine at Luri-is with public notice,
except the king, who shall sell his wine in his cellar with that
notice.

" 11. We will have at Lorris, for our service and that of
the queen, a credit of a full fortnight, in the articles of pro-
visions; and if any inhabitant have received a gage from
the lord king, he shall not be bound to keep it more than
eight days, unless he please.

CIVILIZATION IN yRANCE. 8]3

" 12. If any have had a quarrel with another, but without
breaking a closed house, and if it be accommodated without
plaint brought before the provost, no fine shall be due, on this
account, to us or to our provost; and if there has been a
plaint they can still come to an agreement when they shall
have paid the fine. And if any one bear plaint against
another, and there has been no fine awarded against either one
to the other, they shall not, on that account, owe anything to
us or our provost.

" 13. If any one owe an oath to another, let the latter
have permission to remit it.

" 14. If any men of Lorris have rashly given their
pledge of battle, and if with the consent of the provost they
accommodate it before the pledges have been given, let each
pay two sous and a half; and if the pledges have been given,
let each pay seven sous and a half; and if the duel has been
between men having the right of fighting in the lists, then
let the hostages of the conquered pay one hundred and twelve
sous.

" 15. Let no man of Lorris do forced work for us, unless
it be twice a year to take our wine to Orleans, and nowhere
else; and those only shall do this who shall have horses and
carts, and they shall be informed of it beforehand; and they
shall receive no lodging from us. The labourers also shall
bring wood for our kitchen.

" Ifi. No one shall be detained in prison if he can furnish
bail for his appearance in court.

" 17. Whoever desires to sell his j)roperty may do so; and
having received the j)rice, he may leave the town, free and
unmolested, if he please so to do, unless he has coniinitted aiiy
misdeed in the town.

" IS. Whoever shall have remained a year and a day in
the [)arisli of Lorris without any claim having pursued
him thitlier, and without the right having been interdicted
him, whether by us or our provost, he sliall ren!ai:i there free
and tranquil.

" 15). No one shall plead against another unless it be to
recover, and ensure the observance of, what is his due.

''20. AVlien the men of Lorris sliall go to Orleans with
merchandise, they sliall pay, upon leaving tlie town, one
denier for their cart, when tliey go not for sake of tlic fair;

314 HISTORY OF

and when they go for the sake of the fair and the market,
they shafl pay, upon leaving Orleans, four deniers for each
cart; and on entering, two deniers.

'21. At naarriages in Lorris, the public cryer shall have
no fee, nor he who keeps vratch.

'' 22. No cultivator of the parish of Lorris, cultivating his
land with the plough, shall give, in the time of harvest, more
than one hemine {mind) of rye to all the Serjeants of Lorris.'

" 23. If any knight or Serjeant find, in our forests, horses or
other animals belonging to the men of Lorris, he must not
take them to any other than to the provost of Lorris; and if
any animal of the parish of Lorris, put to flight by bulls, or
assailed by flies, have entered our forest, or leaped our banks,
the owner of the animal shall owe no fine to the provost, if
he can swear that the animal has entered in spite of his
keeper. But if the animal entered with the knowledge of
his keeper, the owner shall pay twelve deniers, and as much
for each animal, if there be more than one.

" 24. There shall be at Lorris no duty paid for using the
oven.

" 25. There shall be at Lorris no watch rate.

" 26. All men of Lorris who shall take salt or wine to
Orleans, shall pay only one denier for each cart.

" 27. No men of Lorris shall owe any fine to the provost
of Etampes, nor to the provost of Pithiviers nor to any in
Gatinais.

" 28. None among them sluill pay the entry dues in Fer-
rieres, nor in Chateau-Landon, nor in Puiseaux, nor in
Nibelle.

" 29. Let the men of Lorris take the dead wood in the
forest for tlieir own use.

" 30. Whosoever, in the market of Lorris^ shall have
bought or sold anything, and shall have forgotten to pay the
duty, may pay it within eight days without being troubled, if
he can swear that he did not withhold the right wittingly.

"31. No man of Lorris having a house or a vineyard, or
a meadow, or a field, or any buildings in the domain of Saint-
Benedict, shall be under the jurisdiction of the abbot of
Saint-lienedict or his Serjeant, unless it be with regard to

' According to Du Caiige, tlic niDni eqiialled six busliels.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 315

the quit-rent in kind, to which he is bound; and, in that
case, he shall not go out of Lorris to be judged.

*' 32. If any of the men of Lorris be accused of anything,
and the accuser cannot prove it by witness, he shall clear him-
self by a single oath from the assertion of his accuser.

" 33. No man of this parish shall pay any duty because of
what he shall buy or sell for his use on the territory of the
precincts, nor for what he shall buy on Wednesday at the
market.

" 34. These customs are granted to the men of Lorris, and
they are common to the men who inhabit Courpalais, Chante-
loup, and the bailiwick of Harpard.

" 35. We order that whenever the provost shall be changed
in the town, he shall swear to faithfully observe these
customs; and the same shall be done by new Serjeants when
they shall be instituted." ^

This charter was looked upon by the citizens as so good,
so favourable, that in the course of the twelfth century, it
was claimed by many towns; they demanded the customs
of Lorris; they addressed themselves to the king in order to
obtain them:

In the space of fifty years they were granted to b« \ en
boroughs or towns :

In 1163, to Villeneuve-le-Roi.

In ll7o, to Chaillon-sur-Loire (Sonchalo).

In 1186, to Boiscomraun, in Gatinais.

In 1187, to Vbisines.

la 1188, to Saint Andre near Macon,

In 1 1 90, to Dimont.

In 1201, to Clery.

And yet, read this charter attentively, there is not, m the
special and historical sense of the word, any corporation,
any true municipal institution, for there is no proper jurisdic-
tion, no independent magistracy. The proprietor of the fief,
the supreme administrator the king, makes such or such
promises to certain inliabitavAs of his domains — he engages to
govern tliem according to certain rules — lie himself imposes
those rules upon his officers, his pmvosts. But there is
nothing, absolutely nothing, resembling real, political guaran-
tees.

' Jicditil dcs Ordonnanccf, 1. xi. p. 200 — '203.

316 HISTORY OK

Do not, however, suppose that these concessions were
without value, and that they remained without fruit. Jn
following, during the course of our history, the principal
towns, which, without ever having been erected into boroughs
properly so called, have obtained advantages of this kind, we
see them gradually developing themselves, increasing in
population, in wealth, and adhering more and more to the
crown, from which they had received their privileges, and
which, while having them very imperfectly observed, while
often even violating them, was still accessible to claims, from
time to time repressed the ill conduct of its officers, renewed
the privileges at need, extended them even, followed, in a
word, in its administration, the progress of civilization, the
dictates of reason, and thus attached to itself the citizens
without politically enfranchising them. Orleans is a striking
example of this fact. In the course of the history of France,
that town is incontestably one of those which havemost strongly,
most constantly, adhered to the crown, and have given it
proofs of the most faithful devotion. Its conduct during the
great wars against the English, and the spirit which has
reigned in It even down to our own days, are striking proofs
of this; and yet Orleans has never been a veritable borough.
An almost independent city, it has always remained under
the administration of the royal officers, invested with preca-
rious privileges; and it is solely by favour of these privileges
that its population, its wealth, and its importance, have been
progressively developed.

I now pass to the third of the sources of the third estate,
which I pointed out in commencing, to the boroughs properly
so called, to those towns, those burghers which have enjoyed
an almost independent existence, protected by true political
guarantees.

You know how most of them were formed: by insurrection,
by warfare against the lords — a war which led to those
treaties of peace called charters, wherein were regulated tlie
rights and the relations of the contracting parties.

It would seem, on the first approach, that these treaties of
peace, these charters, would only contain the conditions
of the agreement concluded between the insurgents and
the possessors of the fief, the commune and its lord. Wiiat
their relations will be henceforward? at what price tlie

CIVILIZATION IN FIIANCK. 317

independence of the borough is to be recognised? what will
be its extent? how it will be instituted? where their juris-
diction will stop? — such are the arrangements which it would
appear should spring from the struggle, and be written in the
charter which terminates it.

Almost always, in fact, and even very recently, in the works
of which this part of our history has been the subject, they
have seen scai'cely anything in the borough charters, or at
least they have remarked scarcely anything but this. There
is, however, something else — a great deal more.

I am about to place before you, in its whole extent, one of
the most ancient borough charters, one of those which best
show what was the internal state of a town after a long
s-truggle against its lord, and everything that had to be done
there at the time of the definitive pacification, when the war
had lasted long enough, and it was necessary at last to come
to a treaty. 1 speak of the charter given by Louis le Gros,
in 1128, to the borough of Laon. You will find, in the
Lettres sur Vhistoire de France, by M. Thierry, the account
of the facts which preceded this charter, the tyranny of the
bishop of Laon, the insurrectijons of the burghers, first
against their bishop, then against the king himself, their
internal seditions, their negotiations, and all the vicissitudes
of this terrible struggle, recounted with as much truth as
vivacity. After nineteen years came at last the charter
of which I speak, which is very truly entitled, Etablissement
de la paix. In order to understand it, it is indispensal>le
to know it all throi:gh:

" In the name of the holy and indivisible Trinity, Amen.
Louis, by tlie grace of God, king of the French, we wish to
make it understood by all our faithful, pnscnt, and to
come, the tollowing establishment of peace tliat, with the
advice and consent of our great men and the citizens of
Laon, we have instituted at Laon, wiiicli extends from the
Ardon to the >voo(l, so that the villiige of Luilly and all the
extent of vii\eyards, and from tlie inountain, inuy be com-
prised within these limits.

" 1. No one niiiy, without the intervi-ntion of the judge,
arrest any one for any misdeed, whether free man or serf.
If there be no judge present, they may, witliout forfeiture,
ri!ta n (the attaintt^di until the judjie shall come, or conduct

818 HISTORY OF

him to the house of the justiciary, and receive satisfaction for
the misdeed, according as he shall be judged.

" 2. If any one have done, in any way whatsoever, any
injury to a priest, knight, or merchant, and if he who has
done the injury be of the city, let him be cited within
four days, to appear in justice before the mayors and free-
men, and justify himself from the wrong which is imputed
to him, or repair it according as he shall be judged. If he
do not choose to repair it, let him be* driven from the city,
with all of his own family (except the hired servants, who are
not obliged to go with him, unless they wish so to do), and let
him not be permitted to return until he shall have repaired
the misdeed by an adequate satisfaction.

" If he have possessions, in houses or vineyards, in the
territory of the city, let the mayor and freemen demand
justice of this- malefactor, or of the lords (if there be several)
in the district where his possessions are situated, or of the
bishop, if he possesses in freehold; and if, summoned by the
lords or the bishop, he will not repair his fault within a fort-
night, and they cannot procure justice upon him, either from
the bishop or from the lord in whose district his possessions
are situated, let the freemen be allowed to devastate and de-
stroy all the goods of this malefactor.

" If the malefactor be not of the city, let the cause be
brought to the bishop; and if, summoned by the bishop,
he has not repaired his misdeed within the fortnight, let the
mayor and freemen be allowed to pursue vengeance on him.
as they may.

" 3. If any one, without knowing it, bring into the ter-
ritory of the establishment of peace, a malefactor driven from
the city, and if he prove his ignorance by oath, let him freely
take back the said malefactor, for tliat time only. If he do
not prove his ignorance, let the malefactor be detained until
full satisfaction.

" 4. K by chance, as it often happens, in the midst of a
conflict among men, one strikes the other, with tlie fist, or
the palm of the hand, or says any disgraceful insult to him,
after having been convicted by legitimate testimonies, let him
repair the wrong towards him Avho is offended, according to
the law under which he lives, and let him make reparation,
to the mayor and the frfeemen for having violated the peace.

r.lVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 3J9

" If the offended refuse to receive reparation, let him not
be permitted to pursue any vengeance against the attainted,
either within the territory of the establishment of peace, or
beyond it; and if he should wound him, let him pay to the
wounded the charge of doctors for healing the wound.

" 5. If any one have a mortal hatred against another, let
him not be allowed to pursue him when he shall go out of
the city, nor keep in ambush for him when he shall return.
If upon going out or coming in, he kill him, or wound him in
any member, and he be summoned for such pursuit or ambush,
let him justify himself by the judgment of God. If he have
fought or wounded liim beyond the territory of the establish-
ment of peace, in such a way that the pursuit or ambush
cannot be proved by the legitimate testimony of the men of
the said territory, he shall be allowed to justify himself by
oath. If he be found guilty, let him give head for head, and
limb for limb, or let him pay for his head^ or according to
the importance of the limb, an adequate redemption, at the
arbitration of the mayor and the freemen.

" 6. If any one have entered a capital complaint against
another, let him first carry his i)laint before the judge, in the
district in which the attainted shall be found. If he cannot
have justice from the judge, let him carry to the lord of the
said accused, if he live in the city, or to the officer (^mi/m-
trrioUs) of the said lord, if he himself live out of the cify,
tlie plaint against his man. If he cannot have justice either
from tlie lord or from liis officer, let him seek the freemen of
the peace, and explain to them that he cannot have justice on
this man, either from the loi-d or from tlie otHcer of the
same; let the freemen seek the lord, if he be in tiie city, and
if not, his officer, and let tliem demand tliat justice be in-
stantly done to him who complains of liis man; and if tlie
lord or his officer cannot do him justice, or neglect so doing,
let the former seek some means whereby the plaintitF may
not lose his right.

" 7. If luiy robber be arrested, let him be earrit'd to him
in whose land he has been taken; and if the lord of the land
do not do justice, let the freemen do it.

" 8. Ancient misdeeds, which took place before the estab-
lishment of the |>eace, are absolutely pardoned, with the
exception of thirteen persons whose names here follow;

320 ijisxoitr UP

Foulques, the son of Bomard; Raoul of Capricion; Haman,
the man of Lebert; Payen Seille; Robert; Remy Bunt;
Meynard Dray; Raimbauld of Soissons;, Payen Hostelloup;
Anselle Quatremains; Raoul G'astines; Jean of Molreira;
Anselle, son-in-law of Lebert. With the exception of these,
if any one of the city, driven out for ancient misdeeds, wish to
return, let him resume possession of all which belongs to him,
and which he shall prove himself to have possessed, and not
sold or put in pledge.

" We also order that men of tributary condition pay the
due rent and no more to their lords; and if they do not pay it
at the time agreed upon, let them be subject to the fine, accord-
ing to the law under which they live; and let them not pay,
except it be willingly, anything at the demand of their lord3,
but let it rest with their lords to pursue them for their failure,
and to take from them what shall be adjudged.

" 10. Let men of the peace, except servants of the church,
and of the great men of the peace, take wives in any condition
they can. AVith regard to servants of the church, or of the
great men who are of t)ie peace, who are beyond the limits of
this place, it is not permitted them to take wives without the
consent of their lords.

" 11. If any vile and dishonest person insult, by gross in-
juries, an honest man or woman, let it be permitted to any
prudhomme of the peace, who shall be near, to reprimand him,
and repress his presumption, with impunity, by one, two, or
three blows. If he be accused of having struck for an old
hatred, let him be allowed to clear liimself, by taking oath,
that he did not do it out of hatred, but, on the contrary, for
the observance of peace and concord.

" 12. We completely abolish main-morte,

" 1 3. If any one of the place, in marrying his daughter, cr
granddaughter, or relation, have given her land or money,
and if she die without heir, let all which shall remain of the
land or money given her, return to those who gave it, or to
their lieirs. In the same way, if a husband die without beir,
let all his property return to his relations, with the exception
of the dov/ry which he had given to his wife; this latter
shall keep the dowry during her life, and after her death
the dowry shall return to the relations of her imsband. If
neither the husband nor the wife possess real property,

. CIVILIZATION IN FKANCE. 321

•nd if, gaining by trade, they have made a fortune and have
no heirs, at the death of one all the fortune shall remain
with the other; and if then they have no relations, they shall
give two-thirds of their fortune in alms for the good of their
souls, and the other third shall be spent for the construction
of the walls of the city.

" 14. Moreover, let no stranger, among the tributaries of
the church or of the knights of the city, be received into the
present peace without the consent of his lord. If, by ignorance,
any one be received without the consent of his lord, let him
be permitted within the space of fifteen days to go whole and
safe, without forfeiture, where he shall please, with all his
substance.

"15. Whosoever shall bereceived into this peace must, within
the space of one year, build himself a house, or buy vineyards,
or bring into the city a sufficient quantity of his moveable
property to enable him to satisfy justice, if by chance it have
any subject of complaint against him.

" 16. If any one deny having heard the proclamation of
the city, let him prove it by the testimony of the sheriffs, or
clear himself by. elevating his hand in oath.

" 17. With regard to the rights and customs which the
lord of the manor pretends to have in the city, if he can legi-
timately prove before the court of the bishop that his prede-
cessors have anciently possessed them, let him obtain them
with good will; if he can not do so, let him not have them.

" 18. We have thus reformed the customs with regard
to taxes: Let eadi man who owes taxes, pay four deniers at
the time when he owes them, but let him pay no other tax
beside; unless, indeed, he have beyond the limits of this peace
some other land owing taxes, to which he holds sufficiently
to pay the tax for the said possession.

" 19. The men of the peace shall not be forced to go to any
court out of the city. If we have any subject of complaint
against any one of them, justice shall be administered by
the judgment of the freemen; and if we have subject of com-
plaint airainst all, justice shall be administered by the judg-
ment of tlie court of the bishop.

" 20. If any priest commit a misdeed, within the limits of
the peace, if he is a canon, let the plaint be taken before the
dean, juid let him administer justice. If he be not a cuuonj

VOL. IIU Y

322 HISTORY OF

justice must be administered by the bishop, archdeacon, oi
their officers.

"21. If any great men of the country have done wrong to
the men of the peace, and being summoned, will not do them
justice, if these men be found within the limits of the peace,
let them and their property be seized in reparation of this
injury, by the judge in whose territory they shall have been
taken, to the end that thus the men of peace may preserve
their rights, and that the judge himself may not be deprived
of his

" 22. For these benefits, then, and for others also, that,
through a royal kindness, we have granted to these citizenSj
the men of this peace have made this convention with us —
. namely, that, without counting our royal court, the expedi-
tions, and horse service which they owe us, they shall three
times a-year furnish us with lodgings, if we come into the
city; and that if we do not come thither, they shall instead,
pay us twenty livres.

'* 23. We have then established all this constitution, with
the exception of our right, the episcopal and ecclesiastical
right, and that of the great men who have their legitimate
and distinct rights in the confines of this peace; and if the
men of this peace in any way infringe our right, that of the
bishop, of the churches, of the great men of the city, they may
retrieve their infringement without forfeiture, by a fine,
witliin the space of fifteen days."^

You see that this concerns other things than the relations of
the new borough with its lord, and the creating its municipal
constitution. Indeed, truly speaking, the charter does not
create that constitution, orders nothing concerning the forma-
tion of the local magistracies, who are its strength and gua-
rantee.

You meet here with the names of mayor and freemen;
you recognise here the independence of their jurisdiction;
you distinguish here the movement of political life, elec-
tions, the right of peace and war, but without any article
which formally institutes them. These are admitted, indis-
putable facts, which reveal themselves by their influence, but
which men record in passing, so to speak, rather than institute.

' Secveil des Ordoanances, t. xi. p. 185 — 187.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCK. 323

Nor la there anything precise, anything carefully regulated at
to the relations of the borough of Laon, either with the king
with its bishop, or with the lords with whom it may have
to do. Many articles refer to these relations, but they are
not the principal object of the charter. It has a far different
range; a task far more vast, more difficult, occupied its authors.
We see therein a rude, barbarous society, which arises out of
an almost entire anarchy, and receives not only a borough
charter, but a penal code, a civil code, an entire social legis-
lation, so to speak. It is evident, the question is not merely
the relations of a borough with its lord, not merely the in-
stituting municipal magistracies; the matter in hand is the
entire social organization; we are in the presence of a dis-'
arranged society, to which regular laws, written laws have
become necessary, and which, not knowing how to give them
to itself, receives them from a power with which it has just
been at war, but which none the less exercises over it that
authority, that ascendancy, the imperious condition of all
efficacious legislation

Read, and attentively read again, the charter of Laon, you
will be convinced more and more that such is its true cha-
racter. It is that of numerous analogous charters: I repeat,
they not only "ix'gulate the relations of the boroughs with the
lords; they not only institute the boroughs, but they organize
the entire society in the interior of the city; they draw it
from a state of anarchy, of ignorance, of legislative power-
lessness, to give it, in the name ©f a superior power, a
regular form, to write its customs, to regulate its rights, to
impose upon it,' with its consent, if I may so express myself,
penal laws, civil laws, laws of police, all the means of order
and duration of which that senii-barl»arous society feels the
need, and wliich, leit to itself, it would never have been able
to discover.

The charter of Laon, one of the most extensive and com
plete, is also one of tliose where the fact which I have pointed
out to you is the most clearly shown: but we recognise it in
many other charters, espcciullv in those of Saint Quenti
Soissons, Rove, ^c. The revolution which hapj)ened at this
epoch in tlie state of the borotigks is much greater, then,
tlian is sup|)os('d; it did much more than enfranchise them,
it began the entire social legislation.
y2

324 HISTORY or

I regret being unable to enter more into detail upon
this great subject; I could wish to study to the bottom this
rising citizen nation, its institutions, its laws, all its life,
already so vigorous and yet so confined. But I am pressed
for time, and the documents are incomplete. I think I have
at all events given you a just idea of the origins of the third
estate. To that I at present confine my ambition. I will
endeavour, in our next lecture, to point out to you what a
profound revolution was brought about in the passage from
the ancient municipal system to that which we have just
studied, and what essential, radical differences distinguish the
Roman municipality from the borough of the middle ages.
Whosoever has not taken into mature consideration these
differences, and all their bearings, cannot understand modern
civilization, the phases of its development, and its true ch**
racter.

CIVILIZATION IN FUANCE- 325

EIGHTEENTH LECTURE.

Snbject of the lecture — The difference between the Roman municipal system
and that of the middle ages — Danger of the immobility of names —
1 . Various origin of the Roman city and the modem borough ; 2. Di-
versity of their constitution ; 3. Diversity of their history — Thence re-
sulted that the aristocratical principle predominated in the Roman city ;
the democratical spirit, iu the modern borough — New proofs of this
fact.

In our next lecture we shall terminate the history of civil
society, properly so called, during the feudal period. It is
true, we shall still have to examine the codes, the laws, the
legislative movements of that society, the principal of which
are the Assises de Jerusalem, the Etablissemens of Saint Louis,
the Coutume de Beauvaisis of Beaumanoir, and the Traiie de
rancienne jurisprudence de France, by Pierre de Fontaine;
])ut we shall be constrained to postpone this study to the next
course. We shall at least have completely studied, during
the present course, feudalism, royalty, and the commons from
the tentii to the fourteenth century, that is to say, the three
fundamental elements of civil society during that epoch.

You will recollect what the subject is which must occupy
us at present. I first placed before you the formation of the
third estate in France, its different origins, and its first deve-
lopments. I then endeavoured to introduce you into the in-
terior of the various boroughs, and to describe their constitu-
tion. At present let us apply ourselves to determine what
resemblance and what difference existed between the Roman
municipalities and the boroughs of the middle ages. This is
the only means of arriving at a thorough comprehension of
the latter.

326 HISTOBT 0»

I have already several times had occasion to point out to
you the danger of those words which remain immoveable
through ages, and are applied to facts which alter. A fact pre-
sents itself; people give it a name impressed with such or such
a characteristic of the fact, with the most striking, the most
general characteristic. After a certain lapse of time, let a
fact present itself before men, analogous to the first, analo-
gous at least in that particular characteristic, they do not
trouble themselves to find out whether the resemblance is
elsewhere complete; they give the same name to the new
fact, although perhaps it essentially differs; and here is a
fallacy established by a name, which will become the source
of infinite errors.

Examples are plentiful. I take the first which occurs to
me. For ages the word republic has meant a certain form of
government where there is no sole and hereditary power.
It is thus, that not only among the moderns, but among the
ancients, a republic has been defined; and this name has been
given to all states which have offered this characteristic.
Compare, however, the Roman republic and the republic of
the United States. Are there not between these two states
which bear the same name infinitely greater differences than
between the republic of the United States and any particular
constitutional mSnarchy ? It is evident that, although in
a certain characteristic the republic of the United States
resembles the Roman republic, it differs so essentially in other
respects that it amounts almost to an absurdity to give it the
same name. Nothing, perhaps, has caused more confusion,
more fallacy in history, than this immobility of names amidst
variety of facts; and I know not how to warn you too strongly
never to lose sight of this quicksand.

We are close upon it now. I have frequently spoken of
the influence of the Roman municipal system upon modern
cities, the boroughs of the middle ages. I have endeavoured
to show you how the Roman city did not perish with the
empire, how it perpetuated and transfused itself, so to speak,
in the modern boroughs. You may have been led to con-
clude that the boroughs of the middle ages greatly resembled
the Roman cities; you would be deceived. At the same time
that it is evident that the Roman municipal system did not
perish, and that it exercised a great influence over the forma-

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 327

tion of nfodern towns, still it is necessary to understand that
there was a transformation of this system, and that the diifer-
ence between the cities of the empire and our boroughs is
immense. It is this difference which I wish at present properly
to explain to you.

And first there was in the origin, in the first formation or
the cities of the Roman world, and of the towns of the middle
ages, an important and fertile difference. The towns of the
middle ages, whether borouglis, properly so called, or towns
administered by seigneural officers, were formed, as you
have seen, by labour and insurrection. On the one hand, the
assiduous industry of the burghers and the progressive
wealth consequent on industry; on the other, insurrection
against the lords, the revolt of the weak against the strong,
of the inferiors against the superiors ; these are the two
sources whence tlie boroughs of tlie feudal period took
birth.

The origin of the towns of antiquity, of the cities of the
Roman world, was wholly different. Most of them were
formed by conquest; military or commercial colonies were
formed amidst a country thinly populated, or badly cultivated;
they successively invaded at the sword's i)oint the surround-
ing territory. War, superiority of force, of civilization, such
was the cradle of most cities of the ancient world, and par-
ticularly of a large number of the cities of Gaul, more espe-
cially in the south, as Marseilles, Aries, Agde, &c., which,
as you know, are of foreign origin. The burghers of these
cities, far different in this respect from the citizens of the
middle ages, were in the outset, the strong, the con(iuerors. At
their birth they dominated by conquest, while th;'ir successors,
with great trouble, gained a little freedom by insurrection.

There is another original and not less important difference.
Industry, doubtless, played a great part in the formation oi
the ancient cities, as of the modern boroughs, liut here
again the same word designates totally different facts. The
industry of the burghers of anticiuity was of an entirely
different nature from that of the burghers of the middle ages.
The inliubitants of a rising town, of a coh-ny like Mar-
seilles at tlie time of its foundation, were «<evote<^l to a<rri-
culture, to free and proprietary agriculture; they cultivated
the territory as they invaded it, as the Roman patricians

328 HISTORY OF

improved the territory of the conquests of Rome. To
agriculture, commerce became allied, but an extensive, varied,
generally maritime commerce, full of liberty and grandeur.
Compare this industry, commercial or agricultural, with that
of the rising boroughs of the middle ages: What an enormous
difference! in the latter, all is servile, precarious, narrow,
miserable! the burghers cultivate, but without true liberty,
without true possession; they acquire these, not in a day and by
their arms, but slowly and by their sweat. As to the question
of industry, of commerce, their industry is for a long time
purely manual labour, their commerce is confined within a
very limited horizon. Nothing resembles that free, extensive
industry, those distant and varied relations of the colonies of
antiquity. These formed themselves sword in hand, and with
sails spread to the wind; the boroughs of the middle ages
arose from furrows and from shops. Truly the diiFerence
of origin is great, and the entire life must have shown it.

If you would form a just idea of the origin and the first
developments of the ancient cities, look at what has passed,
at what is now passing in America. How were Boston, New
York, New Haven, Baltimore, all those great maritime towns
of the United States, formed? Free, fierce, daring men left
their country, transported themselves to a foreign soil, amidst
nations far inferior in civilization and force; they conquered
the territory of these nations; they worked it as conquerors,
as masters. Soon they formed a great and distant commerce
with their old country, with the continent which they had
quitted; and their wealth was rapidly developed, like their
power.

This is the history of Boston, of New York; it is also the
history of Marseilles, of Agde, of the great Greek, Phoe-
nician, or even Roman colonies of the south of Gaul. There
are, you see, very slight relations between this origin and that
of the boroughs of the middle ages; the primitive situation
of tlie burghers in these two cases was singularly different,
and there must have resulted fpom thence profound and lasting
differences in the municipal system and its development.

Let us leave the cradle of towns; let us take them already
formed; let us study their internal social state, the relations
maintained by the inhabitants among themselves or with their

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. * 329

neighbairs; the difference between the Roman municipality
and the borough of the middle ages will appear to us neither
less great, nor less fertile.

Three facts especially strike me in the internal state
of the cities of the Roman world and of the feudal towns.

In the cities of Greek or Roman origin, in most of the
ancient cities of Gaul, the magistracies, the religious and
civil functions were united. The same men, the chiefs of
families, alike possessed them. It was, as you know, one
of the great characteristics of Roman civilization, that the
patricians were, at the same time, priests and magistrates,
within their own house. There was not there a body espe-
cially devoted, like the Christian clergy, to the religious
magistracy. The two powers were in the same hands, and
were attached equally to the family, to the domestic life.

Moreover, in the ancient cities the paternal power, the
power of the chief within his family, was enormous. It
underwent, according to the times, important modifications; it
was not the same in the cities of Greek and of Roman origin;
but, in estimating these differences, it was not any the less
one of the predominant characteristics of that social state.

Lastly, there was slavery, domestic slavery; the consider-
able families, the chiefs of the cities lived surrounded by
slaves, exclusively served by slaves.

None of these three circumstances are met with in the
boroughs of the middle ages. The separation of the religious
and the civil functions is there complete. A strongly isolated
body, the clergy, alone governs, in some measure possesses
religion. At tlie same time, the paternal ])()wer, although
great, is still very inferior to what it was in the Roman
world: it is great as regards possessions, fortune, but very
restricted as regards persons. The son, onee arrived at his
majority, is entirely free and independent of his father.
Finally, there is no domestic slavery. It is by labourers, by
free men, that the superior population of the town, the richer
burghers are surrounded and served.

If you would see, by an example taken from the modem
world, what iln enormous difference may result in the
manners of a people from this last circumstance, look at the
confederation of the United States of America. It is a fact

330 • HISTORY OF

known by all who have visited them, or even studied 'therrit
that between the manners of the states of the south, of Caro-
lina, of Georgia, for example, and the manners of the states
of the north, as Massachussetts or Connecticut, there is a
profound difference which arises from the states of the south
having slaves, while those of the north have not. This mere
fact of a superior race which possesses an inferior race by
way of property, and disposes of it — this fact alone, I say,
gives an entirely different character to the ideas, sentiments,
and way of living of the population of the towns. The con-
stitutions, the written laws of the states and towns of the
south, in the American confederation, are generally more de-
mocratic than those of the towns of the northern states, and
yet such is the influence of slavery that the ideas, the manners,
are at bottom much more aristocratic in the south than in
the north.

Let us now quit the interior of towns; let us go beyond
their walls, let us examine the situation of the inhabitants in
the midst of the country, their relation with the mass of the
population. We shall here find between the cities of the
I Oman world and the boroughs of the middle ages, an im-
n ense difference, and one which I have already pointed out.
The towns, before the barbaric invasion, were, as you know,
tlie centre of the superior population; the masters of the
Roman world, all the considerable men lived in, or near the
towns; the country districts were occupied only by an inferior
population, slaves or coloni kept in semi-servitude. In the
heart of the cities, resided the political power. The contrary
spectacle is offered us by the feudal period. It is in the country
districts that the lords, the masters of the territory and of
power, live. The towns are in a measure abandoned to an
inferior population, which laboriously struggles to screen and
defend itself, and finally to free itself in some degree behind
their walls.

Thus, under whatever point of view we consider the towns
and their inhabitants in the Roman world, and in the middle
ages, whether we regard their origin, their internal social
state, or their relations with the mass of the population which
occupies the territory, the differences are numerous, striking,
indisputable.

How shall we sum them up? Wh^t is their most prominent,

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 331

most strikinf^ characteristic? You have already felt it, you
have yourselves named it. The aristocratic spirit must have
predominated in the Roman cities; the democratic spirit in
the towns of the middle ages. From their very origin, from
their internal social state, from their external relations, the
Roman cities must have been eminently aristocratic. Their
inhabitants were in permanent possession of the 'superior
situation, of the political power. The consciousness of this
elevation, haughtiness, gravity, and all the merits appertain-
ing thereto — such is tlie favourable side of the aristocratic
spirit. The passion for privilege, the desire to interdict all
progress in the classes placed beneath them, this is its vice.
It is evident that both tendencies, the good and the evil of the
aristocratic spirit, were favoured, provoked by all the prin-
cipal circumstances of the existence of the Roman cities. The
democratic spirit, on the contrary, must have predominated
in the towns of the middie ages. What is its characteristic
feature? Independence, the passion for individuality and
ascending movement, is its good side. Its evil side is envy,
hatred of its superiors, a blind inclination for change, the
disposition to have recourse to brutal force. Who does not
see that from the very origin of the towns of the middle ages,
from their internal social state, from their foreign relations,
this good and this evil side, these merits and these vices of
the democratic spirit must have been the predominating cha-
racteristic of their manners?

LeL us go deeper; let us view the municipal institutions,
properly so called, the administrative organization of the city,
its magistracies, its elections; let us compare, under this new
relation, the Roman city, and the borough of the middle ages;
we shall arrive at the same results.

I have spoken, in the last course, of the state of the Roman
municipal system at the time of the invasion of the barbarians.
You know, thcrelbre, what was the curia, the cnriales, the
decurions, and how the Roman municipality was organized at
the end of the empire. I shall, however, repeat it in a fow
words:

In each mu7iicipium a senate, which was ealhvl an ordo or
curia. This senate constituted tlie city, jiropcrly so called;
the power belonged to it; this it was that administered the
town, with the exception of a few extraordinary cases, where

332 HISTORY OF

the mass of the population wa? called upon to take part in
the municipal affairs.

This ordo, this curia was composed of a certain number of
families known beforehand, inscribed upon a register which
was called, album, album ordinis, album curice. Their number
was not considerable. There is reason to suppose, from some
examples, that it varied between one and two hundred. You
see the municipal power was concentred in a very small
number of families. Not only was it concentred therein,
but it was generally hereditary in those families who were
invested with it. Wiien once they formed part of the
senate, of the ordo, they never left it; they were bound to
fill all the municipal charges, and at the same time had a
riglit to all the municipal honours and powers.

Tliis senate became thinner, the families became extinct;
and since the charges of the cities always subsisted, and even
increased, it was necessary to fill up the vacancies. How did
the curia become recruited? It recruited itself. ' The new
curiales were not elected by the mass of the population; it
was the curia itself which selected them, and introduced them
into its body. The magistrates of the city, elected by the
curia, named such or such a family, rich and considerable
enough to be incorporated in the curia. Then the curia
called upon it; and that family, from that time joined to the
ordo, was inscribed the following year in the album ordinis.

Such are the principal features of the organization of the
Roman city. This is assuredly a highly aristocratical organiza-
tion. What can be more aristocratic than the concentra-
tion of power in a small number of families, the inheritance
of powder in the bosom of those families, and the recruiting of
this body effected by itself, by its own choice?

At the fall of the empire, this municipal power was a
charge, and men flew from it instead of seeking it; for all
these aristocracies of towns were a prey, like the empire it-
self, to an extreme decline, and served only for tlie instru-
ment of imperial despotism. ]5ut tlie organization always
remained the same, and always profoundly aristocratic.

Let us now transport ourselves to the thirteenth century,
into the towns of the middle ages; we shall there find ourselves
in the presence of other principles, of other institutions, of an
entirely different society. It is not that we do not encounter,

CIVIUZATION IN FRANCE. 333

in some modern boroughs, facts analogous to the organization
of the Roman city, a kind of ordo, of hereditary senate, in-
vested with the right of governing the city. But this is not
the predominant characteristic of the communal organization
of the middle ages: in general, a numerous and changeable
population, all classes in easy circumstances, all trades of a
certain importance, all the burghers in possessipn of a certain
fortune are called to share, indirectly at least, the exercise of
the municipal power. The magistrates are generally elected,
not by a senate already itself very much concentred, but by
the mass of the inhabitants. There are infinite varieties, and
very artificial combinations, in the number and relation of
the magistracies, and in the mode of election. But even
these varieties prove that the organization was not simple
and aristocratic like that of the Roman cities. We recognise,
in the different modes of election of the boroughs of the middle
ages, on the one liAnd the concurrence of a large number of
inhabitants, on the other a laborious eflfort to escape the
dangers of this multitude, to diminish, to refine its influence,
and to introduce into the choice of magistrates, more wisdom
and impartiality than was naturally borne by it. The follow-
ing is a curious example of this kind of combinations. In
the borough of Sommi^res in Languedoc, in the department
of Gard, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the election
of municipal magistrates was subject to the following tests.
The town was di\ided into four quarters, according to the
bodies of trades. It had four superior magistrates and six-
teen municipal councillors: their office lasted one year; at
the end of a year, tliese four superior magistrates and their
sixteen councillors met, and they themselves chose in the four
quarters of the town twelve notables, three in each quarter.
Thus there were four superior magistrates, sixteen councillors,
twelve notables, in all thirty-two. These twelve notables,
chosen by the magistrates of the preceding year, introduced
twelve children into the hall: there were twelve balls of wax
in an urn; they drew out a ball of wax, for each of the twelve
children; then they opened the balls of wax in four of which,
was inclosed the letter E, which meant dectits, elected. The
child who had drawn the ball in which the letter was con-
tained, on the other hand, named a notable, who thus found
himself electee", one of the superior magistrates of the borough.

334 HISTORY OF

What can be more artificial than such a system? Its ob-
ject is to bring into concurrence the most various modes of
choice — the nomination by the ancient magistrates themselves,
election by the population and lot. It is evidently to weaken
the empire of the popular passions, to struggle against the
perils of an election accomplished by a numerous and change-
able multitude.

"We find, in the municipal system of the middle ages, many
precautions and artifices of this kind. These precautions,
these artifices clearly show what principle predominated
therein. They endeavour to refine, to restrain, to correct,
election, but it is always to election that they address them-
selves. The choice of the superior by the inferior, of the
magistrates by the population, such is the dominant charac-
teristic of the organization of modern boroughs. The choice
among the inferiors by the superiors, the renewing of the
aristocracy by the aristocracy itself, such is the fundamental
principle of the Roman city.

You see whatever route we take we arrive at the same
point, despite the influence of the Roman municipal system
over the municipal system of the middle ages; despite the
uninterrupted tie which unites them, the difference is radical.
The aristocratic spirit predominates in the one, the demo-
cratic spirit in the other. There is a union and a revolu-
tion at the same time.

There are still some scattered facts which will confirm, clear
up, and illustrate this result, at which we arrive from all sides.
Which are the towns in France which, in the thirteenth
and fourteenth century, present the most aristocratic aspect?
They are the towns of the south, that is to say, the boroughs
of Roman origin, where the principles of the Roman muni-
cipal system had preserved the greatest influence. The line of
demarcation, for example, between the burghers and the pos-
sessors of fiefs, was much less profound in the south than in
the north. The burghers of IMontpelier, of Toulouse, of Beau-
caire, and of many other cities, had the right of being created
knights as well as the feudal lords, a right not possessed
by the burghers of the northern borouglis, where the struggle
between the two classes was much more violent, and where,
consequently, the democratic spirit was much more ardent.
Let us for a moment leave France: what do we see in

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 335

Italy? the constitution of many towns there ap{)ears very
analogous to that of the ancient Roman city. Why is this?
First, because the Roman municipal system was there more
alive, and exercised more influence; next, because feudalism
having been very weak in Italy, we do not see that long and
terrible struggle between the lords and the burghers, which
holds so much place in our history.

In the French boroughs, and part.'cularly in those of the
north and the centre, it was not within the city itself that the
combat was established between the aristocracy and the
democracy, there the democratic spirit prevailed. It was
against an external aristocracy, against the feudal aristocracy,
that the burgher democracy strove. Within the Italian repub-
lics, on the contrary, there was a struggle between a municipal
aristocracy and a democracy, because there was no external
strufrerle which absorbed all the forces of the cities.

It is needless/ 1 think, to insist farther: these facts are
sufficient. The distinction between the Roman municipal
system and that of the middle ages is clear and profound.
Doubtless, Roman municipality has contributed much to the
modern borough; many towns have passed, by an almost in-
sensible transition from the ancient cicria to our bourgeoisie;
but although tlie Roman municipality has not perished,
although we cannot say that at any particular epoch it ceased
to exist, in order at a later period to be replaced by other in-
stitutions; although, in a word, there has been no solution of
continuity, yet there has been veritable revolution; and, while
perpetuating themselves, the municipal institutions of the
Roman world were transformed in order to give rise to a
municipal organization founded upon other principles, ani-
mated with another spirit, and which has played an entirely
different part in general society, in the state, than that whicli
the curia played under the empire.

Tiiis is the great fact hitherto overlooked, or ill compre-
hended, which I engaged to bring to light. In our next
lecture, I shall endeavour rapidly to place before } ou the
revolution which -the modern municipal system expcri need
in the feudal period, from the moment when the horough.j
first appear and are constituted, to the moment when the
reign of feudalism ends; that is to say, from the end of the
tenth to the commencement of the fifteenth century.

336 HISTORY or

NINETEENTH LECTURE.

History of tlie third estate from the 11th to the 14th century — Vicissitudet
of its situation — Rapid decay of horoughs, properly so called — By what
causes — 1. By the centralization of feudal powers — 2. By the patronage
of kings and great suzerains — 3. By the internal disorders of towns —
Decline of the borough of Laon — The third estate did not fall at the
same time as the borough ; on the contrary, it developed and strengthened
itself — History of the towns administered by the officers of the king —
Influence of royal judges and administrators over the formation and pro-
gress of the third estate — What is to be thought of the communal liber-
ties and their results ? — Comparison of France and Holland — Conclusion
of the course.

You have been present at the formation and at the first
development of the third estate. I have endeavoured to
make you understand the situation, whether amidst society in
f]feneral, or in the interior of towns, during the feudal period.
But that period lasted for three centuries, the eleventh,
twelfth, and thirteenth. For this long interval, the third
estate did not remain immovable, identical. A social condi-
tion still so precarious, a class still so weak, and so rudely
tossed about among superior forces, must have been subject to
great agitations, to frequent vicissitudes. We shall study them
in the present lecture.

It is here especially that the distinction of which I have
spoken, between the third estate and the commons, becomes
important. When in arriving at the end of the feudal period
and at the commencement of the fourteenth century, one
inquires where was that middle population which was called
the bourgeoisie, we see with surprise that the boroughs, pro-
perly so called, are on the decline, and that still the third
estate, considered as a social class, is in progress; that the hour-

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 337

geois IS more numerous, more powerful, although the boroughs
Lave lost much of their liberty and power.

A priori, and considering the general state of society at
this epoch, this fact is very easily explained. You see
what boroughs, properly so called, were: towns, having a
jurisdiction of their own, making war, coining money, almost
governing themselves; in a word, petty republics, nearly in-
dependent. The expression, although extravagant, gives a
sufficiently exact idea of the fact. Let us seek for a moment
what these boroughs might, what they must have become,
amidst society from the twelfth to the fourteenth century; we
shall see that they must almost necessarily and rapidly have
declined.

The boroughs were petty societies, petty local states, formed
by virtue of that movement which buist forth about tlie
middle of the ninth century, and which tended to destroy all
social organization in any way extensive, all central power
in order to leave standing only very limited associations,
purely local powers. In the same way, as the society of the
possessors of fiefs could not be constituted in a general manner,
and reduced itself to a multitude of petty sovereigns, each
master in his domains, and but just united among themselvt^
by a weak and disordered hierarchy, so it happened in towns.
Their existence was entirely local, isolated, confined within
their walls, or in a very narrow territory. They had escapetl.
by insurrection, from the petty local sovereigns upon whom
tliey had I'ormerly depended; they had ii» tliis manner ac-
quired a true political life, but without extending their rela-
tions, without attaching themselves to any common centre,
to any general organization.

If tilings had always remained in the same state, if tin-
borouglis had never had to do with any but the lords wiio
lived by their side, and from whom they liad conipiered their
independence, it is possible that they might have preserved
all that independence, that they might even have made new
progress. They had, against a neighbouring master, given
proof of force, and taken guarantees of liberty. If they had
never had to do with any other but him, thi-y would probably
have maintained the struggle with more and more advantage,
and seen at once tlieir force and liberty then increase.

Tliis is what luippened in Italy. The cities, the ItaUan
VOL. III. z

338 HISTORY OF

republics, after havinpf once conquered the neighbouring
lords, were not long before they absorbed them. These found
themselves obliged to come and live within their walls; and
the feudal nobility, the greater part at least, was thus meta-
morphosed into a republican bourgeoisie. But whence came
this good fortune of the towns of Italy? From the fact that
they never had to do with a central and very superior power;
the struggle was almost always between them and the private,
local lords, from Avhom they had conquered their indepen-
dence. In France, things took an entirely different course.
You know (for the fact was recognised when we were occu-
pied with feudal society itself) that most of the possessors
of fiefs, of these petty local sovereigns, gradually lost, if not
their domains and liberty, at least their sovereignty, and that
there was formed, under the name of duchy, viscounty, county,
suzerainties, much stronger and more extensive, real petty
royalties, which absorbed the principal rights of the possessors
of fiefs dispersed over their territory, and, merely by the in-
equality of forces, reduced them to a very subordinate condi-
tion.

Most of the boroughs, then, soon found themselves face to
face, no longer with the simple lord who lived by their side,
and whom they had once conquered, but with a suzerain far
more powerful, far more formidable, who had usurped, and
exercised to his own profit, the rights of a multitude of
lords. The borough of Amiens, for example, had forced a
charter and efficacious guarantees from the count of Amiens.
But when the county of Amiens was united to the crown of
France, the borough, in order to maintain its privileges, had
to struggle against the king of France, and no longer against
tlie count of Amiens. Assuredly, that struggle was more
severe and the chance far less favourable. The same fact
took phice in numerous directions, and the situation of the
boroughs was seriously compromised.

There was but one way for them to resume their ground,
and to struggle with any hope of success against their new and
far more powerful adversaries. All the boroughs dependent
upon one suzerain should have confederated, and formed a
league for the defence of their liberty, as the Lombard cities
•lid against Frederic Barbarossa and the emperors. But
confederation, of all systems of association and government,

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 339

is the most complicated, the most difficult, that which demands
the greatest development in the intellect of men, the greatest
empire of general interests over particular interests, of general
ideas over local prejudices, of public reason over individual
passions. Accordingly, it is excessively weak and preca-
rious, unless general civilization be very strong and far ad-
vanced. The boroughs of France, those which depended
either on the king or the great suzerains, did not even at-
tempt a federative organization ; they scarcely ever appeared
in the struggle against their formidable adversaries, other
than isolated, and each on his awn account. It is true,
we find here and there some attempts at alliance, but they
are momentary, limited, and very quickly broken. There is
a striking and deplorable example of tliis in the war of the
Albigenses in the south of France. You know that the
towns of the south had rapidly acquired a large amount of
prosperity and independence. It was more especially within
their walls that the religious opinions of the Albigenses, and
all the ideas connected with them, liad made so much progress;
they there possessed, one may say, the greater portion of the
population. When the crusaders of the north of France
threw themselves upon the Albigenses, it seemed natural
that these towns, so flourishing, so strong, should unite, and
form between them a great confederation, in order efficaciously
to resist these foreigners, these new barbarians, who came to
devastate and invade tliem. All interests called for a confe-
deration of this kind, the interest of, safety, the interest of
liberty, the interest of religion, the interest of nationality.
The struggle which then arose was that of rising civilization
against conquering barbarism, of the municij)al system which
prevailed in the south against the feudal system which pre-
dominated in the north. It was the strn<:gle of the bour-
geoisie iigainst the ft'udal aristocracy. "Well, it was impos-
sible for these towns of the south, Avignon, I'eaucaire, Mont-
pellier, Carcassonne, Beziers, Toulouse, 8tc. — to understand
one another, and confederate together. The; bourgeoisie only
presented themselves to the tight successively, town after
town; and thus, despite its devotion and courage, it was
promptly and thoroughly conquered.

Surely, nothing can better prove how difficult it was to
obtain a communal confederation, the alliance of these petty
z2

340 HISTORY OF

independent republics; for never was it more necessary, more
natural, and yet it was scarcely attempted. With still greater
reason must it have happened so in the centre and the north
of France, where the towns were not only less powerful, less
numerous, but also less enlightened, less capable of being lee'
by general views, less capable of making personal interests
subordinate to general and permanent interests. Engaged,
therefore, in the struggle against adversaries who had cen-
tralized the powers of the feudal system, while they remained
Avith their forces all local, scattered, and individual; alone in
the presence, no longer, of the neighbouring lord from whom
they had conquered their privileges, but of the distant and
far more powerful suzerain, who disposed of all the force of
the lords of his territory, the boroughs necessarily found them-
selves far inferior, and could not fail to succumb.

This, unless I deceive myself, was the first cause of their
decline. The following is a second: —

In their formation, in the course of their struggle against
the lords, whose tyranny they wished to shake off, many
of the boroughs had often had need of a protector, of a
patron, to take their cause in hand, and protect them
with his guarantee. They generally addressed themselves
to the suzerain of their lord. It was, as you know, the
feudal principle, a principle ill regulated and ill obeyed,
but still possessing a powerful influence over minds, that
men might always demand justice of the suzerain upon his
vassal. When, therefore, a borough had to complain of the
lord from whom it had conquered its privileges, it was at the
hands of the suzerain that it went to seek redress and protec-
tion. This principle led most of the boroughs to claim the
intervention, either of the king or of the other great suzerains,
who thus naturally took their affairs in hand, and acquired
over them a kind of right of patrouiige, from which, sooner
or later, the independence of the borough could not fail to
(Suffer. It has frequently been said, especially in later times,
that the intervention of royalty in the formation and first
developments of boroughs, was not nearly so active, not
nearly so efficacious, as has often been supposed. This is
correct, taking the words in the sense that royalty did not
create boroughs with a view of general utility, or in order

system. It is

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 341

Tery true that most of the boroughs formed themselves, by
means of armed insurrection, often against the will of the
king as well as of their direct lord. But it is also true, that
after having acquired their privileges, and in the long
struggle which they had to maintain in order to preserve
them, the boroughs felt the want of a powerful ally, of a
superior patron; and that they then addressed themselves, at
least a large number of them, to royalty, Avhich, at a very
early period, thus exercised a notable influence over their des-
tiny. The examples of its intervention are so numerous
that tliey are scarcely worth the trouble of citing. I will,
however, give the following, because it shows how all,
burghers and lords, were inclined to claim, to accept this
intervention, without much apparent necessity, merely from
the need of order, and to find an umpire to put an end to their
diiferences. It is a charter of the abbey of Saint Riquier, in
Picardy, which is expressed in the following words: —

" I, Anser, abbot of Saint Riquier, and the convent,
make known to all, that Louis, the venerable king of the
French, came to St. Riquier, and for our interests established
there a corporation among our men, and determined its
statutes; then the burghers, confiding in their number,
obliged us to give up our rights — namely, the tax for the
army of the king, the support of that army, the right of mea-
surement and relief. Moreover, they have unjustly sub-
jected the men of their court to all their customs, who before
the said borough were free from the repair of moats, from
keeping guard, and from poll-tax. But we, seriously angered,
have solicited by our prayers our lord the king of the French
to return to us, to re-establish our affairs in their ancient
liberty, and to deliver the church from their unjust exactions
and customs. The king, therefore, sympathizing with our
oppression, came to us, and calmed, as he ought to do, the
troubles raised up among us; so that the tax, great or small,
for the army of the king, is to be liquidated when it occurs,
and the support, great or small, furnished in common by
the burghers and the peasants; and the burghers them-
selves have willingly allowed us to have the ownership of the
fees on measurement and relief as we had before the said
boroughs, as well as the other rights. Moreover, with the
consent of the burghers, we have excepted from the said

342 HisTORy OF

poll-tax, the support of moats and keeping guards, fifty-five
of our vavassors, who serve their fief in arms; and we have
taken from the borough all our servants living on the bread
of Saint Riquier, and all servants dwelling out of the town.

" If any free peasant wishes to enter the borough, let him
return to his lord what is his right and quit his estate, and
then he shall enter the borough.

" The tributary men of Saint Riquier shall never enter
the borough without the consent of the abbot.

" Item, it was agreed, in presence of the lord king, that
William, count of Ponthieu, shall for ever be out of the
borough, and that no prince having a castle shall enter the
borough without the consent of the king and us, nor shall be
established mayor over the burghers, without the consent ot
the king and us; and that if he be established, he shall remain
so only as long as we please.

" Further, Robert of Millebourg, and his brothers, are for
ever deprived of the provostship, of the charge of Viscount,
and of all power.

" It was ordered that no burgher shall enter our church
in order to offend us, but only for purpose of prayer, and
shall, for the future, no longer arrogate the right of ringing
our bells without our consent

" All these things being determined, the burghers promised
by faith and oath to execute them, and have given us hostages
to that effect.

" I then, Louis, by the grace of God king of the French,
have ordered and confirmed this. Given at -Saint Riquier
the year of our Lord 1126."'

You thus see the intervention of the king in the affairs of
the borough, brought about by the most indifferent circum-
stances, called for sometimes by the burghers, sometimes by
the lord, and consequently far more frequent, far more effica-
cious, than many persons in the present day suppose. And
what I say of kings applies equally to all tlie great suzerains,
who were led by the same causes to exercise the same right
of intervention and patronage over the boroughs situated in
tlie domains of their vassals. Now you will easily under-
stand that the more powerful is the protector, the more

> Recueil ties Ordonnonees, torn. xi. p. 184.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCK. 348

fonnidable will the protection become. And as the power
both of the kings and the great suzerains was always in-
creasing, this right of intervention, and patronage over tl>e
boroughs was, from day to day, disposed in higher and stronger
hands; and thus, in the mere course of things, apart from
all insurrections, from all struggle by arms, the boroughs
found that they had to do, on the one hand, with adversaries,
on the other, with far more powerful and more formidable
protectors. In both cases, their independence could not fail
to decline.

A third circumstance must likewise have caused serious
shocks to it.

You are utterly mistaken if you represent to yourselves
the int(;rnal system of a borough, once conquered and con-
stituted, as a system of peace and liberty: nothing can be
farther from the truth. The borough, when need was, de-
fended its rights against its lord with devotion and energy;
but within its walls dissensions were carried to an extremity,
life was continually stormy, full of violence, iniquity, and
danger. The burghers were rude, passionate, barbarous, at
least as barbarous as the lords from whom they had forced
their riglits. Amongst those sheriffs, those mayors, those
aldermen, those magistrates of various degrees and titles,
instituted within the boroughs, many soon began to desire to
predominate there arbitrarily, violently, and rejected no
means of arriving at their wishes. The inferior population was
in an habitual tendency to jealousy of and brutal sedition
against tl\e rich, the cliiefs of trade, the masters of fortune
and industry. Those who have, even in a slight degree, studied
the liistory of the Italian republics, know wliat <lisorders,
what acts of violence, continually broke forth in them, and
how foreign true security and true liberty always were ti>
them. They acquired great glory; they energetically strug-
gled against their external adversaries ; the human mind
was there, developed with a marvellous wealth and splendour;
but the social state, properly so called, was deplorable;
human life was there strangelv in want of happiness, repose,
and liberty. It was a system intinitely more turbulent, more
precarious, more iniquitous, than that of the republics of
ancient Greece, which however, assuredly, were not models
either of good political organization, or of social well-being.

344 HISTORY OF

Well! if it was thus in the republics of Italy, where the de-
velopment of iiind and the understanding of aifairs were much
further advanced than elsewhere, judge what must have been
the internal state of the boroughs of France. I would ad-
vise those who desire to become more closely acquainted with
it to study the history of the borough of Laon, either in the
original documents, or merely in the Lettres of jVI. Thierry:
they will there see to what interminable vicissitudes, to what
horrible scenes of anarchy, of tyranny, of licentiousness, of
cruelty, of pillage, a free borough was the prey. The liberty
(if these times has everywhere a mournful and deplorable
history.

These acts of violence, this anarchy, these contmually
reviving evils and dangers, this bad government, this un-
!)appy internal state of the boroughs, incessantly called for
tbreign intervention by the force of things.

Men conquered a communal charter to deliver themselves
from the exactions and violence of the lords, but not to
deliver themselves up to those of the mayors and sheriffs.
When, after having escaped from the exactions from above,
the burghers of the borough fell a prey to pillage and
massacres from below, they sought a new protector, a new
intervention, to save them from this new evil. Hence the
frequency with which the boroughs had recourse to the
king, to some great suzerain, to him whose authority might
repress the mayors, the sheriffs, the bad magistrates, or intro-
duce order into the populace; and thence^ on the other hand,
the progressive loss, or at least the extreme enfeeblement, of
the communal liberties. France was at that stage of civiliza-
tion Avhen safety can scarcely be purchased except at the
expense of liberty. It is a phenomenon of modern times,
and of very modern times, to have succeeded in reconciling
safety and liberty, the ready development of individual wills,
witli the regular maintenance of public order. This happy
solution of the social problem, still so imperfect and so waver-
ing among us, was absolutely unknown in the middle ages.
Liberty there was so violent, so formidable, that men soon
held it, if not in disgust, at least in tei'ror, and at any price
sought a political order which might give them some security,
the essential and absolute condition of the social state. A\'hut

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 345

was the principal cause of the rapid decline of the Italian
i«publics? I often refer to their history, because it is the best
means of throwing a light upon that of the French boroughs.
From circumstances which it would take too long to explain
in this place, it is in Italy alone that the communal principle
has been elevated to the height and distinct position of a
political system: it is there then that we may recognise its
true nature, and appi*eciate all its consequences.

What happened then in Italy? Liberty there gave way
to its own excesses, for want of power to procure social
security. Those turbulent republics rapidly fell under the
yoke of a highly concentrated aristocracy and its chiefs. This
is the liistory of Venice, Florence, Genoa, of almost all the
Italian cities.

The same cause cost the French boroughs their stormy
liberty, and made them fall under the exclusive dominion
either cf royalty, or of the great suzerains whom they had
for protectors.

Sucli must have been, such indeed was, the course of the
communal destinies in France, consulting merely general facts.
Particular facts fully confirm these results. At the end of the
thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century, we
find numerous boroughs disappearing; that is to say, that
communal liberties perish; the boroughs cease to belong to
themselves, to govern themselves. Open the Recueil des
Ordoiinanccs des Jiois, you will see numberless charters vanish
at this period, which had founded the communal independence;
and always by one of the causes which I have just placed
before you, from tlie strength of a too unequal adversary, from
the ascendancy of a too formi(hible prot(;ctor, or from a long
series of those internal disorders which disgust the bourgeoisie
witli its own liberty, and make it purchase a little order and
repose at any price.

I might infinitely nuiltiply these examples; I will give only
two or three, but tliese are striking and varied.

I have shown you how, and after what rude trials, the
borough of Laon conquered its liberties. I have conimentcd
in detail u|)on the cliarter whicli it received at thf com-
mencement of tlie twelfth century, and to which its lord, the
bishop, consented. Towards the end of tlie same century, in

346 HISTOR-X OF

1190, Roger de Eosoy, bishop of Laon, gi anted to Philip
Augustus the seigneury of La Fere sur Oise, and at
this price obtained the abolition of the borough of Laon.
The borough was able to struggle against its bishop; but
how struggle against Philip Augustus? The charter was
abolished. The following year, in 1191, the ourghers also
thought of treating with Philip Augustus; they doubtless
offered him more than the bishop had done. Philip Augustus
re-established the borough, and kept the seigneury of La
Fere sur Oise, which the bishop had given him. A hundred
years pass away in almost the same state; the town of
Laon enjoys its liberties. In 1294, under the reign of Philip
le Bel, the bishop of Laon again began to solicit of the king
the abolition of the borough, and apparently by arguments
analogous to those which Roger de Rosoy had employed a hun-
dred years before. Pliilip caused an inspection to be made of
the place. There had been many disorders, murders, profana-
tions in the borough; the population of Laon, it seems, was one
of the most barbarous among the burgher populations of that
epoch. Philip le Bel, in 1294, abolished the borough of Laon.
A very short time afterwards, the precise date is not known,
apparently upon the solicitation of the burghers, he re-
established it, with this restriction — Quamdiu nobis placeat,
" under our good pleasure.'' The bishop of Laon was en-
gaged in the quarrel of Boniface VIII. with Philip le Bel,
and had taken part with the pope, which explains the
sudden favour of the king to the burghers. At the moment
when they thought themselves in peaceable possession of their
borough, Boniface VIIL, from the Vatican, to avenge the
bishop, abolished it by a formal bull. But Philip caused
the bull to be burnt, and the borough continued to subsist.
After the death of Philip le Bel, the struggle continued. The
bishop and the burgliers of Laon disputed, and by turns
gained, the royal favour. Philip le Long maintained the
borough, always under his good pleasure. In 1322, the
bishop gained the day, and Charles le Bel abolished the
borough; but, in the course of the same year, the burghers
obtained the suspension of the decree. It was tinally executed.
But, in 1328, Philip de Valois declares that he has a right
to re-establish the borough of Laon, and that he will do so it
he likes. Tlie bishop, Albert de Roye, gi^es Philip a good

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 347

round sum; and the king, in 1331, abolishes the borough,
which at last looks upon itself as conquered.

Such are the vicissitudes through which the borough of
Laon passed, from the twelfth to the fourteenth century, and
the force under which it succumbed. It is evident that
royalty alone caused its ruin. It had struggled, it probably
always would have struggled, with success against its bishop*
it was not in a condition to resist the king.

There is another kind of death of which boroughs died.
Tliat of Laon perished defending itself, and after having
done all in its power to continue to live. But more than one
borough, discontented with its condition, itself demanded to
be sup[)ressed. The following is a charter of the count of
Evreux, Philip le Bon, given in 1320, at the request of the
iniiabitants of Meulan: —

" We, Philip, count of Evreux, make known to all present
and to come, that since the good people inhabiting and living
in the town of Meulan and the Muriaux have required and show
us, that as they have, and for a long time past have had,
borough and community in our town of Meulan, and in order
to keep up the said borough, and its rights and privileges, have
been, and are, grievously afflicted and endamaged by various
taxes, levies, and contributions, which the mayor and jildermen
of the said borough have exacted from time to time, and con-
tinue to exact for the said purpose, they have, therefore, re-
quested us to take into our own hands the said borough and
community, witli all the rents and revenues which are, or
may be, due to it, we in consideration thereof to pay all
debts and obligations due by and in respect of the said
boroiigli, and guarantee and hold harmless the said inhabitants
from any loss or damage in respect thereof. We, having
ijrcat desire to relieve our subjects from loss and dnmage,
have delibenitcd upon tlie said request of the said iniiabitants,
and b.ave, oursclf on the one part, and the said citizens on
tlu' otlit'r, agreed and determined as follows: —

" First. The said inhabitants of the town of IVIeulan re-
nounce and wholly re.^ign their said borough and connnunity,
and give it perpetually and for ever into our hands, and into
the hiuuls of our successors, by birth or otherwise, with all
the rents and revenues which are, or may be, due to the said
town of Meulan, in its borough capacity."'

' 'fcinil (lis OrdoitiKiiiccs f. vi. p. 1;37.

348 HISTORY OF

Here is an instance of a borough which, to escape from the
disorders of its own internal system, the tyranny of its own
magistrates, abandons its liberties, and again places itself at
the disposal of the king.

There is another charter of the same kind given to the
borough of Soissons, the 4th of November, 1325, by king
Charles le Bel.

" Charles, &c., to all present and to come. We let you to
wit that having received from the borough of Soissons sup-
plications of its citizens and inhabitants, that, for certain rea-
sons set forth by them, we would accept them to be hence-
forth, and in perpetuity, governed as a provostry in our
name, the mayor and aldermen of the said borough being dis-
continued, and the said provost being bound to govern them
according to their ancient customs and usages, and infringing
none of their liberties and privileges which they had as a
borough. We, on the supplication of the said inhabitants, by
the tenor of these presents, accept and take into our hands the
said borough, with its jurisdiction, rights, and emoluments, and
we will henceforward, we and our successors, govern it by a
provost deputed by us. And we agree, fully and fi'eely, that
the said provost, so deputed by us and our successors, shall
govern the said inhabitants and their successors according to
their laws and customs, with the liberties and franchises which
they enjoyed while a borough, save and except that neither
mayor nor alderman shall henceforth be appointed therein."^

I might cite many other examples of this kind.

Thus, towards the end of the thirteenth century, not
only do we see a large number of boroughs abolished,
some by force, others of their own free will, but there com-
mence the general regulations of the royal authority over
boroughs. It is under Saint Louis and Philip le Bel that
you Avill see in the public collections those great ordonnances
appeal', which regulate the administration of all the boroughs
in the royal domains. Up to that time the kings had treated
with each town separately. As most of them were indepen-
dent, or at least invested with various and respected privi-
leges, neither the king, nor any great suzerain, thought of
prescribing general rules for the municipal system, of ad-

• Heciieil des Ordonnances, t. xi., p. 500

CIVIMZATION IN FRANCE, 349

mini.-stcring all the boroughs of their domains in an uniform
and simple manner. Under Saint Louis and Philip le Bel
commenced general rules, administrative ordinances as to
this matter; a proof of the decay of special privileges and of
communal independence.

It is evidently then at this epoch, towards the end of the
thirteenth and commencement of the fourteenth century, that
the decline of the boroughs properly so called manifests itself,
of those petty republ'cs, which administered their own aifair
under the patronage of a lord. If the third estate had
resided entirely in the boroughs, if the fate of the French
bourgeoisie had depended upon communal liberties, we should
see it at this epoch weak and ill decay. But it was fai
otherwise. The third estate, I repeat, took birth and nou-
rished itself from entirely different sources. While the one
became exhausted, the other remained abundant and fertile.

Independently of the boroughs properly so called, it will
be recollected there were many towns which, witliout enjoying
a true communal existence, without governing themselves,
still had privileges, freedoms, and, under the administration
of the officers of the king, increased in population and wealth.

These towns did not participate in the decay of the
boroughs, towards the end of the thirteenth century. Poli-
tical liberty was wanting there; the necessity and habit of
themselves doing all their own business, the spirit of inde-
pendence and resistance, not only did not prevail there, but
was more and more kept under. We there see that spirit
arise which lias played so great a part in our history; that
spirit but little ambitious, little enterprising, even timid,
scarcely approaching in thought a definite and violent
resistance, but honest, the friend of order and rule, per-
severing, attached to its rights, and sufficiently skilled to
make them sooner or later recognised and res[)cct('d. It is
more especially in towns administered in the name of tlie king
and by his provosts that was developed that spirit which was
so long the predominant tharacteristic of the French bour-
geoisie. It must not be supposed that, in default of true com-
munal independence, all internal security was wanting to these
towns. Two causes powerfully contributed to prevent their
being so ill-administered as one might be led to sui)pose. Roy-
iilty always feai'ed that its local officers would make themselvec

350 HISTORV Ol-

independent; it remembered what the offices of the crown,
the duchies and counties, became in the ninth century, and
the trouble it had had to regain possession of the scattered
wrecks of ancient imperial sovereignty. It accordingly kept
careful watch over its provosts, its sergeants, and officers of
all kinds, in order that their power might not increase to
such a point as. to become formidable to it. The administra-
tors for the king in towns were therefore well overlooked and
restrained.

At this epoch, moreover, the parliament and all our judicial
system began to be formed. Questions relative to the ad-
ministration of towns, disputes between provosts and burghers,
were carried before the {parliament of Paris, and there
iudged with more independence and impartiality than they
would have been by any other power. A certain impartiality
is inherent in the judicial power; the habit of pronouncing
according to written texts, of applying laws to facts, gives a
natural, almost instinctive respect for acquired, ancient rights
Accordingly, in parliament the towns often obtained justice
against the officers of the king, and the maintenance of their
franchises. See, for example, a judgment rendered by the
parliament under Charles le Bel, in consequence of a dispute
between the provost of the town of Niort, and the town
itself, its mayor, and its sheriffs, who, without political inde-
pendence, administered the borough affairs under the provost:

" Charles, son of the king of France, count of La JNIarche
and Bigorre, &c.

" Know all that we have heard a dispute between the
ma}- Of and commonalty of the town of Niort on the one part,
and the provost of the said town and the seigneural proctor
of monseigneur the count of La JMarche on the other.

" Imprimis. The said mayor alleges that he has full cogni-
zance of all cases, criminal and civil, which arise within the
iurisdiction of the borough, Avhether privileged cases or other-
wise, and that he and his predecessors have enjoyed this juris-
diction for time immemorial.

"Item. He says that he is exempt from the jurisdiction of
the said provost in all matters whatever, and that he is in no
way amenable to the said provost.

'' Item. The said mayor, in stating his jurisdiction and
cognizance of all matters throushout the town, sets forth that

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 351

the provost, when summoned to appear before l.im, is bound
to obey the summons like any other person, which both the
provost and the seigneural proctor deny.

" Item. The said mayor claims cognizance over and subjec-
tion from the families and servants of the burghers, though
they be not themselves sworn of the town, because, he says,
they are fed on his bread and wine. The said provost and
proctor, in like manner, repel this claim altogether.

" We, having inquired into these disputed matters, deter-
mine and decree —

" That the said provost has not and shall not have any
jurisdiction or pov/er of correction over the said mayor, and
the said mayor shall himself administer justice by the seneschal
of the said place.

" Item. That the provost shall not give up to the said mayor
cognizance of the servants of tlie said mayor and inhabitants,
not being sworn of the town, though nourished on its bread
and wine.

•' With this proviso: that the mayor not having brought with
him the privileges of the borough, the seneschal shall examine
them; and if it be found that it be one of the privileges of the
town that servants and others in it, not sworn of it, but eating
its bread and drinking its wine, are cognizable by the mayoi',
then tlie seneschal shall so report to our next parliament, and
justice shall be done. If no sucih privilege be produced, then
our present decree shall stand."'

The judgment is given, you see, against the provost, and
moreover indicates a sincere inclination for impartiality.
Numerous acts of this kind prove that, before the parliament,
the towns dependent on the king, and administered by his
olHcers, found justice and respect for tlieir ])rivil('jres.

You know, moreover, that independently of those towns
governed in the name of the king by his officers, indepen-
dently of boroughs, properly so called, the third estate drew
also from another source which powerfully contributed to its
formation. Tiuise judges, bailiffs, provosts, seneschals, all
these officers of the king or of great suzerains, all these agents
of the central power in the civil order soon became a numerous
and powerful class. Now most of them were citizens; and

' liccutil dcs Ordoiniancts, t. xi., p. -iOO.

352 UISTORY OF

their number, their power turned to the 'benefit of the hour
geoisie, and gave it daily more importance and extension. This,
perhaps, of all the origins of the third estate, has contributed
most to make it acquire the social preponderance. At the
moment when the French bourgeoisie lost in the boroughs
a portion of their liberties, at that moment, by the hand of
the parliament, of the provosts, judges, and administrators of
all kinds, it usurped a large portion of power. It was the
bourgeoisie more especially which destroyed the boroughs in
France; it was by burghers, entered into the service of the
king, and administering or judging for him, that the com-
munal independence and charters were most frequently at-
tacked and abolished. But at the same time they increased,
they elevated the bourgeoisie; they daily made it acouire
more wealth, credit, importance, and power in the state.

Let us not hesitate to aflirm it. Despite the decay of the
boroughs, despite the loss of their independence about the end
of the thirteenth and at the commencement of the fourteenth
century, the third estate, in its true and most extensive ac-
ceptation, was at this epoch in great and continual progress.
Was the loss of the ancient communal liberties a very great
loss? I think it was; I think that if they had been able
to subsist and adapt themselves to the course of tilings, the
institutions, the political mind of France would have gained
by it. Yet there is a country where, despite the numerous
and important modifications brouglit about by time, the
ancient boroughs have been perpetuated, and have continued
to form the fundamental elements of society: this is Holland
and Belgium. In Holland, more especially, the municipal
system, continuing the municipal system of tlie middle ages,
forms the foundation of the political institutions. Well, see
how a highly enlightened man, a Dutchman who thoroughly
knows his country and its history, see how ]\I. INIeyer speaks
of the boroughs of the middle ages, and of their influence
over modern society.

" Each borough," says he, " became a petty separate state,
governed by a small number of burghers, who sought to ex-
tend their authority over the others, who, in their turn,
indemnified themselves by domineering over the unhappy
inliabitants who had not the riglit of bourgeoisie, or who
were subject to the borough; and v/e see the opposite spec-

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 353

tacle to that which one would expect to see in a well con-
stituted society: the vassals and the burghers of the borough
did not together form the city, which they defended in
common, and to which they owed their existence; on the
contrary, they appeared to suffer the yoke of that city with
impatience; feudalism in countries not enfranchised, and
' oligarchy in the boroughs made equal ravages, and stifled
all love of order, all national spirit. Accordingly, these asso-
ciations were insufficient to secure internal tranquillity, and
the mutual confidence of those who took part therein: the
petty passions, aroused by the most unlimited egoism, the
want of some aim common to all, the jealousy so natural
among those who are not animated with the love of the pub-
lic welfare, the absence of moral tie between the burghers
of the same boroughs and the members of the same body,
occasioned new difficulties; under-associations were the conse-
quence, and the trade companies in the boroughs, the col-
leges in the universities, became new societies, which had
their separate aim, and which, as much as possible, evaded
the communal charges, to leave them to be borne by their
neighbours. That underhand and lingering war which the
vassals carried on against the corporations, the corporations
among themselves, the under corporations in each borough,
the brotherhood of each trade, produced the spirit of coterie,
petty aristocracies, so much the more vexatious the less they
had objects upon which to exercise their activity, the general
uneasiness which makes the residence in small towns so dis-
agreeable to him who has some liberal ideas, and which we
everywhere meet with in the middle ages. It is this divi-
sion, this opposition of petty interests, these continual, though
unimportant vexations, that the oligarchy permits itself,
and, so to speak, nourishes itself by, which enervates the
national character, which weakens souls, and renders men
far less fit for liberty, far more incapable of feeling its bene-
fits, far more unworthy of enjoying them, than the most abso-
lute Asiatic despotism. . . . '

" Certainly every community, great or small, has a right
to watch over its own interests, the employment of its funds,
its internal administration, especially when a higher power can

* Mejer, Esprit aes instU.judic, t. lii. p. C2 — 05.
VOL. III. A A

354 HISTORY OF

prevent partial and local interests from being injurious to the
public welfare: it is certain that the general centralization of
all the objects of administration has serious inconveniences,
and leads to absolute despotism; but the communal administra-
tions, such as they were formed in the middle ages, vassals of
the suzerain, and the sole tie which existed between the
nation and its king, not integrant parts of the same whole, ■
but dissimilar and opposed among themselves, independent
in everything which did not concern general duties, exer-
cising within its breast all the rights of sovereignty, such
communal administrations as these are scarcely less inconve-
nient, and foment a tyranny a thousand times more odious
than the despotism of aristocracy."'

These last words, I allow, are little more than the petu-
lance of a man who, struck with all the vices of the com-
munal system, and its unhappy effects upon his country, will
recognise in it no merit, no good. But despite the exag-
geration, there is in it a great foundation of truth.

It is very true that all the vices described by M. Meyer
were inherent in the communal system of the middle ages,
and that most of the towns found themselves thus infeoffed to
a petty oligarchy which kept them under a tyrannical yoke,
and which compressed in them the true, the great develop-
ment, the general development of human thought and acti-
vity, that true, varied, indefinite development, to which we
owe modern civilization.

Accordingly, I am convinced that, upon the whole, the
centralization which cliaracterizes our history has been the
cause of much more prosperity and grandeur to France, of
much happier and more glorious destinies, tlian if the local
institutions, the local independencies, had remained sovereign,
or even preponderant. Doubtless we have lost something by
the decline of the boroughs of the middle ages, but not so
much, in my opinion, as some would wish to persuade us.

I now come to a close. I have placed before you, accord-
ing to the plan which I marked out for myself, the complete
picture of civil society during the feudal period; you have
seen how feudal society, properly so called, the association of
the possessors of fiefs, was formed, what was its external

» Meyer, Esprit dcs i?is(il.judic., t. iii. p. 69 70.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE, 355

condition, and in what state it was, first at the commence-
ment of the eleventh century, then at the commencement
of the fourteenth century. You have seen what was the
development of royalty during the same period; how it gra-
dually increased, was separated from all other powers, and
ended by arriving, in the person of Philip le Bel, at the
threshold of absolute power. You have just seen the vicis-
situdes of the boroughs, or, more correctly speaking, of the
third estate, during the same period. The feudal associa-
tion, royalty, the third estate, these are the three great
elements of French civilization. It would remain for me, to
make you fully acquainted with the history of civil society
from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, to study with
ypu the great legislative monuments which this epoch
has transmitted to us, that is to say, the Assises de Jeru-
salem, the Etablissemens de Saint Louis, the Covtume de
Beauvaisis of Beaumanoir, and the Traite de Faficienne
Jurisprudence des Fran^ais, of Pierre de Fontaine, monuments
of the feudal society, and of its relations, on the one hand,
with royalty, on the other, with the burghers. I had hoped
to finish this study with you; but events oblige me to bring
this course to a close sooner than I had expected. We shall
meet again, and will again together seek thoroughly to know
and to understand the past of our beloved country.

HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS

ADVERTISEMENT

I COULD have wished to annex to this essay upon the ori-
gins and early developments of the third estate in France,
the complete text of the documents, and the special history of
the various cities or boroughs of which I have made men-
tion. This collection of acts and precise facts would have
served to throw light upon, and to prove the general results
which I have laid down. But such a work would have been
too extensive. I therefore confine myself, in this place, to pub-
lishing, 1 . A general view of the ordinances, letters, and other
acts of the kings of France concerning the cities and
boroughs, from Henry I. to Philip de Valois; 2. Some char-
ters, to which I have made allusion in my lectures; 3. Some
account of what passed in several towns of different origin and
constitution. This small specimen, if I may so call it, of the
various communal destinies, during tlie feudal period, will
perhaps not be without utility, or without interest.

HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS.

L

Table of the Ordinances, Letters, and other Acts of the
Kings co7icerning Cities and Boroughs, from Henry I.
to Philip de Valois.

Henby I. 1031— lOGO

1057. Orleans ... . Liberty of entry during vuitape — Tlie

officers of tlie king sliiill no longer levy
duty upon the entry of wine.

Louis VL 1108—1137.
(9.) •

1115. Beauvais Abolition of abuses introduced into the ad-

niinistration of the city, in mutters of
jurisdiction aud taxes, by the castulhin
Eudes.

1119. Angere Regis (in Or- Exemption from taxation — Restriction to
leanais) military service.

112"2. Beauvais Authorization to reconstruct linuses,

bridges, &c., witliout asking special per-
mission or paying luiy duty.

1123. Etampes Liberty of commerce in markets — Various

exemptions.

112(1. Saiiit-Riquier . . . Intervention of the king in tlie quarrel

between the abbey and the borough.

1128. Laon Concession of a charter to llie borough.

1134. Paris Liberty granted to the burghers of Pari*

against their debtors, witliin the juris-
diction of ilie kiug.

lb. Foutcnay Exemption from taxation, statute labour,

aruiv circuit, inc.

360 HISTORY OF

11^7 Frenay-1 Kvf.ane . . Exemption from all duties ami charges

towards the king — The inhabitants cati
no longer owe anything except to the
bishop of Chai'tres.

Louis VII, 1137—1180.

(25.)

1137. Etampes .... Promises concerning money and tlie sale

of wines.

Id. Orleans Guarantees granted to burghers against the

provost and his Serjeants.

1144. Beai;vais Coulirmation of a charter of I,ouis VI.

1 145. Bourges . , . . Eedres«ing of grievances — Exemption from

cliarges.
1147. Orleans ..... The king abandoned to the burghers the

right of morte-main.

1150. Mantes Confirmation of a charter of Louis VI.

1151. Beauvais Declaration that the jurisdiction beloug3

to the bishop, not to the burghers.

1153. Scans, in Gatinais . . Confirmation of the customs of the town.

1155. Etampes The king takes from his officers in the

city the privilege of purchasing pro-
visions at two-thirds of the price.
Id. Lorris, in Gatinais . . Detailed confirmation of the customs of
the town.

L158 LesMureaux, near Paris Re-establishment of ancient privileges.

1163. Villeneuve-le-Iloi . . Concession of the customs of Lorris.

] 165. Paris Interdiction to carry away matlrasses

cusliions, &c., in houses where tlie king
lodges in passing.

1168. Orleans Abolition of numerous abuses.

1169. Villeneuve,near Etampes Privilege granted to those who shall come

to settle there.

1171. Tournus The king regulates the relations of the

abbey and the inluibitants.

1174. Les Alluets, near Paris Exemption from taxes, statute labour, &c.

1175. Dun le-Eoi .... Concession of various privileges and

exemptions.
Id. Sonchalo (Chaillon-sur- ) Concession of the customs of Lorris.
LoH-e) S

1177. Brueres . . . . . Concession of various privileges and ex-

emptious.
Id. Villeneuve, near Com- \ Mem

piegne 5

1178. Orleans ..... Abolition of abuses and evil customs.
Id. Id Abolition of other abuses.

117'J. Etampes Concession of various privileges — Eedress

of abuses.
*1S0 Orleans . . . Enfranoliisement of the serfs o*' the king

at Orleans and its environs.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE.

661

1180. Corbie

Philip Augustus. 1180—1223

(78.)

Id. Tonnerre . .
1181. Soissons . .
Id. Chateauneuf

Id

Bonrges,

and Dun-le-

Roi

Id

Noyou .

• •

. . .

1182

Beauvais

Id.

CLauniont

1183

Orleans an

d tlie

neigh-

boil ring

owns

Id.

Boye .

Id.

Dijon .

• •

1184.

Cerny .
Ckainoiiilli
Baune .
Chevy .
Cortone
Verneuil
Bourg .

*

Comiu . .

. . J

Id.

Creapy .

11B5.

Vaisly . .

• • ^

Coiide .

• •

Chavones .

. . 1

Celles . .

Paniy

Filiiiu . .

/

Jd.

Laou . .

1180. La Clmpelle-la-Reinc, in
GatiuiU!*
Id. Compiegne . . .
Id. Id

Id. Sens

Id. Bruii'ros and neigii- ^
Louring towns . . . ^

Confirmation of the borough fonndsd by

Louis VI.
Confirmation of the charter granted by the

count of Nevers.
Confirmation of the charter granted hy

Louis VI.
Confirmation and extension of a charter Oi

Louis VII.
Confirmation of ancient and concession of

new privileges.
Confirmation of the borough and its cts-

toms.
Constitution of the borough.

Idem.
Concession of various privileges to tho!«e

who shall settle there.
Concession of a borough charter.
Confirmation of the charter granted by the

duke of Burgundy.

^•Concession of borough rights.

Concession of the customs of the borough
of Brueres.

Confirmation and extension of privileges.

Confirmationof a treaty between the bishop

and the inhiibitiints concerning taxes

whieli they owed him by reason of their

vineyard.
Conliniiation of the customs recognised by

Louis VIL
Confirmation of a cliarter of Louis VII.
Contirniation of uneicnt, and concession of

new privileges.
Iiilenlicling tlie luirfrliers to admit men <»f

the domains of the archbishop- into llu'ir

Itorough.

ContirmiUion of ancient privileges.

363 HISTOlvT OF

1186. Belle-Fontaine . . . Exemption from taxation ana exactions on

payment of certain quit-rents towards the
direct lord and the king.

Id. Bois Commun, in Gatj- Confirmation of the charter of Louis , VII.,
nais which concedes the borough of Loms.

Id. Angy Concession of privileges with regard to

military service.

1187. Lorris ...... Confirmation of customs recognised by

Louis VI. and Louis VII.

Id. Tournay Confirmation of customs.

Id. Voisines Concessions of the customs of Lorris.

Id. Dijon New confirmation of the charter of Dijon.

1188. Saint Andr^, near Macon The king takes the inhabitants under his

protection, and grants them the customs

of Lorris.

Id. Montreuil Foundation of the borough.

Id. Pontoise Idem.

1189. Laon Reformation and confirmation of the

borough of Laon.

Id. Escurolles .... The king takes the town under his protec-
tion.

Id. Sens Constitution of the borough.

Id. Saint Riquier . . . Confinnation of the borough.

Id. Area IJachis .... Concession of vai'ious privileges.

1 190. Amiens . . . , Constitution of the borough.

Id. Dimout Concession of the customs of Lorris.

II92. Anet Concession of various exemptions.

1195. Saint Quentin . . . Confirmation of ancient customs.

II9G. Bapaume Concession of the jurisdiction, and the

choice of municipal magistrates.

196. Baune s

Chevy |

Pf. f Reduction of the duties which these towns

Y -J \- were obliged to pay for the confirmation

■p of their privileges in 1184.

Comin •'

Id. Towns dependent on tlie 1

clmrch of Saint Jeany Concession of borough rights.
de Laon . . . . j
Id. Villeneuve Saint Melon Concession of exemptions and privileges.

Id. Dizy Idem.

1197. Les AUuets .... Idem.

1199. Etampes Abolition of the borough.

1200. Villeneuve en Beauvaisis Concession of the cluu'ter of Senlis

Id. Auxerre Confirmation of the exemptions granted bj

the count of Auxerre.

Id. Id. .... Idem.

Id. Tournay .... Concession of the customs of Senlis witlj
regard to the relations between the
burghers and the ecclesiastics.

1201. Oery Concession of the customs of Lorris.

CIVILIZ'.TION IN FRANCE. 363

1302. Saint Germain des Bois Confirmation of ancient customs
1204. Niort Concessions of the charter of Bouen.

Id. Pont Audemer

Id. Vemeuil . .

Id. Poictiers . .

Id. Nonancourt .

Id. Saint Jean d'Angely

Id. Id.

Id. Falaise . . .

Confirmation of the borough.
Confirmation of ancient privileges.

Idem.
Concession of the privileges of Vemeinl.
Concession of the charter of Kouen and
other privileges.
Idem.
The king exempts the burghers from all
toU duty in his domains, with the ex-
ception of Mantes.
1205. Ferri^res ■. . . . Concession of a borough charter.

1207. Rouen Concession of various privileges.

Id. Peroune Confirmation of ancient customs.

120!). Paris Idem.

1210. Id Mandate to the mayors, sherifis, and free

men, concerning the conduct to be ob-
served towards ecclesiastics who are
liable to be arrested and imprisoned.

Id. Bourges Intervention of the king to establish a tax

to pave the city and the surrounding
roads.

Id. Bray Concession of a borough charter.

1211. Toumay Confirmation of customs.

1212. Athyes ..... Concession of a borough charter.

1213. Douai Confirmation of customs.

Id. Chaulny Concessiouof the charter of Saint Quettin.

12ir). Baron Concession of various privileges.

Id. Crespy in Valois . . Concession of a borough charter.
1215. Town dependent on the ^

abbey of Aurif^iy, iuV Concession of borough rights,
the diocese of l.non)

1217. Yllies Confirmation of customs.

1221. La Ferte Milon . . Concession of various exemptions.

id. Doullens Confirmation of the privileges granted by

the count of Ponthieu.
Witliout date.

Poissy . V . . , .)

Triel > Concession of borougli rights.

Saint Lieger . . . . )

Lo-^is VIII. 1223—1220.

(10.)

1223. Douai Confirmation of ancient custcms.

Id. Crespy in Valois . . . Coiifinnation of the charter granted bj
Pliiliji Augustus.

Id. Rouen Confirmation of privUeges granted by Philij

Augustus.

Id. Breteuil Concession of various exemptions.

Id. V'lTueuil Idem.

°^ HISTORY OF

Id. Id.

Idem.
Idem.

Tj T. ' Idem.

Id. Bourges and Dun-le-Eoi Idem.

Id. Dun-le-Eoi .... Confirmation of tlie concession of Philip

Augustus. *

LoDis IX. 1226—1270.
(20.)

1226. Eouen Confirmation of tlie concessions of Philip

Tj Q„- . . , . . „ Augustus and Louis VIII.

Id. Saant Antonm m Eou- ) The king takes the town ^nder his pro-

1227. La Eocbelle ' ' * 'i „ ^•l'''^°°'/'i'i confirms its customs.

Id Id • • • • Confirmation of the charter of Louis Vm

199Q* -R^ ■ J T^■ ', ■ • *^™<'6ssion of various exemptions

1229. Bourges and Dun-le-Eoi Confirmation of the concesSn ;f Phi'in
1230 Ninrt ^ Augustus and Louis VIII.

J 233; Bourses* Confirmation of the borough.

1246^ Aigue^s Mo'rte; ' ' ' ^""^~°'' °f^'™"s concessions.
12'-.A b1„.; ' • • Constitution of the borough.

itilZT' Redress of various abuses".

Tri' J ""r. 7"- ■ ' * • Concession of various privile<res
Id. Area Baclus Benewal of the charter'of lint taien away

jo'jg and destrojed by robbers.

• • ' An ordinance concerning the election of

mayors, and the financial administration
jd °^ '^'^ ^oo'i towns of the kingdom.

A" '^"'ost similar ordinance for the good

J260 towns of Normandy.

■' ^'^ ordinance which gives to the mayors

ot towns the cognizance of crimes com-
mitted by the baptised Jews domiciled in
Tj n -v their jurisdiction.

1263 ?Zr-?"' • • • • Abolition of various abuses.
Id.- St Aimer- .' \ ' ^'^"'^^^-^ evii customs.

S' WuT"'"""'''" • ^"^fi'-T--" of ancient customs

WitLutiate Renewal of various exemptions.

'' ^^ ordinance to regulate the election of

persons charged with levying taxes in "

the towns of the king.

Philip le IlAnDi. 1270 1285.

(15.)

^^'^' ■^*°'' The king takes the inhabitants under his

Id N- protection.

1272- Eonpn ■ ■ ' ■ Confirmation of tlie borougli charter.

\tli' -7°"*^" Idem.

called t l''"^''.''^'' Confirmation of a charter of Eaymond VI.,
called de Asprems count of Toulouse

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 365

1274. Bourges Confirmation of cnstoms and privileges.

1277. Limoges The king orders that the copy of the treaty

between the burgliei's and the viscount
of Limoges inserted in the letter, shall
have the same value -as of the lost
original.

1278 Rouen ...... Letters explanatory of the jurisdiction

granted to the mayor and tiie borough of
Rouen by the chai'ter of Philip Augustus.

1279. Aigues Mortes . . . Confirmation of liberties and privileges.
12B1. Les AUuets .... Confirmation of privileges.

Id. Orleans Confirmation of the concessions of Philip

Augustus.
Id. Yssoire Idem.

1282. Saint Omer .... Confirmation of an ancient charter of the

counts of Artois.

1283. Toulouse An ordinance concerning the election of the

first magistrates of Toulouse, and their
jurisdiction.

1284. Douai .>.... Confirmation of customs.

Id. Lille . V . . . • Authority to fortify the town.

PHitiP LE Bel. 1285—1314.

(46.)

128.'). Saint lunien ... Coufiriyation of an agreement made bet ween

the inhabitants and bishop, in the time
of Saint Louis, atid approved of by him.
Id. Niort Confirmation of ancient charters.

1280. Breteuil ..... Concession of the election of local magis ■

trates.

1287 General ordinance concerning the manner

of acquiring the bourgeoisie, and the
charges which it imposes.

1290. Yssoire Confirmation of ancient privileges.

Id. Toutnay Confirmation of the agreement made be-
tween the count of Flanders and the free-
men, as to the jurisdiction of their town.

Id. Cliarost Confirmation of the privileges granted by

the lord.

1201. Grenade in Armagnac . Concession of liberties.

R'!(-i. Siiint Andre in Lungiiedoc Idem.

I'J'.l.'f. liroieuil Confirmation of privileges.

Id. Lille Forbidding tlie senesclmls and bailifll"s to

arrest the burghers, or to seize their
goods, for disobedience to the count of
Flanders.
LI. Bourges .... Confirmation of privileges.

1204. Lille « Order to the royal judges to prevent tlie

burghers from being tried before eccle
siastical judges for temporal afi'airs.

366 HISTORY OF

1296. Lille .... Exemption from taxes.
Id. Doiiai Idem.

Id. Gand Ke-establishment of the autbority of ti.«

tliirty-nine magistrates of Ghent.

Id. Lille The king engages to protect the inhabit-
ants against their count.

Id. Id. ...... The king takes the town in his safeguard.

Id. Douai Idem.

Id. Id Confirmation of pri%-ileges.

Id. Bourges, Gand, Ypres, Forbidding the inhabitants to carry arms
Douai, Lille. out of the kingdom without the command

of the king.

Id. Douai Confirmation of privileges.

Id. Laon Ee-establishment of the borough of Laon.

Id. Douai Confirmation of privileges.

Id. Toumay Confirmation of several ancient customs.

121)7. Orches Confirmation of charters conceded by the

counts of Flanders.

1297. Toulouse Confirmation of the privileges of burghers

with regard to the acquisition of the
property of the nobles

1800. Toul The king takes the town in his safeguard.

l;JO-i. Saint Omer .... Confirmation of charters granted by the

counts of Artois

1303. Toulouse .... Letters concerning the jurisdiction of

consuls.

Id. Id. ..... . Concession of various priN-ileges.

Id. Id Letters concerning the jurisdiction of the

ofiicers of the town

Id. Beziers Exemption from certain duties.

Id. Toulouse Eegulation concerning the seneschalship.

Id. Beziers, Carcassonne . The king orders the seneschals aiid magis-
trates to swear to the Etablissemeuts of
Saint Louis.

1304. Orches Confirmation of privileges.

1308. Charroux Concession of liberties to tnose who shall

settle there.

1309. Bucy, Treny, Margival, Confirmation of privileges granted by the

Croy, and other places. counts and bishops of Soissons.

Id. LTsle in Perigord . . The king fixes the customs and pri\ileges
concerning whicli the inhabitants and
their lord were disputing.

Id. EoueD The king repeals several duties which had

been reserved in rendering their privi-
leges to the burghers.

Id. Id Confirmation of the charter of Philip le

llardi concerning the jurisdiction of the
mayor and burghers.

Id. Id Confirmation of privleges.

Id. Gonesse .... Exemption from certain charges.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 367

1311. Clennont-Montferrand . The king annuls the concession made by

him of this town to the duke of Bur
gundy, seeing that the consuls, burghers,
and inhabitanis cannot and ought not to
be severed from the crown.
Id Donai Confirmation of privileges and agreementa.

1.313. Montolieu .... Confirmation of privileges.

1314. Douai Declaration that the acts of jurisdiction

exercised at Douai, by the royal officers,
during the war in Flanders, shall not
interfere with its privileges.

Louis X., called le Hutin. 1314 — 1316.

(6.)

1315. De Aspreriis . . . Confirmation of a charter of Raymond VI.
Id. Orchies . . . - Confirmation of privileges.

Id. Montreuil-sur-Mer . The king takes it under his protection.

Id. Verdun Idem.

Id. Douai Confirmation of privileges.

Id. Id The king declares that, although he has not

taken the oath in person which the countu
of Flanders took, with regard to the town,
on their accession, its liberties and pri-
vileges shall not suffer.

Philip V., called le Long. 1316 — 1322.
(11.)

1316. I.aon Confirmation of the borough of Laon.

Id. Gouesse Exemption from certain charges.

Id. Ciermont-Montferrand . Confirmation of the ordinance of Philip le
Bel (1311).

1317. Orchies Confirmation of privileges.

I31S. Figeac Establishment of the borough.

Id. Saint-Omcr .... Numerous confirmations of privileges.

Id. Tournay Classification of the borough in the baili

wick of Vermandois.

131!). Saint-Paul ofCadnjotix Establishment of the borough.

13"20. Saint-Dmer .... Confirmation of privileges.

Id. Montarfris and neigh- ) , ,

, 1 1 J- Idem,

bouriiig boroughs . .)

Id. Tournay Idem.

Charles IV., called le Bel. 1.T22— 1328.
(17.)

1321. Ciermont-Montferrand . Confirmation of the ordinance of Philip U

Bel (1311).

1322. Saint Rome en Rouergue Establishment of the borough.
Id. Gonesse Exemption from certain charges.

1323. Orchies Confirmation of privileges.

Id. Saint- Omer .... Idem.

868 ni?ToRY OF

1824. Toulouse Permission for the inhabitants to acquire

the property of nobles under certain con-
ditions.

Id. Fleuranges . . . Concession of privileges made by Charles
de Valois, lieutenant of the Mng ■ in
Languedoc.
1325. Eiom Confirmation of privileges.

Id. Niort Charles confirms, as king, the letters

which he had given as the count of
Marche, concerning the privileges of
Niort.

Id. Soissons He consents that the to\vn may be governed

by a provost of the king, preserving its
communal liberties and freedoms, with
the exception of the jurisdiction.

Id. Towns of Kormandy The king exempts them from poll tax to
called Bateices' their lords.

132(3 Serviiin On the demand of the inhabitants, the king

declares that the town shall no longer be
Separated from the crown.

Id. Vendres Idem.

Id. Soissons Classification of the town in the bailiwick

of Vermandois.
1327. Galargues Confiimation of prinlecea.

Id. Lautrec Id iM

Id. Compiegne .... Autlionznig tlie ringing of the great bell in
case of murder and fire, although the
town was no longer governed as a
borough

II.

Orleans.

Although I have already pointed out^ the nature and
effects of the charters granted to the city of Orleans, from 1057
to 1281, I think I ought to give the complete text of them.
We shall then see what important privileges a town might
possess, which had not been erected into a borough, and pos-
sessed no independent jurisdiction. These charters also com-
pletely show the confusion of the social state at this epoch,
and how the influence of a superior power was necessary in
order to introduce any general and permanent rules into it.

These were cities, which had no communal rig 'it, and where there wai
^either mayor nor sherifls.

- Lecture XVII,

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCB. BGS

Henry I. — 1057.

*' In the name of Christ, I, Henry, by the grace of God
king of the French, will it to be known to all the faithful of
the holy church of God, both present and future, that Isem-
bard, bishop of Orleans, with the clergy and the people com-
mitted to liis care, has approached our Serenity, bearing
plaint by rea^:on of an unjust custom which seems to exist in
that town with respect to guard of the gates, which were
guarded and closed to the people in the time of vintage, and
also by reason of an iniquitous exaction of wine made there
by our officers; urgently and humbly imploring us that, for the
love of God and for the good of our soul and the soul of our
fathers, it would please us to repeal in perpetuity, for the holy
church of God, for him, the clergy and tlie people, this
unjust and impious custom. Favourably acceding to the
said demand, I have remitted in perpetuity to God, to the
eaid bishop, to the clergy and the people, the said custom and
exaction; so that in future let there be no guards there, and
let not the gates be closed, as was the custom, during that
period, and let no men exact or take from any one his
wine, but let all have free entry and exit, and let to each be
preserved what belongs to him, according to civil right and
equity. And to the end that this concession may always re-
main firm and stable, we will that the present testimony of
our authority be made, and we have confirmed it with our seal
and ring. Tiie following have placed their seals to it: Isem-
bard, bishop of Orleans; Henry, king; Gervais, archbishop
of Reims; Ilugues Bardoulf; Hugh the butler; Henry of
Ferrieres; Rlallhcrt, provost; Herve, surveyor; Herbert,
under surveyor; Gislebert, cup-bearer; Jordan, under-butler;
Baudoiiin, diancellor.

" rublicly given at Orleans, the sixth day before the none*
of October, in the year of our Lord, \0o7, and the twenty-
eeventh of king Henry." '

II.

Louis VH.— ll.'JT.

" In the name of (iod, I, Louis, by tlie grace of God king
df the French and duke of Aquitaine, to all present and tc

5 liecucil dcs Ordonnances, &ic., t. i., p. 1.
VOL. III. B U

370 HISTORY Oif

come, give to know that we for the benelit of our burgesses
of Orleans grant to them the following customs:

" 1. The money of Orleans which was current at tlie
death of our father, shall not be changed or altered duiiiij;
our life.

" 2. Every third year, in consideration of that coinage, we
will take for every hogshead of wine and of corn, two deniers,
and for every five quarters of spring corn, one denier, as our
father did before us.

" 3. We establish and ordain that our provost or sergeant
do not summon any of the burghers before us unless by our
command, or by that of our seneschal.

" 4. Whoever of our burghers shall come before us for any
offence or other cause, if he do not our will, or cannot do it,
we will not detain him unless he has been taken in the fact,
but he shall be at liberty to return and remain for one day in
his own house, after which he and his goods shall be at our
disposal.

• "5. Further, we command that our provost, by any
sergeant of his house, beadle or accuser, do no wrong to any
of the burghers.

" 6. If any burgher shall strike or beat one of his hired
servants, he shall pay a fine therefore to our provost. .

" 7. Whereas our father, at the EaSter before his death,
promised that neither he nor his Serjeants would levy any
morte-main dues in the said town for seven years, we con-
firm that which our father did for the good of his soul.

" 8. And whereas, our sergeant aggrieved and put to
ransom the burghers for money which he alleged to be due
from them at the death of our father, and the burghers swear
tliat they owe none such, we order our sergeants to make no
further claim in that respect.

" And that these presents may not be annulled, or set aside
by those who shall come after us, we confirm them with the
authority of our name. Done at Paris in the presence of all,
in the year of the incarnation of our Lord, 1 137, the 5th of
our reign,

" And there were with us in our palace, Raoul, our cham-
berlain, William, the butler, and Hugh, the constable. Written
by the hand of Augrin tlie chancellor."

CIVILIZATION IN l^RANCE. 371

III.

Louis VII.— 1147.

" Louis, king of the French, and ^uke of Aquitaine: TVe,*
considering that the royal spiritual power is greater than the
secular, deem that We should be gentle towards our subjects:
we, therefore, in melnory of him who took pity on his
people, take commiseration- on our men of Orleans, over
whom we had morte-main; for the benefit of the soul of our
father, our predecessor, and of ourself, we resign and aban-
don all such right over the city of Orleans, and throughout
its bishopric, and we grant that for the future no such de-
mand be made by ourself or our successors. For the further
confirmation whereof, and that it may never be disputed, we
have hereunto placed our hand and seal. Done at Orleans,
in the year of our Lord 1147, the twelfth of our reign; when
there were with us in our palace, Raoul, our chamberlain;
William, the butler; Macie, our gentleman of the chamber,
and Macie, the constable; there were also present at the sig-
nature, bishop Menesser of Orleans; Pierre, of the court of
Saint- Yverte. Written by the hand of Cadure the chan-
cellor."

IV.

Louis VIIL— 1178.1

" In the name of the Holy Trinity, Louis, by tne grace
of God king of the French. Remarking at Orleans certain
customs to abolish, and desiring to provide for the interests
of our burgesses and the health of soul, we remedy the said
customs. As altered, they arc the following:

" ]. Any stranger prosecuting the payment of a debt at
Orleans shall not pay any tax in respect thereof.

" 2. They shall exact no tax from any foreigner bringing
his merchandize to sell at Orleans, either lor the exposure of,
or for the price fixed upon his goods.

"•S. If a debt of five sous be denied, let it not be settled
by combat between two men.

" 4. If any one by the first day have not the guarantee

> It is queslioubble whether this charter belonjfs to the year 1168 or
i 178 ; it is found under both of these dates in the Kecneil d,s (Jrdonnanc, .«.
But the original of the charter bears the date 1 178, and this appears the
KoMf ^irobable.

13 B 2

372 HISTORY OF

named by him, he shall not on that account lose, his process, bui
shall be permitted to bring it forward at a convenient day.

" 5. No man, in partnership with another man for the
payment of the dues of audience, shall pay the whole tax,
but only that part which falls to his share.

" 6. Let not the vintners and wine-cryers buy wine in
Orleans, in order to sell it again at a tavern.

" 7. No man having partnership with a clerk or knight,
in anything touching the partnership, shall pay the whole
tax, but only the part due from him, provided that the clerk
or knight have proved that the said man was in partnersh.p
with him.

" 8. Let the conductors of those who buy wines be sent
away.

" 9. Hucksters shall not purchase provisions within the
precincts of the town in order to sell them at Orleans.

"10. The provosts and foresters shall not seize carts
■within the precincts.

"11. Carts standing at the Dunoice ga:te to take provi-
sions, shall riot be filled a second time; but when the provi-
sions are sold, they shall retire and make way for others.

" 12. No one shall buy bread at Orleans and re-sell it
there.

"13. The keeper of the salt mine shall only take two
deniers for the use of the mine.

" 14. The men of Meun and Saint-Martin-sur-Loiret shall
not pay rent for the ransom of their bailiffs.

" 15. What has been added to the droit de brenage during
our time shall be repealed, and it shall be as it was in our
fathers' time.

" 16. The series of customs which we have abolished
being thus enumerated, we have decreed, and we confirm
that decree by the present order, and by the authority of our
seal, and by our royal name thereunto placed; and we forbid
any one ever daring to re-establish for the people of Orleans
any of the customs herein mentioned. Given at Paris, the
year molxviii. of our Lord. There were present in our
palace, the count Thibaut, our seneschal; Guy, the butler;
Renaud, chamberlain; Raoul, constable. Given by the hand
of Hugh, chancellor. "^

* Rtcu-eil lies Ordonnanccs, t. i., p. 15; t.'xi., p. 200.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 378

Louis. V^IL— 1178.

*' In the name of the Loly and indivisible Trinity, Louis,
, by the grace of God king of the French. Informed of
certain customs to be aboHshed at Orleans, and desiring to
provide for the good of our burghers, and the health of our
soul, we have mercifully abolished them. The following are
the amended customs: —

"1. Let no one exact toll at Rebrechien,' nor at Loury,*
except the same which is exacted at Orleans.

" 2. I^et no one be obliged to rent our stalls at the market.

" 3. Let the dues to us of barley and other grain, received
at ]Mareau-au-Bois and at Gommiers^ be abolished.

'' 4. Let no cart be taken for bringing wine from Chan-
teau.*

" 5. Let no one selling his wine at Orleans be constrained
to give money by the bottle for the right of the king; but let
him give wine in bottles, if he like better.

" 6, The keeper of the chatelet at the head of the bridge
cannot take the toll for hay-carts, unless the hay belong to
those who have mown it.

" 7. No merchant having disposed of his goods at Orleans
without permission from the provost, can on that account be
brought to justice while he shall remain at Orleans.

" 8. Foreign merchants who come to Orleans for the fair
of March, shall not be obliged to keep the fair.

" 9. Let no one at Germigny,'^ or at Chanteau, pay the tax
upon the sale of sheep and the breeding of pigs, except those
who cultivate our land.

" 10. Let each cart in the bailiwick of Saint-Martin-sur-
Loiret pay four hcmina3 of rye.

" And, lastly, let not these things be retracted in future.
We have confirmed the present charter by the authority of

' A \'illag:e on the Loire, three lengues from Orleans.

* A village five leagues from Orleans.

• Villages in the environs of Orleans.

• \ village two leagues from Orleans.

* A village on the borders of the forest of Orleans.

374 HISTORY OF

our seal, and the inscribing of our royal name. Done at
Etampes, the year of the Incarnation of our Lord 1178. There
were present in our palace those whose names and seals
follow: — Count Thibault, our seneschal; Guy, the butler;
Renaud, the chamberlain: Raoul, the constable."'

Louis VIL— 1180.

" In the name of the holy and indivisible Trinity, Amea.
Louis, by the grace of God king of the French: knowing
what the mercy of God has always been to us and our king-
dom, and how innumerable have been his favours, we ac-
knowledge and humbly adore him, if not as mu^h as we
ought, at least with all the devotion in our power. Incited
to this, therefore, by royal piety and clemency, for the
health of our soul, and for that of our predecessors, and for
that of our son, king Philip, we infranchise and discharge in
perpetuity, from every tie of servitude, all our serfs and
servants, called body-men, who live in Orleans or the
suburbs, boroughs or hamlets; namely, Meun, Germigny,
Cham, and other dependents of the provostry of Orleans; as
well as those of Chesy, Saint-Jean-de-Bray, Saint-Martin-
sur-Loiret; and beyond the Loire, Saint-Mesmin and other
hamlets, and those of Neuville, Rebrechien, and Coudray,^ as
well as their sons and daughters; and we will that they re-
main as free as if they were born free; that is to say,
that those who shall be found in the above-named places
before next Christmas, and after the coronation of our son
Philip, shall enjoy that liberty: but if others of our serfs
flock from elsewhere to the said places, because of the en-
franchisement, they shall be declared excepted. And to the
end that the said things remain in perpetuity, we have
caused the confirmation of the present charter, by the authority
of our seal, and the affixing of our royal name. Done in
public, at Paris, the year of the Incarnation of the Lord 1 180.
There were present in our palace those whose names follow: —
Count Thibault, our seneschal; Guy, the butler; Renaud,

' Becueil des Ordoniiaiicca, t. xi., p. 209 — 211.
' All these towns we in the euviroiis of Orleans.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 375

chamberlain; Raoul, constable. Given by the hand of Hugh,
the chancellor."

vu.
Philip- Augustus. — 1183

" In the name of the holy and indivisible Trinity, Amen.
Philip, by the grace of God king of the French. It belongs to
the clemency of the king to spare his subjects with a merciful
heart, and generously to aid those who bend under a heavy
load. We make known to all present and to come, that in
the belief of God, and for the safety of our soul and the
soul of our father Louis, of blessed memory, and of our pre-
decessors, we will and order that all men who live and shall
live at Orleans, and in the bailiwick of Saint-Martin, and in
the bailiwick of Saint-Jean, at Coudray, at Rebrecliien, and
at Germigny, be henceforth free and exempt from all tax and
duty; granting them, besides, that we will not make them
go to plead in any place more distant than Etampes, Yevre-
le-Chatel, or Lorris; and we will seize neither them nor their
goods, their wives, sons, nor daughters, and will do them no
violence, so long as they desire to and do receive the judg-
ment of our court; none of them for a misdeed shall pay us
a fine of more than sixty sous, except for robbery, rape,
homicide, murder, or treason; or else in cases where they
shall have deprived any one of his foot, his hand, his nose,
eye, ear, or any other member. And if any of them be
summoned, he shall not be bound to answer to a citation
before eight days. Now, we make them all these conces-
sions, on condition that all those to whom we give this
grace, and whom we may or miglit tax, henccfortli each
year, upon eacii four gallons of wine or corn whicli they
shall have, as well spring grain as the corn of winter, which-
soever they be, shall pay us two deniers. But we make
known that the tax of two years upon corn and wine thus
collected, the which tax is commonly called the tax upon
bread and wine, shall be an acquitment of all tax and duty,
and all tl;e above-mentioned customs which we have re-
pealed; and the tax of every third year shall be for the
maintenance of the coinage; and in that third year, men not
among those to whom we have granted the above enumerated
franchises — namely, those who owe us no tax, except the tax

376 HISTORY OF

of bread and wine for the coinage, shall pay us that tax o"
bread and wine for the maintenance of the coinage, in the
same way that they have always done; upon each measure of
spring corn one denier. Now, every year we will send to
Orleans one of the people who serve us in our house, and
who, with our other sergeants in the town, and ten good
burghers, whom the burghers of the town shall elect in com-
mon, shall annually collect this tax of bread and wine; and
these shall swear each year that they will raise this tax
with good faith, and that they will not except any one out
of affection, or surcharge them through hatred. And in
order that all these concessions perpetually remain, and be
for ever inviolably maintained as much by us as by the
kings of France our successors, we confirm the present '
agreement with the authority of our seal and the affixing of
olir royal name. Done at Fontainebleau, the year of the In-
carnation of our Lord 1183, and the fourth of our reign.
There were present in our palace those whos-e names and
seals are hereunto placed: — Count Thibault, our seneschal;
Guy, the butler; Matthew, the chamberlain; Raoul, the con-
stable.'"

III.

Etampes.

Orleans has just shown us what may be the privileges and
progressive developments of a town which was not erected
into a borough properly so called: Etampes will show us how
small a place a borough charter sometimes held in the ex-
istence of a town, and how it might lose it without losing,
far from it, all its advantages and all its liberties.

I shall not come to a conclusion beforehand; I sliall not
sum up the facts before,having given them. I wish to lay before
you an account of the various acts of which, in various ways,
Etampes has been the object on the part of the French kings,
from the eleventh to the thirteenth century. We shall there
see Avhat at that time a town truly was ; in what consisted and
how were formed the privileges of its inhabitants, and how
false is the historical image which is almost always given us by
those who speak upon the subject.

' Beciicil des Ordonnnnres, X. y.\., ji. 2'-2(i. This charter was confirmpd i>
1281, by a similar charter ol I'hilin le Ilurdi, ilbid., p. 357.^

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE 377

In 1082, king Philip I. wished to show some favour to the
canons of Notre Dame of Etarapes, as his ancestors the
kings Robert and Henry I. had done, and he granted them
this charter:

" In the name of the holy and indivisible Trinity, Philip,
by the grace of God, king of the French. It is just and
very worthy of the royal serenity to govern the secular
affairs with moderation, and still more, constantly to re-
gard ecclesiastical affairs with feelings of religion and piety,
to the end that nothing may remain ill ordered in our
republic; as also firmly to observe, and in observing to
strengthen, what has been conceded by our predecessors, or
by ourself. We therefore make known to the faithful of the
holy church, present and to come, that the. canons of Saint
Marie d'Etampes have approached our majesty, supplicating
us to grant them, and to confirm in perpetuity, the rights
and customs granted and confirmed to them by our prede-
cessors, king Robert our grandfather, and king Henry our
father .... The said rights possessed by the said church are
as follow:

" Let the said canons give to those among them whom they
shall elect, the offices of the said church, such as the offices
of provost, dean, chanter; and let them have and possess all
that belongs to the said church, except at the festival of Saint
Marie, in the middle of the month of August, when their
abbot, from none to none, shall have the rights thus regu-
lated: the canons shall have the loaves and napkins: with
regard to the other smaller offerings, the wax, the deniers,
the gold and silver, if there be any offered, the abbot shall
receive and have them. Further, he who on the part of the
abbot shall guard the altar during the festival, shall live upon
the bread of the altar; and the dean instituted by the canons
shall receive from the common offering the wine and o<her
provisions necessary for his support on* the said day ....
Over the lands nf the canons which belong to the church,
our officers shall exercise no jurisdiction or exaction what-
ever, and shall not violenthf take the right of lodging in their
houses .... Having received at their request and prayec
and in token of charity, twenty livres from the said canons,
we have caused this memorial of our concession to be written,
and have confirmed it with the authority of our seal aad the

S78 mSTOKV OF

placing of our royal name. Witnesses of the present in-
stitution, &c., 8tc. — ( Then follow the names of fourteen
officers of the king, or lay witnesses, and tyienty-nine eccle-
siastics or canons.) Publicly given at our palace, at Etampes-
la-Neuve, the year of the Incarnation of the Word, 1082, the
twenty-third of the reign of Philipj king of the French. —
Read and signed by Griffied, bishop of Paris."'

Independently of what concerns the canons themselves, we
here see the inhabitants of the lands which belong to them, in
Etampes, or even in its territory, freed from all jurisdiction,
from all exaction of royal officers, and among others, from
that obligation of lodging which was the source of so much
abuse.

Shortly afterwards, the same king Philip maae a vow, it is
not known exactly for what reason, to go, casque on head,
his visor lowered, his sword at his side, his coat of arms on
his back, to visit the holy sepulchre at Jerusalem, to leave
his arms in the temple, and to enrich it with his gifts: but
the bishops and great vassals, it is said, when consulted,
opposed this absence of the king as dangerous to his kingdom.
Probably Philip liimself was not eager to accomplish his vow.
One of his faithful of Etampes, a man of his house. Elides,
mayor of the hamlet of Challou-Saint-Medard, offered to
make the journey for him, armed cap-a-pie, as Philip had
promised to be. He employed two years in this tedious
pilgrimage, and returned, after having deposited his arms in
the holy sepulchre, where they might for a long time be seen,
with a brass tablet on which tli-e vow and the journey Avere
recounted. Before the departure of Eudes, the king took his
six children under his care: one son, named Ansold, and five
daughters; and at his retui'n, in March, 1085, he gave them
in recompence, all the rights and privileges contained in the
following charter:

" Let all know that Eudes, mayor of Challou, by the divine
inspiration and by consent of Philip, king of France, whose
servant he was, has set out for the Sepulchre of the Lord, and
has left his son Ansold and his five daughters in the hands
and under the care of the said king, and the said king has re-
ceived and preserved these children in his hands and under his

> Ec:ueil des Urrioniianccs, t. xi. i). 174.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 379

care, and it is granted to Ansold, and to his said five sisters,
daughters of Eudes, for the love of God, and out of charity
alone, and through respect for the • Holy Sepulchre, that any
male line of him or them, who shall marry a woman subject
to the king under the yoke of servitude, he shall, by the said
marriage, fi*ee and redeem her from the tie of servitude, and
if serfs of the king marry women descended from Eudes, they
afl well as their descendants shall be of the house and domes-
ticity of the king. The king gives, to be kept in fief, to the
heirs of Eudes and their heirs, his estate of Challou, with its
men ; so that on account of it they be not bound to appear in
justice before any of the servants of the king, but only before
the king himself, and let them pay no tax in any of the land
of the king. Moreover, the king orders his servants of
Etampes to guard the chamber of Challou,' seeing that the
people of Challou are bound to keep guard at Etampes, and that
their chamber being established there, they shall guard it the
better. And to the end that the said franchise and conven-
tions always remain firm and stable, the king has caused the
present memorial to be made of them, which he has had
sealed with Jiis seal and his name, and confirmed, with his
own hand, by the holy cross. There were present in the palace,
those whose names and seals follow: Hugh, seneschal of tlie
house; Gaston de Poissy, constable; Pains, the chamberlain;
Guy, brother of de Galeran, groom of the chamber. Done at
Etampes, in the month of March, in the palace, the year of the
Incarnation, 1085, the 2oth of the reign of the king. There
were present at the making of the enfranchisements, for
testimony of its truth, Anselin, son of Arembert; Albert of
Bruncoin; Guesner, priest of Challou; Gerard, dean; Pierre,
son of Erard .... and Haymon, his son."'-

Here we find a family of Etampes and its descendants in
vested with the most important franchises, in possession of the
right of giving freedom by marriage, of not being judged except
by tlie king liimself, or his nearest officers, of not paying any
subsidy, tax, toll, 8cc. And less than two hundred years after-
wards. Saint Louis, in declaring the descendants of Eudes of

> They called the place where were kept the titles nt>(l arts concerning
the rights of the king and the crown, cuDicra. (Ilmirtati, Antiquitit
(fJ-Jtnmpfx, p. S,'i.>

* Lea Anliquitos de la vi^le et du duchji d'Ktanipes, by Fleurean, p. 7b.

380 HISTORY OF

Challou-Saint-Medard exempt from the watch of the town of
Paris, says that they are three thousand in number; and they
stiU reckoned two hundred and fifty-three of them in 1598,
when the president Brisson caused their privileges to be at-
tacked, in a fit of anger against the inhabitants of Etampes,
who, going to visit him in his house of Gravelle, did hot do
him the honours which he claimed. This privilege lasted
five hundred and seventeen years, for it was not abolished
until 1602, by decree of the parliament of Paris.'

Near Etampes, at Morigny, there was a large and rich
.abbey of the order of Saint Benedict, formed by a dismem-
berment of the abbey of Flex, or Saint-Germer, near Beau-
vais. In 1120, Louis VI. granted various privileges to the
monks of Morigny, among which are the following: —

" The manorial tenants who in the town of Etampes have
been or may be given to the monks of the holy abbey of Mo-
rigny, shall pay us the same dues which they were accustomed
to pay when in lay hands, unless remission thereof be made
unto them by us or our successors.

" We grant to all the monks' tenantry, wherever they re-
side, that no provost nor any other ofiicer of ours shall exer-
cise any jurisdiction over them, unless the monks fail to do
them justice, and unless they be taken injiagrante delicto, or
unless they have broken the ban."^

Louis VI. often resided at Etampes. The inhabitants of
the Marche Neuf, called later Marche Saint- Gilles were
bound, when the king came into the town, to furnish him and
his court with linen, and vessels and utensils for the kitchen.
This charge seemed so onerous, that few people established
themselves in that quarter, and it remained almost deserted.
In 1123, Louis wished to attract inhabitants thither, and with
this view published the following charter:

" In the name of the holy and indivisible Trinity, Louis,
by the grace of God, king of the French. I make known
to all my faithful, present and to come, that to those who
inhabit or shall inhabit our Marche Neuf at Etampes we
grant this privilege for ten years, dating from the feast of
Saint-Remy, in the 16th year of our reign.^

' rieureau, nt supra. * Rccueil des Ordonnances, xi. 179.

' About two years after the date of this ordiuauce, Louis le Gros mounted
the tltrone in 1108.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 381

** 1. We grant them, within the limits of ."he said market,
to remain free and exempt from all levy, tax, or service of
foot or horse. «

" 2. We allow them also not to pay fine for an ill-founded
summons or accusation.

" 3. In their case, moreover, we reduce for ever, fines of
sixty sous, to five sous and four deniers; and the duty and
fine of seven sous and a half to sixteen deniers.

" 4. No one henceforward shall pay the mine due except
on Thursday.

" 5. Any man called upon to take oath in any business, if
be refuse to swear, shall not have to pay a fine.

'• 6. All those who bring wine or provisions or any other
article into our said market, or into the houses of the mano-
rial tenants established in the said market, shall be free and
undisturbed with all their provisions, both when they come,
while they stay, and on their return; so that for their mis-
deed or that of their masters, no one can seize or trouble
them, unless they be taken in the crime.

" We grant them these pr vileges for ever, with the excep-
tion of the levies, horse and foot service, and taxes, which
they shall enjoy only within the above fixed limits; and in
order that the said concession may not fall into disuse, we
have caused it to be written; and to the end that it be not
annulled by our descendants, we have confirmed it with the
authority of our seal and the placing of our name. Publicly
done at Etampes, the year of the Incarnation of the Word,
1123, the 16th of our reign. There being present in our
palace tliose whose names and seals are hereunto affixed:
Stephen, the seneschal; Gilbert, the butler; Hugh, tlie con-
stable; Albert, the chamberlain; and Stephen, tlie chancel-
lor." '

The inhabitants of the Marche Saint-Gilles formed thence-
forward a distinct corporation, which had its own charter and
functions.

In 1138, Louis VII. granted "to all the men of P^tampes,
botli knights and burghers," a charter as follows:

" In tlie name of the holy and indivisible Trinity, Amen.
I, Louis, king of the French and duke of Aquitaine, make

' liecueil des Ordonnancis, t. xi. p. 183

382 HISTORY OF

known to all our faithful, present and to come, that we have
granted to all the men of Etampes, both knights and burghers,
upon their humble petition and the counsel of our faithful,
the following things:

" 1. During our whole life, we will not change or alter
the alloy or weight, and will not let any one alter the present
money of Etampes, which has circulated there since the
decease of our father, so long as the knights and burghers of
Etampes, every three years, dating from All- Saints, shall
pay us, for the redemption of the said money, one hundred
livres of that money; and if they themselves discover that
this money is falsified or altered in any way, we, upon
their information, will see that it be proved and tried; and
if it has been falsified or altered, we will have justice done
upon the falsifier or alterer, according to the counsel of the
knights and burghers of Etampes. Now, Luc de Mains,
knight of Etampes, by our order and in our place and court,
swears that we will keep and observe those conditions in the
manner herein laid down.

" 2. "We also grant to the knights and burghers of
Etampes that none of the people of Etampes shall at any
time be interdicted the sale of Avine; and that the wine of no
one, except our own, shall be sold by proclamation.

" 3. Further, for the good of our soul and the souls of our
predecessors, we grant for ever to the knights and burghers
of Etampes, that the measure of wine which the provosts
of Etampes, and that which the servants and the vicar of the
provost, after them, took from the burghers in each- tavern,
shall not henceforward be taken in any way by any provost
or his servants; and we forbid the burghers themselves to
give it in any way.

" 4. "VVe also forbid the criers of wine to refuse, under any
pretext, to the knights, clerks, or burghers of Etampes, the
measure to measure wine when they shall demand it, or to
exact from tliem anything more than they formerly exacted
with justice.

" And to the end that this may always remain firm and
stable, we have ordered that it be confirmed by the authority
.of our seal, and the afiixing of our name. Done publicly at
Paris, in our palace, the year of the Incarnation of the Word,
1137, and tlie fourth of our reign. There being present in
our palace tho'^e whose seals and nanie.-s are hereunto affixed*

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 333

Raoul, count de Vermandois, seneschal; Hup;h, the constable;
William, the butler. Given by the. hand of Augrin, chan-
cellor." *

Here it is not merely tne question of a parish, a family, a
quarter. The privileges granted are granted to the whole
town; all its inhabitants, knights or burghers, whether resi-
dent in the market-place of St. Gilles, or on the domains of
the canons of Notre Dame, are equally admitted to participate
in them.

But this is a very exceptional case. Privileges granted
to particular establishments are of much more frequent oc-
currence. In 1141 and 1147, Louis VII. accords in favour
respectively of the churches of Notre Dame and St. Martin
d'Etampes, and of the Lazar-house of that town, the two
following charters:

" In the name of the holy and indivisible Trinity, I, Louis,
by the grace of God king of the French and duke of Aqui-
taine, to all present and to come, make known, that, upon
the certification of the canons of Etampes la Vieille, we
admit and acknowledge as true and certain, that Solomon,
physician, having heretofore received from the very noble
and most illustrious Philip an estate at Etamp(>s, and having
for some time enjoyed it in full property, has now, by a
pious donation, and on condition of prayers for his soul,
given and granted the same, with all the rights and customs
appertaining to it, unto the two churches of the said Etampes,
namely — the church of Saint Mary, and the church of Saint
Martin, with our full concurrence and approbation, in accord-
ance with which, we, whose duty it is at once to favour the
churches, and to protect, confirm, the concessions made by
our predecessors, at the request of the said late possessor
of the said estate, and on the humble petition of the said
canons, do, by our autlicrity, confirm this donation, or rather
this alms, and furtlier, have caused to be set I'orth in this
present charter the customs of the said estate, that no ex-
action may hereafter be made upon it. These customs are
as follows:

" 1. The ordinary penalty of sixty sous is here five sous;
'/f seven sous and a half, twelve deniers. The fijie for flesh

' lifciuil dts Old) iinaiicff. t. xi. p. 188.

384 HISTORY OP

wounds is a live goose; for drawing the sword upon a man,
a fowl of two deniers.

" 2. The men of this estate must send four sergeants-at-
arms to the king's army, on the proclamation of Arriere-ban.

" 3. As to the droit de place over the said estate, the ministers
of the said churches must claim it on tlie Thursday in each
week, or if they omit any Thursday, then in the Thursday in
the next week, or other day, but without proceeding for any
penalty.

"4. At the festival of St, Remy, the sergeants of the said
canons shall collect the quit-rent at each house on the said
estate.

" 5. It is a custom of the said estate that if any one
bring an action against one of the tenants on the said estate,
within its limits, he must submit therein to the jurisdiction
of the said canons.

" 6. The said estate is exempt from the payment of any
and all taxes imposed upon the canons.

" Godfrey Silvestre in our presence at Etampes, has con-
firmed the above on oath. And in order that it may not
be lost in oblivion, w^e have authenticated the whole by the
apposition of our seal. Done publicly at Paris, the year
of the Incarnation of the Word, 1141, and of our reign the
fifth. Present in our palace, these, whose hands and seals
are hereunto affixed. Raoul, count de Vermandois, our
seneschal; Guillaume, the butler; Matthew, the chamberlain;
Matthew, the constable. Written by the hand of Cadurc,
chancellor." '

" I, Louis, by the grace of God king of the French and
duke of Aquitaine, to all present and to come, make known,
that we give and present to the brothers of St. Lazarus, at
Etampes, a fair of eight days, to be held every year at
Michaelmas, adjacent to the church of St. Lazarus, w'ith thia
fi-anchise, that we retain therein no right, and that our officers
shall take nothing there, nor arrest any one there except
thieves, whom we retain the power to apprehend, for the
purposes of justice. We take under our safeguard those who
shall attend this fair; and to confirm "and establish this for
ever, we, Scc.''^

In 1155, the same monarch abolished an abuse which the

• Recueil des Ordonnancct xi., 195, * Idem.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 385

officers Avho acted for him at Etampes had introduced for
their own benefit.

" In the name of the holy and indivisible Trinity, amen.
I, by the grace of God, king of the French. Whereas it
appears that our sergeants, our provost, vicar, and other of
our officers at Etampes, have been subjecting the butchers of
that town to a custom that whatever they purchased of them,
the price thereof shall be reduced one third, so that they have
been exacting from the butchers, under pretext of their office,
meat, the value of which was twelve deniers, for eight. We,
therefore, to all present and to come, make known that, for
the health of our soul, and the benefit of the said town, we
abolish for ever this custom, and order that our sergeants,
and all our other officers, deal with the butchers exactly
according to the general usage, common to all; and that
neither our provost, vicar, nor other officer, have, in any pur-
chases whatever, any advantage over the other citizens. And
that this may remain firm and unchanged, we have hereunto
affixed our seal and our signature. Done in public, at Paris,
the year of the Incarnation of the Lord, 1155. Present in
the palace, those whose names and seals follow: — Count
Thibaut, our seneschal; Guy, butler; Mathieu, groom of the
chamber; Mathieu, constable. Written by the hand of Hugh,
chancellor."*

In 1 179, he issued a general regulation for the government
of Etampes, conceived in these terms: —

" In the name of the holy and indivisible Trinity, Amen.
I, Louis, king of the French, for the good of our soul, have
deemed it fitting to abolish the ill customs \vhicli, in the
course of our reign, have been introduced into Etampes with-
out our knowledge, by the negligence of our sergeants. To
all present and to come, therei'ore, we make known :uul order
that,

" 1. Whosoever desires it, may freely purchase otir land
called octaves,- saving our accustomed rights; and the pur-
chaser shall none the more for his purchase become our serf.

" 2. No one sliall buy in Etampes or its liberties, for the

> Recucil dps Ordoiiuances, xi. '200.

* 'Die occupants of these royal lands ]ind been serfs of the kinfr. The
temi prtavf was perhaps applied to them becuuse the king Mas entitled lo
every eiglitli sheaf produced on them.
VOL. III. C C

386 HISTORY OF

purpose of retailing it in Etampes, any fish, except saitod
lierrings and mackarel.

" 3. No one shall buy wine at Etampes, for the purpose of
selling it again there, except at the time of vintage.

" 4. No one shall buy bread there for the purpose of re-
tailing it in the town.

" .5. No one, though he reside beyond the limits of the
market-place, shall be arrested when he is within the said
limits, for that were to infringe the droit de place.

" 6. Any man who holds from us the droit de voirie, may
make a door or a shop window in his house, without seeking
the permission of the provost.

" 7. No one shall be charged anything for the use of the
market corn measure, saving always our toll.

" 8. The provost of Etampes may not, on any ground, re-
quire a citizen to return the gage of a duel which has not
been decided.

" 9. The people of Etampes may have their vineyards
gviarded as they think fit, on payment merely of the guards
themselves, and without being liable to any payment to the
seigneur to whom the quit rent of the vineyard belongs.

" 10. No ordinary huckster, keeping a shop, shall be called
upon to fee the provost.

"11. No one shall be liable to give a fee to the provost,
except the dealers who have stalls in the market place.

" 12. None shall be called upon to give a skin to the
provost, except furriers by trade.

" 13. None of our oflicers, except the provost, shall require
a fee from any trader, whether in the market place, or out
of it.

" 14. For the stamping of measures and weiglits, the pro-
vost shall receive no more than two gallons of red wine of
Etampes, and each of the sergeants assisting, one denier.

" 15. The purchasers of wines, on exporting them from
Etampes, shall give no fee to our officers, but merely pay the
toll accustomably due to us.

" 16. The provost shall not exact fish from the dealers in
fresh or salt water fish, but shall buy what he requires, the
same as other people.

" 17. On a duel taking place, we shall require from tlie
conquered party ao more than six livres. and our provost no

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 387

* more than sixty sous; and the conqueror shall receive no
more than thirty-two sous, unless the cause of battle has been
infraction of the liberties of the town, or murder, or theft, or
rape, or enslaving.

" 18. No dues for pressurage shall be taken for quantities
under one gallon.

" 19. No fellmonger shall give more than twelve deniers
per annum for his fee.

" 20. Wax chandlers, as their fee, shall give no more than
the value of one denier in wax, per annum, the Thursday
before the Feast of the Purification.

"21. Every dealer in bows shall give a bow yearly.

" 22. No one shall pay for a place in tlie market, who has
only sold fruit under the value of four deniers.

" 23. It is forbidden to seize the goods of a man refusing
to pay a debt, until the amount of the debt has been calcu-
lated.

" 24. For every wine booth erected, the provost shall have
two gallons of red wine of Etarapes.

" 25. On market day, neither the provost of the Jews,
nor any other person, shall arrest for debt any man in tlie
market, or going there, or returning thence, nor seize his
goods.

" 26. The dealer in flax or hemp shall pay no money for
his stand in the market place, but only a reasonable handl'ui
of his goods.

" 27. For a debt recognised and available, the provost
shall not seize until after the number of days prescribed by
the law.

" 28. A widow for licence to open a shop, shall only pay
twenty-five sous.

" 29. No hired champion shall be admitted to take part in
a trial by battle.

" In order that all this may be firm and unchanged, wc
liave autlienticated the present charter with our royal hand
and seal. Done at Paris, the year of the Incarnation 1 179.
Present in our palace those whose names and seals are below:
Count Tliibaut, our seneschal; Guy, butler; Renault, ciiani-
berlain; Kaoul, constable. The chancellorsliip vacaiit."*

' 'Recneil lies Ordonnances, xi., ',!ll.

c c 2

388 <flISTORY OF

So far we have heard nothing of the corporation of
Etampes; not only have we met with no charter constituting
it, but none of the documents we have cited make any allu-
sion to it. Yet a corporation did exist at Etampes, and pro-
bably a very turbulent, a very encroaching corporation, for
in 1199 Philip Augustus abolished it in these terms:

" In the name of the holy and indivisible Trinity, Amen.
Philip, by the grace of God, king of the French, to all men,
present and to come: know that in consequence of the out-
rages, oppression, and vexations inflicted by the corpora-
tion of Etampes upon the churches of that town and their
possessions, upon the knights and their possessions, we have
abolished the said corporation, and have granted unto the
said churches and knights, that there shall henceforth be no
corporation in Etampes. The churches and knights shall be
reinstated in all the franchises and rights they possessed
before the establishment of the corporation, saving always,
that their men and tenants shall attend us in our expeditions
and wars, just as all other men do. And for the men and
tenants, whether of the churches, or of the knights, who in-
habit the castle or suburbs of Etampes, and were members of
the corporation, we shall tax them when and to what extent
we think fit. And should any of the said men and tenants,
when we have taxed them, neglect to pay us the tax, Ave
shall be at full liberty to seize them and their goods, no
matter of whom they are tenants and men, whether of the
church or of knights. And that these presents may be firm
and enduring, we have given them the authority of our
name and seal. Done at Paris, the year of our Lord 1199,
of our reign the twenty-first. Present in our palace those
whose names and seals follow: no seneschal; Guy, butler;
Mathieu, chamberlain; Dreux, constable. The chancellorship
vacant." '

If we had only this document before us, if all those I have
previously cited did not exist, should we not be disposed to
imagine tliat in losing their corporation the inhabitants of
Etamj)es lost all their rights, all their franchises. Yet such
was by no means the case. Tlie charter of the corporation
was aJone abolished; all the special charters remained in full

' Recueil des Ordonnances, xi., 277.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 389

force as before. The inhabitant's of the lands of the church
Notre Dame, and of the market-place St. Gilles, the de-
scepdants of Eudes de Challou-Saint-Mard, the tenants cf
the abbey of Morigny, retained all their old privileges. And
not only did these privileges remain to them, but others were
constantly being added, in like manner without any reference
to a corporation, in like manner limited to particular quarters
of the town and to particular classes of its inhabitants. For
instance, in 1204, Philip Augustus granted to the weavers of
Etampes a charter in the following terms:

" In the name of the holy and indivisible Trinity, Amen,
I, Philip, by the grace of God, king of the French, to all pre-
sent and to come, make known:

" That, for the love of God, we have released all the
weavers resident now and for the future in Etampes, and
who weave with their own hands linen or woollen goods,
from all the dues heretofore payable to us from them,
namely, annual taxes and fees on apprenticeship; saving the
fee for holding a stand in the market-place which all shall
continue to pay; and saving also the penalty due to us upon
the spilling of blood, and our right to their services in our
armies and expeditions as before.

" In consideration of this franchise that we grant nnto
them, the said weavers shall pay us twenty livres a-year; tea
livres on tlie day next but one after the festivid of St. Remy,
and ten the next day but one after the termination of Lent.

" All weavers shall commence and conclude their labours
at tile tixed hour.

" They shall, of their own choice, and as often as they
think iit, elect four notable men from among their own body
to act as tlieir representatives in any judicial ca.se, and to
carry out what reform in their corporation they shall deem
necessary.

'• Tliese four men shall take an oath of fidelity to the pro-
vost, and shall see to the maintenance of their rights, and
Rtiali psiV *he twenty livres above set forth.

'■ Tliey shall superintend the manufacture of the cloth
woven, and see tliat it is of good fabrie and honest measure;
if they fail herein, they shall pay a fine to us.

" We grant to them that we will never revoke these pre-
sents.

390 niSTORY OF

** And that this grant may be firm and unchanged for ever,
we have authenticated it by our hand and seal. Done at
3'aris, the year of the Incarnation of the Word 1204, the.
twenty-fourth of our reign. Present in the palace those
whose names and seals follow : ■ No seneschal; Guy, butler;
Mathieu, groom of the chamber; Dreux, constable. Written,
the chancellorship being vacant, by the hand of brother
Garin."'

In 1224 again, Louis VIII. confirmed, in the following
terms, the charter and enfranchisement granted by the dean
and chapter of the church of Saint-Croix, at Orleans, to the
men whom that church had in Etampes and its liberties.

" In the name of the holy and indivisible Trinity, Amen.
Louis, by the grace of God king of the French, to all present
and to come make known, that we have had submitted to us
the charter of our dearly beloved the dean and chapter of
Sainte-Croix, at Orleans, thus conceived: —

" ' Libert, dean, and all the chapter of Orleans, to all, and
for all time.

" ' We make known unto all present and to come, that
our men and women dwelling on our lands at Etampes, and
all those who possess any portion of the said lands, where-
soever they actually inhabit, have bound themselves to us by
oath, individually, and each of them respectively, promising that
if we relieve them from the disgrace of servitude, and grant to
them and to their children, born and to be born, the blessing
of fi'eedom, they will accept ■with gratitude, faithfully pay,
and never dispute the rents we shall require from them and
their descendants for our said lands. We, therefore, con-
sidering the many advantages which the said concession of
freedom may confer upon our said men and their descendants,
and upon ourselves and our church, have judged it well to
make them the said concession; and enfranchising the said
men, their wives and children, born and to be born, from all
servitude, have declared and do declare them free in perpe-
tuity, saving the charges and rents set forth below :^

' Recueil des Ordoiinances, xi. 286.
* Tbis clause leads to tlie supposition tliat the corporation of Etampes,
abolislied in 1109 by Pbilip Augustus, bad been re-estabbsbed ; tbe fact
is quite possible in itself, and the cle?ir and posiiive fact before us rendei-s
it very probable. It is also very possible that the ordinance abolishing tue
corporation was never acted upon.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 391

" * And first, in order completely to extirpate from our
gaid lands in Etampes the opprobrium of servitude, we decree
that no man or woman of servile condition shall be capable
of holding any house, vineyard, or field therein ; so that the
said landti, hitlierto humble and overwhelmed with the oppro-
brium of servitude, may for the future shine forth in all the
splendour of freedom.

" ' None of the said enfranchised persons, or any of their
descendants, shall enter, without our special consent, into the
corporation of Etampes.

" ' Every person dwelling upon our said lands shall be
bound to grind his corn at our mill and nowhere else.

" * AVe require — and this is a condition which we especially
impose in consideration of the said concession — that of every
twelve sheaves grown upon our said lands, and even of every
eleven, if the grounds only produce eleven, one shall be given
to us, to be selected by and delivered by out agent; which
sheaf sliall be called the sheaf of freedom.

" ' As to the tithes payable in respect of the said lands,
these shall remain unchanged.

" ' We retain also our claim lo the tithe of wheat not
sheaved. In a word, nothing herein contained respecting
emancipation shall prejudice our accustomed rights as to rents
and payments.

" ' And so with respect to all other rights possessed by us,
all customs, claims to free labour on roads, and so fortli, Ave
make no change in any of these things, which shall renuiin
altogether as heretofore, except the servitude — and, more-
over, the poll-tax, which we hereby surrender to our juiil
men and their fanilHes and descenthmts.

" ' AVe liave judged best to insert in our present writing
the names of our men whom we have enfranchised as above
set forth; and, first, I^udes of MaroUes, 8cc. kc.^

" ' In surety, faitli, and testimony ot" the said freedom, we
have caused the present to be written, and sealed with our
seal. Done in the year of the Lord 1224, in the month
of February.'

" Granting the present freedom as above set forth, we in

' Here follow the iianirs of four or five buiidied peisons, with the iian.e
of the pliices of habiuuiou.

392 HISTORY OF

like manner enfranchise and release the said men fiom all
servitude; and, finally, that this may be a firm and per-
petual liberty, we have confirmed the present charter by the
authority of our seal and name. Done at Melun, in the year
of the Incarnate "Word 1224, the second of our reign. There
were present in our palace those whose names and seals fol-
low; No seneschal; Robert, the butler; Bartholomew, the
groom of the chamber; Matthew, constaule. Sealed, with
our own hand, with green wax."'

"We may dispense with commentaries. The facts speak,
the acts explain themselves. " It is evident that these words,
a town, a borough, a borough charter, deceive us when they
make us attribute to the institutions and municipal destinies
of this epoch an unity, a totality, which they did not possess.
Both within and without the walls of a town, in the city as
in the state, all was special, local, partial. The various
establishments, the various quarters, the various classes of
the inhabitants possessed, by titles of various nature and
date, freedoms, privileges, sometimes diifering, sometimes
alike, but always independent of one another, one of which
might perisli without the others being affected. The destiny
of the borough did not always decide that of the town. The
boi-ough charter might not even be the most fertile source of
the municipal liberties and prosperities. Let us view the
middle ages in their fantastical and vivid variety; let us
never demand from them our general ideas, our simple and
systematic organizations. The political order there was pro-
gressively formed in the bosom, and under the influence of
the civil order. Power there arose from property, and clothed
itself in the infinitely varied and pliant forms of private
contracts. Whosoever places himself beyond this point of
riew will not comprehend the middle age; he will comprehend
neither its feudalism, its royalty, nor its boi-oughs, and will
not be able to account either for its vices and merits, or for
the strength and weakness of its institutions.

IV.

Beauvais,

Few boroughs have had such lengthened, such agitated,
8uch varied destinies in France, as that of Beauvais. There

• Recueil des Ordoniiaiices, t. xi. j). 8'^"2.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 393

are few concerning which documents have remained so
numerous and precise. 1 therefore do not hesitate in tracing
somewhat complacently its internal history, repressing no
detail, endeavouring to explain obscure or ill-connected facts,
and everywhere producing the original pieces. These, in my
opinion, are the best proofs which can be brought to the
support of general views; and monographies carefully studied
seem to me the surest means of making true progress in his-
tory.

In 1099, the burghers of Beauvais had a dispute with the
chapter of that town concerning a mill formerly given to the
canons by the bishop of Beauvais, and made useless by forges
or other industrial establishments constructed on the water-
course upon which it depended. Each party claimed in its
favour the judgment of the bishop, seigneur of the town, and
natural protector of the rights of all its inhabitants. The
episcopal see was then occupied by Ansel, a pious man, with
gentle, and even liberal manners, were not in the present
day the word taken in a sense which renders it but little
suited to characterize the sentiments of benevolence, hu-
manity, and justice, which a bishop of the eleventh cen-
tury might feel towards that oppressed and wretched class
which now began to be named the bourgeoisie.

Ansel, therefore, took no part with the chapter, and, on the
contrary, protected the claims of the burghers. Perhaps he
was impelled by another motive more worldly, more politic:
the bishops of Beauvais had not yet learned to fear the use
which might be made of some franchise by the humble citizens
of their seigneurial town, but they had already had much to
suffer from the usurping spirit of the canons of their church.
Ansel himself, doubtless against his will, had granted them
the important right of excommunicating proprio motit, and
when they judged lit, of putting interdict upon the diocese.
We shall sec what use, or rather what abuse the canons
made of the privilege which they had forced from Ansel,
against his successors. Probably, the prelate already fore-
.saw something of this, and willingly seized a favourable oppor-
tunity of attaching to himself new friends, in the very heart
of the city, by lowering the. power of his rivals.

However tills may be, the chapter took this conduct of the
bishop very ill, and ooiui)lained bitterU' to Yve^ bishop of

394 HISTORY OF

Chartres, whose ascendancy in ecclesiastical matters was gene-
rally acknowledged, and who appeared to have had particular
motives tor mixing himself in the interests of the church of
Beauvais, which he calls his mother, her who brought him forth
and nourished him: Ecclesia Belvacensis, mater mea, quce me
yenuit e.t lactuit. We do not possess the letter of the canons,
but the following is the answer of Yves:

" Yves, by the grace of God, an humble servant of the
church of Chartres, to Hugh, dean of the church of Beauvais,
and to other brothers of the same church, health in the
Lord.

" In the aflPair of the mill given to your church by the
bishop who constructed it, which you have enjoyed in tran-
quillity for the space of thirty years, and which, moreover,
has been assured you by the authority of your privileges, but
which, however, cannot perform its office of grinding because ol
the obstacle of the bridges, and filth of the dyers, you appear
to us to have a just cause, and one supported by good rea-
sons; especially against your bishop, who ought not only to
oppose himself to the illicit things of the present time, but
ought also to reform illicit things of times past .... and it is
not sufficient for the bishop to say that no obstacle has been
put to the mill by his orders, if he has not opposed him-
self, wuth all the power of his office, against those who do
put these obstacles. Thus wrote pope John VIII. to the
emperor Louis: He, who, being able to prevent an evil, neg-
lects to prevent it, is guilty of having committed it ... .

" With regard to the denial founded on the annual posses-
sion according to the custom of the city, or upon the promise
by which the bishop is engaged to observe the customs -of
that city, or upon the turbulent association of the borough
which is formed there, all this goes for nothing against eccle-
siastical laws; for compacts, constitutions, or even oaths
contrary to the canons, are, as you well know, null, ipso facto.
Accordingly, pope Zozimus said to the people of Narbonne:
To grant or change anything contrary to the statutes of the
holy fathers, is beyond the authority of this see itself. If,
therefore, anything seems to you judged against the canons,
appeal to the authority of judges whom you regard as ot
superior authority, either your metropolitan or tlie Roman
legate. After this appeal, you shall, in the space of five

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 395

days, demanfl of him from wh'om you have appealed, letters
to him to Avhom yon shall appeal, to the end that the latter
may assign to each party a day when your cause may be
terminated by a judicial sentence. Adieu."'

The affair, it seems, did not terminate with this letter, and
whether for arbitration, or any other reason, they referred it
to a foreign decision. The following is the text of the judg-
ment given by a certain Adam, whose condition is absolutely
unknown :

" These are the words of the judgment given by Adam in
the presence of Ansel, bishop of Beauvais, those present
giving their consent. The canons complained that the mill
was obstructed by three things, namely, by stakes, planks,
and earth. The burghers answered that they had enjoyed
this custom under four bishops before the said bishop, (Ansel,)
and that he himself had granted it them. We have then
iudged that the bishop, to whom belongs the use of the
water, (and no one disputes it,) ought to free the course of
the water from the said obstacles, in such a manner that
nothing may impede the mill; and further, let the men
have all that is necessary for them that will not interrupt
the course of the water, and let the bishop watch that they
behave well.'"'^

Many important ficts may be viewed in this insignificant
affair. First, the antiquity at Beauvais of certain rights
and customs: " Under four bishops, before bishop Ansel, we
have enjoyed these customs," say the burghers, " and he him-
self has granted them to us." " Let tlie bishop," writes
Yves of C'liartres, " not set up to us as an olyection the
right which, according to the custom of Beauvais, results
from tlie annual possession, and the oath tak(>n to ob-
serve the customs of that city." Here tiien, before 1099,
are ancient customs, customs wliich have passed into rights,
confirmed by the oatli of the bisliops, lords suzerain of the
town, and so well established in fact, that even those whom
they incommode dare not deny them, and content themselvea
with accusing them of being against the canons; a trite re
proacli, of daily application, in those times, to things the most

» III I1IO',), Kocuoil (les Tlistoriens de Friinre, t. xv., p. 105
* Mciuoire do Beauvnis, &c., by Loyst-l, p. ■•200

396 HisToiir OK

equitable and most regular, when they offended the pride of
some ecclesiastical dignitary.

Without wishing, then, with Loysel, to carry back the
municipal liberties of Beauvais to that senate of the Bello-
vaci of which Csesar speaks, without even affirming that they
had received under the Romans the complete organization
which so many Gaulish cities possessed, it may be allowed
that this town was never entirely deprived of them, and
we may recognise in the passages which we have just cited,
rather the recollection of old rights legitimately possessed,
than the feeling of a new acquisition or a recent enfranchise-
ment.

Still this acquisition, this enfranchisement, took place, and
this is a second fact shown by the letter of Yves of
Chartres. A borough had just been formed at Beauvais:
turbulenta conjuratio facta communionis, says he, in enume-
rating the pretexts which will doubtless suggest to the bishop
his good will for the burghers; and he clearly distinguishes
the recent association, the corporation, from those ancient
customs of which he had just been complaining. A new tie,
an additional interest to defend, had then been added to the
pretensions of the burghers, to the confidence which they had
in their strength, to the idea which their adversaries formed
of them ; this fact could not have been accomplished without
violence, and still the bishop recognised it, sanctioned it, pro-
tected it, despite the blame of the members of his body. It
was not against him, then, although lord of the town, that
this insurrectional movement, to speak the language of our day,
had taken place. The canons do not appear ever to have
raised pretensions to the lordship of Beauvais, and their aristo-
cratic malignity exercised itself, it seems, rather against their
chief than their inferiors. It is necessary, therefore, to seek
elsewhere for the cause of this event; and perhaps, in default
of information, for we possess none except the letter of Yves,
it will be possible to support ourselves by conjecture, and
assign a probable origin to the movement which created the
borough of Beauvais.

The chapter of that town was not the only rival against
whose pretensions the bishops had to combat. Another
authority existed in Beauvais, whose presence they impa-
tiently supported, and which on its side laboured to extend
and strengthen itself.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE, 397

Beauvais. formerly an important city of the Belgfe, situated
at no great distance from the Germanic tribes of the north
of Gaul, at a later period the frontier of France on the side
of Normandy, and the inhabitants of which, during the long
wars with the Normans, had constantly sided with the French;
Beauvais, I say, had always been considered as a place of
importance, and for this reason, carefully fortified; walls, eight
feet thick, constructed of small square stones intermixed with
great bricks, and joined by an impenetrable cement, formed
its inclosure, which was completed with high round towers,
made of the same materials, and placed at equal distances
from one another. Numerous gates gave entrance into the
town; the principal one was called Chastel, and there .is
reason to suppose that a kind of strong castle existed in this
place. It is, at all events, certain that a castellan resided
there, entrusted with the guard, and captain of the city. There
is no means of asserting by what title this right was exercised,
whether it came from the king or from the bishop, whether
it owed its origin only to force, and how it was transmitted;
the chronicles of Beauvais give minute details of the quarrels
between the castellans and the bishops, but furnish no infor-
mation as to the rights of the parties, and the justice of their
pretensions. These quarrels broke out more especially
during the 11th century, and, from 1063 to 1094, under the
i)ishops Guy and Foulques, carried to the last degree of
violence; the latter even, going further than his predecessor,
attacked the castellan Prudes in 1 093, with an armed force, kept
him besieged in liis tastle, forcibly took away tlie keys of the
town, seized his wine, and having entic^'d many of his vassals,
treated with them and his chaplain to betray liiin.

Foul({ues was severely blamed, and coudenmed to resti-
tution and reparation, by pope Urban II., wlio reproached
him, among otlier things, with his pretensions to the keys ot
the town, the recognised right of the; castellan: J\>rt(iium
dares, (jiicis ipse ex more teutiernt, ru/emisfi.

The bisliop Foulqnes, then, having been condemned by
Urban II., in his quarrel with IM^lle^:, as his predecessor,
Guy, had been formerly, by Alexander II. and Gregory VII.,
the castellans felt tliemselves more firm in their power, and
perhaps also in their pretensions. It seemed, indeed, that at
this epoch they laboured to make the rights hereditary, which

398

HISTORY OK

were held I know not from whom, and they began to afflict
the citizens cruelly, whom, however, they had generally
reckoned in their party against the later bishops, people of
violent and tyrannical manners, and whose despotism spared
no one; if we have just seen Foulques severely blamed by
Urban II. for his conduct towards Eudes, Guy had been so
too by Alexander II., who reproached him " with vexing
the people of God in an intolerable manner."

I am led, then, to believe that the castellans, disen-
cumbered of the bishops, and thinking themselves more
sure of their power, made the citizens of Beauvais feel
it more harshly, and that the latter saw they had gained
nothing by the humiliation of the bishops for which they had
laboured. The episcopal see being then occupied by men of
pacific manners, such as Roger, and especially Ansel, the
burghers forgot a distant evil for a present evil, resolved no
longer to support the vexations of the castellans, and to seek,
in a new association, and under the support of their suzerain
lord, the guarantee of their just pretensions. Then probably
was formed the borough, and the turbulence of which Yves
complains must have broken out rather against the castellan
than against the bishop; a reasonable conjecture, if atten-
tion be given to the mobility of popular dispositions, to the
protection with which Ansel, the natural enemy of the
castellan, shielded the new borough, and to the letter of
Louis le Gros, which we are about to read: is it not worthy
of remark, that the object of the first ordinance of the king of
France was to preserve it from the exactions of the castellan?
and does not this fact confirm my opinion regarding the pro-
bable origin of that borough?

" In the name of Christ, I, Louis, by the grace of God,
king of the French, desire to make known to all present
and to come, that, for the health of the souls of my father
and my mother, and our predecessors, we have abolished
certain unjust exactions which Eudes, castellan of Beauvais,
exacted and collected, to the end that in future neither he
nor his successors receive or exact them; and having thus
abolished them, we have forbidden, by our royal authority,
that they should henceforward be granted.

" Now, the following are the customs required by the cas-
tellan:—

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 399

• He desired that his provost should exercise his justice
throughout the town, which we have absolutely forbidden j
he caused to be purchased, by his measurers and people in
whom he could trust, what remained in the bottom of the
sacks, the practice of which we have likewise forbidden in
future; and if any plaint be brought before him or his wife,
we have granted him to exercise his justice, but only in the
house of pleas, or in his own house. And in order that no-
thing may be otherwise than is here written, we have ordered
that the present charter shall be sealed and confirmed by the
authority of our name, to the end that it may clearly show
what ought to be done, and eternally exist, to defend and
maintain our will. Done at Beauvais, the year of the Incar-
nation of our Lord, 1115, the seventh of our reign, and the
first of that of queen Adelaide. There were present in our
palace those whose names and seals are hereunto affixed: —
Anselm, the seneschal; Gislebert, the butler; Hugh, the
constable; Guy, the chamberlain. Written and signed by
the hand of Stephen, chancellor."^

This ciiarter of Louis le Gros, as is seen, was given in
111 5, at Beauvais, and this date serves to fix the epoch of the
journey whicli he made there, after long and bloody dissensions,
wherein his authority was obliged to interfere.

After the death of the virtuous and popular Ansel, in 1101,
Etienne de Garlande, a man powerful from his domains, and in
high credit with the king, was elected to succeed him; but
his manners were not sufficiently ecclesiastical, and some irre-
gularities in his election caused him to be disapproved by
numerous members of the clergy, and annulled by pope
Pascal IL, who ordered that a fresh choice should be pro-
ceeded with. Gualon, a disciple and friend of Yves of Char-
tres, was tlien nominated; and it does not appear that any re-
proach was raised against the new bishoj); but the king,
offi'ndcd that they sliould thus reject his favourite, and dis-
trusting the ascendency which the restless Yves would have
over Gualon, absolutely opposed his taking possession of his
bishopric. It was necessary to give way to the royal will,
and to make another new choice in 110^. Godfrey accoru»
ingly became bishop of Beauvais; Gualon was transferred to
Paris.

' Jiccucil dcs Ordonnanccs, &c., t. xi., p. 17 7,

400 HISTORY OF

All these dissensions could not take place without thrcvmg
much agitation into the town of Beauvais, weakening the
various authorities, and allowing more liberty to disorderly
passions. The church and the city were divided into parties
furious one against the other; disorders took place, w^hich
were a powerful source of hatred and revenge. One power
only had been able to gain by this, as it were, recognised sus-
pension of legal order in Beauvais, and this was not the most
regular or the best intentioned of them all. The chapter had in-
herited as a right, during the two years' interim, the episcopal
powers, and from that exercise of a borrowed power, derived
more audacity to extend that which it daily usurped. It soon
found in an event unfortunate for the town, and disgraceful to
the canons, an occasion of displaying its pretensions.

In 1113 or 1114, one Sunday, to^vards the middle of the •
summer, was " traitorously put to death, after his dinner, by
his fellow-citizens of Beauvais, a certain Renaud, knight, who
was of no small consideration among his people."' These are
the words of Guibert de Nogent; but, speaking only incident-
ally of the murder, he forgets to mention what ,riade it of
singularity and importance. It was not committcit ^ only by
the inhabitants of Beauvais: a canon was the instigator
of, and the principal actor in it. The king, on hearing of
the crime, immediately announced his intention of taking
cognizance of it; the chapter obstinately opposed him, pre-
tending that to it belonged the jurisdiction over a brother;
but Louis le Gros, careful not to lose an occasion of establish-
ing his authority, and of taking upon himself that character
of sovereign equity which has so greatly served royalty in
France, did not allow himself to be influenced by such remon-
strances, but pursued the affair by his ofticers, and had the
goods and even the persons of the guilty and refractory seized.
The chapter, then using its new right for the first time, put
the town under interdict; tlie king was still more irritated at
this, and the burghers of Beauvais with him. Things came
to such a point that many of the canons were obliged to
quit the town; and their sufferings became the subject oi
great commiseration in many churches of France.

' Vic (ie Giiihrrt di; Kogcnt, B. I., clmji. 17; p. 430 ; in my Collection del
ifetn-jin-s rtlatij's a CHistoae de I'raiice.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE 401

" From the time that the letter," writes Yves of Chartres to
them, " containing the detail of your calamities, was publicly
read amidst our assembled brothers, it has been the cause of
abundant tears to us. Who, indeed, can read with a dry eye,
the account of your exile, of the annoyances inflicted upon you
by the burghers, of the pillage of your houses, and the devasta-
tion of your lands, in all which things violence alone has
acted, and the pride and envy of the laity against the priests
have prevailed. With regard to the justice or injustice of the
interdict, what is that to the king?

" Watch well, therefore, that you let not yourselves be cast
down at the loss of your goods; the love of wealth, in fact,
engenders weakness, and from weakness arises infamy, from
which you can in no way escape, if you basely put your neck
under the foot of the laity. . . . With regard to us, most
dear brothers, we are, without the least doubt, on your side
in all things with you according to our means, and as much
as you could wish. We offer you our persons and our pro-
perties; put us to the proof."'

Yves of Chartres still did not confide so much in the
firmness of his canons, but that he laboured to render it more
easy to them; he interceded for them with the king in a more
humble tone than that of his counsels to them:

" It suits," he writes to him about the same epoch, " the
royal sublimity to balance mercy and justice, and thus to
soften one by the other: let not an indiscreet clemency foment
the insolence of the subjects, and let not too great a rigour
stifle mercy. . . . For this reason I implore your exci^lleiice,
having bowed before you with the knees of my heart, to
show that I have obtained some favour in the eyes of your
royal majesty, by being willing, for the love of God and
us, so to treat the clergy and people of Beauvais for the
liomic'ide committed, that innocence may not be trampled
upon, and that tire rash action committed through dia-
bolical suggestions be not chastised with the })iiiiish-
ment due to the stiff-necked and haughty, but corrected with
the rod of the repentant: for it becomes not roysU e(juity
to treat all its subjects alike, for fear that a cruel rage creep
under the appearance of correction, and that an immoderate
terror scatter abroad a population formerly beloved, and

' liecucH (les Hi.florietis. kc, t. xv., \). lOb,
D D

402 HISTORY OK

from which the royal majesty may draw, above all the towns
of the kingdom, an useful service. . . . With regard to the
interdict put upon the church of Beauvais, I disapprove of
that measure."'

I know not whether these reasonings influenced Louis le
Gros, or if he had any other motive for terminating an afiair
the importance of \y-hich had reached beyond the walls of
Beauvais; what is certain is, that he repaired thither in lllo
with the most pacific intentions, became reconciled with the
canons, confirmed or even extended their privileges, and, to
make himself welcomed by all, by the charter which I have
cited above, delivered the inhabitants from the exactions of
Eudes. It has not transpired what became of the murderers
of the knight Renaud, and if they expiated the crime, but
it is probable that the guilty canon was acquitted very
leniently, and that if any punishment was inflicted, it fell
upon his accomplices, unimportant people, who were pro-
tected by no privilege; for it v.ljes not appear that at this
epoch the borough claimed the right of justice, the most
sovereign of liberties.

Not many years elapsed without Louis le Gros giving to
the citizens of Beauvais a new proof of his solicitude, by
granting them a small charter relative to interests which appear
to us of but little importance, but which were surely seen
with a different eye by those whom they more nearly con-
cerned: burghers of the twelfth century would have spilled
their heart's blood to have enjoyed with security some of
those individual liberties of which we do not even think,
so much are we accustomed to them.

" In the name of the Holy Trinity, Amen. I, Louis, by the
grace of God, king of France, to all present and to come, make
known that we grant to the men of Beauvais, that if the
house of any of them fall down, or is burnt, they may re-
build the same without asking permission of any one, in the
same manner as before, and as they can prove it to have
been by three sufficient neighbours. We grant, further, that
the bridges or planks over the river, which they have built
or purchased, if they fall or are burnt, may be rebuilt or re-
paired without licence obtained of any one. Also, the bridges
and planks which they have purchased of the bishop shall
remain for ever in possession of them and their heirs. And
' Becueil, &c., &c., xv., 169.

CIVILIZATiON IN FRANCE. 403

as to these bridges, we order that, before rebuilding them,
they shall produce the evidence of three competent neigh-
bours as to the state in which they previously were. And
that this thing may not be forgotten or contravened, we
have had it engrossed, and have affixed to it our seal and
hand. Given at Pontoise, the year of the Incarnation, 1022."'

Louis le Gros had done still more for the borough of Beau-
vais; he had confirmed it, established it, founded it. An
actual charter, regulating the authorities, the rights, the obli-
gations of the borough, and guaranteeing its existence and its
privileges, was given by him, and, it seems, was accepted by
the bishop and the burghers: it is cited in that which Louis
le Jeune granted at a late period, and is often mentioned in
the various acts of the borough of Beauvais; unhappily this
charter has long since ceased to exist, and for its contents, we
are forced to trust to the assertion of Louis le Jeune, who
professes to repeat it in his own. We shall presently see how
incorrect such assertions sometimes are. Nor have we
anything to indicate the date of the charter of Louis le Gros;
the expression of Louis le Jeune, in 1144, that it was
granted by his father, multa ante tempora, seems to support
the opinion of the editors of the Ordon?iances des rots de
France, which attributes to it that of 1103 or 1104; but how
can it be believed, that if this charter had existed anterior to
those of 1115 and of 11 22, there would have been no allusion
to it in these works? How can it be supposed that not a
single mention would have been made of it in the quarrel which
we have just recounted, and that no pretensions of the new
authorities of Beauvais would have betrayed their existence?
Witliout pretending, therefore, to fix a date which there is
nothing to point out, I cannot admit that of 1103 or 1104,
and I look upon the great charter of Beauvais as belonging to
the end of the reign of Louis le Gros.

Perhaps even one might be right in supposing that the
words multa ante tempora did not exist in the primitive
charter of Louis le Jeune, but were inserted at a later
period ; borrowed from tlio charter of Philio Augustus,
where they much more naturally figurca.

Louis le Gros died the 1st of August, 1137. Louis, sur-

• Recueil des Ordonianccf, xi., 182.
D D 2

404 HISTORY OF

named le Jeune, hastened, on the news ot the decease of his
father, to quit the fetes he was celebrating at Poitiers on
the occasion cif his marriage with Eleonore of Guienne, and
his coronation as duke of Aqiiitaine. The goal of his journey
was Paris, the real capital of the Capetian kings; and his
route led him through Orleans, where some orders given in
passing awakened the suspicion of the burghers; there was a
disturbance on the subject. It does not appear, however,
that this ungracious opening of his reign deterred Louis le
Jeune from following the steps of his father in showing
himself the protector of the liberties of boroughs. In 11 44,
we find him confirming and guaranteeing those of the borough
of Beauvais by the following charter:

" In the name of the holy and indivisible Trinity, I, Louis,
by the grace of God, king of the French, and duke ot
Aquitaine, make known to ail ^resent and to come, that we
grant and confirm, with the exception of the faith which is
our due, according as it has been instituted and sworn, and
with the same customs, the borough charter given long since
by our father, Louis, to the men of Beauvais. These customs
are as follow:

" All men dwelling within the inclosure of the walls of the
town and in the suburbs, of whatever seigneur the land
which they inhabited be held, shall swear to the borough,
unless some of them abstain by the advice of the peers, and
of those who have sworn the borough.

" Throughout the town each shall give help to the others,
loyally, and according to his ability.

" Whoever shall commit a crime against a man who shall
have sworn to the borough, the peers of the borough, if com-
plaint be made to them, in accordance with their judgment,
shall do justice upon the body and goods of the guilty, unless
he amend his fault according to their judgment.

" If he who has committed the crime take refuge in any
strong castle, the peers of the borough shall confer with the
seigneur of the castle, or him who shall be in his place. And
if satisfaction be done upon the enemy of the borough accord-
ing to their sentence, let that suffice; but if the seigneur
refuse satisfaction, they shall themselves do justice, according
jO their judgment, upon his property or his men.

" If any foreign merchant come to Beauvais for the market,

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 405

and if any one do him wrong within the jurisdiction, and if
complaint be brought before the peers, and if the merchant
can find his malef ictor in the town, the peers shall give
him aid in accordance with their judgment, unless, indeed,
this merchant be one of the enemies of the borough.

" And if the malefactor retire to any strong castle, and the
merchant or the peers send to him, if he satisfy the mer-
chant, or prove that he has done no wrong, the borough will
be content. If he do neither one nor the other, justice shall
be done upon him according to the judgment of the peers, if
he can be taken in the town.

" No one, except we or our seneschal, can take into the
city a man who has done wrong to any one of the borough,
and has not made reparation in accordance with the judgment
of the peers. And if the bishop of Beauvais himself bring
into the town by mistake a man who has done wrong to the
borough, he can no longer take him thither after it shall have
been made known to him, except with the consent of the
peers; but for this time he may take him back safe and sound.

" In each mill there shall only be two mill keepers; if men
wish to impose more mill keepers, or any other evil customs
into the mills, and complaint be brought before the peers,
they shall, according to their judgment, assist those who shall
complain.

" Further, if the bishop of Beauvais desire to go to our
three courts, or to the army, he shall each time take only
three horses, and shall exact none from men strangers to
the borough; and if he or any of his servants have received
from a man the redemption of a horse, he shall not take
any other horse instead of that one; if he do otherwise, or
seek to take advantage, and complaint be brought before
the peers, they shall, in accordance with their decision, aid
him who complains." So, if the bishop desire, from time
to time, to send us fish, he shall not, on that account, take
more than one horse.

" No man of the borough must give or lend his money to
the enemies of the borough, so long as they shall be at war
with them; for if he do so, he will be perjured; and if any
one be convicted of having given or lent them anything
whatsoever, justice shall be done according to the judgment
of the peers.

406

HISTORY OF

" If it happen that the corporation march out of the town
against its enemies, no one shall parley with them, unless with
the licence of the peers.

'•' If any one of the borough have confided his money to
any one of the town, and he to whom he has confided the
money shall take refuge in any strong castle, the lord of the
castle, having received plaint, shall either return the money,
or drive the debtor from his castle; and if he does neither
one nor the other of these things, justice shall be taken upon
the men of that castle, according to the opinion of the peers.

" Let the men of the borough be careful to confide their
victualling to a faithful keeper within the precincts; for if
any take it beyond the nrecincts, the borough wall not be
answerable for it, unless tlie malefactor be found in the city.

" With regard to the hanging out of clothes, the stakes to
suspend it shall be fixed into the earth, of equal height;
and if any one complain upon this subject, justice shall be
done according to the judgment of the peers.

" Let every man of the borough see that he is thoroughly
certain of what he does when he lends money to a foreigner;
for that no one can be arrested, unless the debtor have bail in
the borough.

" The peers of the borough shall swear to favour no one
out of friendship, and to give up no one out of enmity, and do
all things injustice according to their conviction. All others
shall swear that they will observe the decisions of the peers,
and to aid them.

"As regards ourselves, we grant and confirm the justice
and decisions which shall be made by the peers. And in
order that these things may remain stable for the future, we
have ordered them to be put down in writing, to be furnished
with the authority of our seal, and to be corroborated by in-
scribing thereon our name. Done publicly at Paris, in the
year 1044 of the Incarnation of the "Word, the eighth of our
reign, there being present in our palace those whose names
and seals are hereunto inscribed: Raoul, count of Vermandois,
our seneschal; j\Iathew, the chamberlain; Mathew, the con-
stable; , butler. Done by the hand of Cahors, the

chancellor."'

Shortly after the publication of this charter, Louis le

> LO;sel, p. 2!U

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 407

Jeune departed for the crusades, leaving the administration
of his kingdom to his prudent and faithful minister, the abbot
Suger, it was therefore towards Suger that those turned
who expected the redress of their grievances from the royal
power; and the burghers of Beauvais, aggrieved by a certain
seigneur of Levemont, sought no other protector than the
powerful abbot of Saint Denis. « I have been unable to find
details upon this subject, and I am ignorant of the judgment
given by Suger.

" To the lord Suger, by the grace of God reverend abbot
of Saint Denis, the peers of the borough of Beauvais, health
and respect, as to their lord. (1148.)

" We call upon you and complain to you as to our lord,
since we have been placed in your hands and your guardian-
ship by the lord king. A certain man, free man' of our
borough, having heard that two horses which had been taken
from him during Lent were at Levemont, repaired thither on
Easter Monday, to regain them. But Galeran, lord of the
said town, having no respect for the resurrection of the Lord,
caused this man, who had committed no crime, to be arrested,
and obliged him to purchase his liberty at the price of ten
sols Parisis, and the horses at the price of fifty. As this
man is poor, and owes this sum and many others at usury,
we supplicate your holiness, in the name of the Lord, for
the grace of God and yourself, to do justice upon Galeran,
that he shall return to our free man his money, and hence-
forward not dare to molest any one in your keeping.
Health." •'

But scarcely had the knig returned into France, than iie
found better and more, personal reasons for mixing, as
well as vSuger, with the afiairs of Beauvais. Louis had u
brother named Henry, who, after having simultaneously pos-
sessed numerous ecclesiastical benefices, had suddenly re-
nounced them all in 1 14.5, to shut himself up, in tlie flower of
his age, in the abbey of Clairvaux, then governed by Saint
Bernard. This action, altliough less extraordinary then tiian

' Free man does not here mean liim wlio formed part of tlie boroiigli, from
liaviiig tiikt'ii the oiuti. We sonieiiines liiid it fiiii'loyed in ii iiiirrower sense,
and then it signilies one of the magistrates of the birongh, bound by a par-
ticnhir oath.

* Uecucil des Ilistoriens de France, xv., tOii.

408 HISTORY Of

it would have been some centuries later, had drawn the admi-
ration of pious souls upon the young and royal monk; and
the see of Beauvais falling vacant in 1148, Henry, who had
formerly possessed the dignities o^ canon and treasurer in that
church, was nominated bishop, to the general satisfaction.
He, however, excused himself from accepting it, protesting his
unworthiness for so high a charge. This humility, it seems,
was neither feigned nor exaggerated; and if we believe the
reproaches which were addressed to him at a later period, and
the avowal of Saint Bernard, " that he had not found him so
well provided either in counsel or company as was befitting a
young bishop, and .-'li^i he behaved and did things which were
inconsistent wdth his position," we shall think that Henry was
sincere in his refusal,. and knew himself better than those who
pressed him to accept the weight of episcopacy. Saint
Bernard did not wish to take upon himself the responsibility
of this decision, and the respected authority of Pierre le
Venerable, abbot of Cluny, alone succeeded in overcoming
his scruples and those of his monk.

I know not whether Louis had looked with an evil eye
upon the election of his brother, but scarcely was Henry in-
stalled in the see of Beauvais, than we find the bishop com-
pletely at variance with the king, the pope obliged to interfere
in the dispute, the clergy and the citizens so far engaged and
compromised that they forgot the danger which a revolt
against the king began to involve, and Suger judged the
affair sufficiently grave to address to them all, in 1 150, a letter
at once menacing and supplicating. With regard to the origin
of the quarrel, historians do not give us the slenderest infor-
mation.

" Suger to Henry, bishop of Beauvais, to the clergy and
people of Beauvais.

" To the venerable bishop Henry, and to the chapter of the
noble church of Saint Pierre of Beauvais, as well as to the
clergy and to the people, Suger, by the grace of God abbot
of Saint Denis, peace in heaven and upon earth, through the
King of kings and the king of the French. In the name of
that constancy with which, under the reign of our present
lord the king and his father, I have always, as you know

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 409

faithfully laboured for your repose, when complaints arose,
keeping my hands pure from any present; now, also, although
confined by a serious infirmity, I ask you, I advise you, I
implore you, by all possible means of persuasion, not to raise
a guilty hand against the lord king, and the crown, who is the
support of all archbishops, bishops, and barons, and to whom,
by just title, we owe respect and fidelity. This is an act
which in no way becomes you. A rashness so insensate
is new and unheard of in this age, and you cannot long pre-
serve the city and the church from destruction. For you
yourselves will easily see all the pernicious consequences,
and all the danger of an armed insurrection made by the
bishop, or the people confided to his care, against their com-
mon lord, especially if it be without consulting the sovereign
pontiff, and the bishops, and the great men of the kingdom.
There is a consideration which alone should correct you
in this presumption: it is that you have never heard that
your predecessors went the length of such an attempt,
and that never, in the annals and histories of the actions
of antiquity, will you find an example of such a criminal
enterprise. Why have you raised your head against our lord
the king, him the j)ious protector of churches, so earnest in
doing all good, when he has not the least intention of unjustly
despoiling you or any other of aught? If, drawn aside by
evil counsels, he had by chance not acted so well towards
you, it was proper to have informed him of it by the bishops
and great men of the kingdom, or rather by our holy father
the pope, who is the head of all the churches, and who might
easily have reconciled all differences. Let, then, the re-
membrance of his nobility enter into the heart of the new
bisho[) . . . . ; let him anew conciliate the good will of the
king, to himself as well as to his churrh and to his citizens,
by his subniissiim and his docility, and leave all to the will of
the king, to the end that, by a i)erfidious inspiration of
the demon, there may not follow, either a treason dishonouring
the crown, or an inlamous fratricide, or any other crime of
that kind.

'' And what shonld I say of you, our well beloved friends,
dean and arclKh-acons, and you, noble clerg}' of the chapter,
if I were to learn that the splendour of your church were de-
stroyed, and that on the occasion numberless divine churches

410 HISTORY OP

were abandoned to the flames? He who knows all well knows
that, ill as I am of a serious infirmity, and of the quartan
fever which consumes me, I feel at this moment still more
profoundly affected by this matter, and that I would willingly
sacrifice myself to calm this sedition. And what shall I say
to you, unhappy citizens, whom I have always disinterestedly
borne in my heart (for I do not remember ever having re-
ceived a single denier from you), if I hear of the over-
throw of your city, the condemnation of your sons and wives
to exile, pillage, and of th" -.'xecution of numerous citizens?
Since such must be the punishment which awaits you, let it
be prompt; for if it be delayed from any cause, it will only
be exercised with more violence and rigour, and in a manner
more worthy of pity: for hatred increases so long as vengeance
is delayed. Have" pity on yourselves; let the noble bishop
have pity on himself; let the clergy have pity on itself: for
as true as that an ant cannot draw a car, they will not be
able to defend the town of Beauvais from total ruin against
the power of the crown and sceptre. If I know anything, if
I have any experience, I, grown old in business, I tell you,
you will see your goods, acquired by long labour, pass into
the hands of ravishers and brigands. You will accumulate
upon your head the rage of our lord king and all his succes-
sors; you will transmit to all your descendants an eternal
execration: by the memory of this crime, you will take from
all the churches of the kingdoms the help of the devotion
and ever admirable liberality of the king, which has en-
riched your church and many others. Have a care, have a
care, prudent men, that we have not a second time to write
those words already once inscribed upon a column in your
town: ' We order Villa Pontium to be rebuilt.'"^

A good understanding was at last established between the
two brothers, and the bishop turned the activity of his spirit
and the turbulence of his character against other adversaries
less considerable, but more troublesome than the king.

The borough, strengthened by its duration, and the solemn
guarantees which it had recei\ ed on many occasions, acquired

^ Villa Pontium, a name sometimes given in ancient authors to the
towa of Beauvais, because of the larf^e number of bridges which covered its
rivers, or rather its brooks. {Sccuuil dcs Histurit'iis de France, t. xv..

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 411

confidence in its rights, and its peers desired to put them to
the proof. About the year 1151, one of the men of the
borough, aggrieved in some right, having desired to carry his
plaint before the tribunal of the bishop, the peers opposed
themselves to the measure, made him withdraw his prosecu-
tion, required the affair to be brought before them, and gave
judgment. Henry of France, doubly proud of his dignity
and his birth, took this attempt very ill, and having been
unable to obtain satisfaction of the corporation, quitted his
episcopal town in great wrath, and repaired to the king, from
whom he claimed justice as his suzerain; Louis, doubtless, at
that moment well disposed toward his brother, and certainly
not caring to break with the clergy for the sake of a poor
borough, repaired to Beauvais, and after having had the
borough charter re-read and debated in his presence, gave the
following judgment, the conformity of which with the pro-
mises of that charter appears to me very doubtful: but it
often happens so with laws and treaties which men interpret;
they abrogate while they appear to confirm them.

" In the name of the holy and indivisible Trinity, Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, Louis, by the grace of God, king of
the French, and duke of Aquitaine, to our faithful for all
time. It is befitting our royal excellence to protect, by
our sceptre, the riglits of all those who are under our do-
minion, and especially churches, which would soon be over-
whelmed with the violence of the wicked, if the temporal
sword of the king came not to their help. Let it then be
known to uU present and to come, that our brother Henry,
bishop of Beauvais, has complained to us against the citizens
of Beauvais, his men, who, under cover of their communal
right, acciuiriiig new and illicit audacity, have usurped the
privileges of the bishop and cliurch of Beauvais, and the
right of justice which the bishop possesses over all and each
of the borough: moreover, one of their freemen having
demanded justice of the bishop, he has been forced by their
audacious rashness to seek justice and satisfaction of them.
This art'air then having brought us to Beauvais, the cause
having been heard before us, and the borough charter having
been publicly recited, the burghers at last acknowledged that
tlie justice of the whole town belonged to the bishop alone.

412 I HISTORY OF

and that if any abuse or crime be committed, the plaint ought
to be carried before the bishop or his officer. We therefore
sanction, by the excellence of the royal majesty, that plaints
always be carried before the bishop, and that no one at Beau-
vais be so presumptuous as to interfere in the rights of the
bishop and the church, especially in the right of doing jus-
tice, so long at least as the bishop do not fail to administer it.
But if (which God f.;-bid) he should fail therein, then the
burghers shall have licence to do justice among themselves,
for it is better that it should be done by them than not at all.
And to the end that all this be lasting, remain assured and
inviolate, we have ordered that it be engrossed, and strength-
ened with the authority of our seah Publicly done at Paris,
the year 1 1 5 1 , of the Incarnation of the Word. Present
in our palace those whose names and seals follow: Raoul
de Vermandois, our seneschal, Guy the butler, Matthew the
constable, Matthew the chamberlain, Reinaud de Saint Valery,
Helie de Gerberay, Adam de Bruslard, Louis de Caufray.
Given by the hand of Hugh the chancellor."'

For the moment, the affair was terminated by this j udgment,
for the borough had not the strength to struggle at once
against its bishop and its king. But the burghers of that
age were tenacious of their pretensions, and we shall soon
find those of Beauvais renewing this dispute.

In 1180, Henry of France was nominated archbishop of
Reims; w^e may suppose that the borougli joyfully saw itself
freed from this powerful and haughty suzerain; his bishop-
ric passed to his nephew, Philip de Dreux, grandson of Louis
le Gros; and, whether to make himself welcome to his new
flock, or that this concession was purchased of him by some
gifts which became necessary to him on the approach of the
crusades, whither he repaired some years afterwards, Philip,
in 1182, granted to the burghers of Beauvais the right of
having a mayor, and this new institution, doubtless, mate-
rially augmented the privileges of the borough, for we find,
thirty years later, bitter complaints on the subject in the
register of Beauvais, always less liberal than the bishops, who
themselves were often not liberal.

» Louvet, t. ii., p. 2S9

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 413

Plaint of the Chapter of Beauvais against the lord Philip^
hishop, done the vigtl of the calends of June, the year of the
Lord, 1212.

" The lord bishop is count of Beauvais, and the right of
coinage belongs to hira, &c.

" In the borough of Beauvais, it was customary for there
to be twelve peers to advise upon the affairs of the republic:
now, the justice of the city belongs to the bishop; ^nd as
among these twelve peers, there was no mayor, amidst such
confusion, those who suffered any injury had recourse to the
justice of the bishop. But the present bishop has permitted
the peers to have two mayors, and now men take their plaint
before them, as to their true chiefs, to the prejudice of the
episcopal see; and since the right of justice of the episcopal
see has suffered diminution in the time of so powerful a man,
there is reason to fear, that if a less powerful one were to be
elected after his death, this right would entirely perish. We
therefore request the lord bishop to re-establish things
as they were at first, and that there may be no mayor in
the said borough."*

The canons could not obtain what they asked; no one, it
would seem, took part with them, and the borough remained in
possession of its mayor, the institution of whom, moreover,
was confirmed in 1182, by the new king of France, Philip
Augustus, in the charter which he granted to the borough
of Beauvais two or three years after his accession.

I shall not here insert the whole of this charter, similar, in
many articles, to that of Louis le Jeune. I shall content niyselt
with pointing out the differences between them, but I am sur-
priseil that the learned editors of the Ordo/mances drs rots
de France, and !M. Augustin Thierry, have thought these
differences so trifling and insignificant, as to content them-
selves with giving the text of the charter of 1 182, sup])osing the
anterior charters to be almost identical. The omission is serious,
for it renders many of the facts of the history of Beauvais
absolutely inexplicable : how, for exanii)le, ran we understand
the institution of a mayor at Beauvais by Philip de Dreux, and
the conij>laints of the chapter on the subject, if we regard as
primitive, and consequently as anterior to this dispute the text
of the charter of Philip Augustus, where the mayor and his
'Louvet, t. ii. p. 341,

414 ' HISTORY OF

functions are incessantly spoken of, and where the form of hia
election is regulated.

I think then, that I should exactly point out the differ-
ences between the charter of Philip Augustus and that of
his predecessors.

Charter of Philip Augustus.

1st Article. — The word ancestor is substituted in place of
that of father; and the innovations introduced by the present
charter into that of Louis le Jeune are indicated by this ex-
pression: " We grant, &c., &c.," as well as " the customs con-
tained in the present charter."

2nd Article. — The name of mayor is added wherever, in the
preceding charter, the peers are mentioned. We shall see
below the article referring to his election.

13th Article. — This article does not exist in the charter of
Louis le Jeune: it comes after the article, " If any of the
borough have confided his money to any one of the town,
&c.," and runs thus: " If any one seize money from a man of
the borough, and take refuge in any strong c.astle, and the
dispute be carried before the mayor and the peers, justice
.shall be done upon him in accordance with the judgment of
the mayor and the peers, if they can meet with him, or
upon the men and goods of the lord of the castle, unless the
money be returned."

In the place of this thirteenth article, we find in the char-
ter of 1144 an article expressed in the following terms: " Let
the men of the borough be careful to confide their victual-
ling, 8cc." It is not in the new charter.

14th Article. — After the phrase, " The posts for suspending
cloth shall be fixed in the earth at equal heights," the fol-
lowing is found in the charter of Philip Augustus: "and
whosoever shall commit an offence in anything concerning
the posts to receive the cloth, the cloth itself, or anything
having relation to it, if complaint be raised, &c."

16th Article (a new article). — "If it happen that any one
of the borough has purchased any heritage, and has held it
for a year and a day, and has built upon it, and any one then
claim it, there shall be no answer given him, and the purchaser
shall remain in peace."

17th Article (a new article). — " Thirteen peers shall be
elected in the borough, among whom, if it be the wish of those

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 4l5

who have sworn the borough, one or tw; shall be made
mayors."

18th Article. — After the words, " We ccnfirm and grant
the judgments and decisions, &c.," we find in the charter of
1J82 the following words: "We also grant that upon no
occasion shall the present charter be carried out of the city;
and whoever speaks against it, after we have granted and
confirmed it, shall receive no answer; and, in order that
it may remain inviolate, w^e have caused the present
sheet to be provided with the authority of our seal. Done in
the year 1182 of the Incarnation, and the third of our reign.
(There were present in our palace those whose names and
seals are hereunto annexed. Guyon, the butler; Matthew, the
chamberlain; Drieu, the constable.)"' This last sentence
does not exist in the Latin text, — it exists only in a text in
old French, which also appears very ancient.

This good understanding did not last between Philip
de Dreux and the burghers of Beauvais. In one of
the numerous wars which the martial bishop had with the
English, or with his neighbours, he desired, about 1213 or
1214, to have in his possession the keys of the city gates; they
were refused him by the mayor and the peers, who, I know
not how, had appropriated them to themselves. Philip com-
plained to the king, who caused them to be given up to him,
deciding that the keys belonged to the bishop. Men were
astonished even at finding the right doubted, and the discus-
sion alone proves the increase of the forces and pretensions
of the borough. But, on his part, Philip, cousin of the king
of France, and of an impatient disposition, was not the kind
of man tranquilly to see his rights encroached upon; and he
must have felt so much the more offended at the possession
of tlie gates of the town being disputed with liim, as he him-
self had laboured to increase the fortifications, in accordance
with the order given by Philip Augustus, in 1 190, to augment
the means of defence of Beauvais. Setting out for the crusades,
the king was well content to insun; from attack a town upon
which tlie kings of France might always count.

Another difference arose between the bishop and the cor-
poration of Beauvais. The latter had demolished, doubtless

' Sovel, ji. 200-'JS4: Rcrucil dm Ordonnnnccx. he, t. vii. p. C\-l\ \ t. xi
p. ]93 , 'J'hierry, Lctlcrcs sur rJIistoir" U^ Fr<nict\ p. 300, 3id edition.

416 HISTORY OP

under the pretext of a violation of its privileges, the house of '
a gentleman named Enguerrand de la Tournelle. Now, En-
guerrand, it is said, was not a member of the borough^ nor
amenable to it. Plaint was therefore carried before the
bishop, who wished to decide in the matter; but he could not
persuade the peers of Beauvais to submit to his jurisdiction,
nor to come to answer before his tribunal. It was then
agreed between the parties that the judgment of this affair
should take place by duel; and the lists were raised out
of the town by order of the bishop, who sent thither a
champion to maintain his right, but the arrival of Philip
Augustus prevented the combat. Besides, the moment was
511-chosen for such differences: the quarrel of the bishop of
Beauvais with the count of Boulogne was nothing more than
an episode of a greater and more national war; and whoever
felt attached to rising France hastened, in 1214, to assist in
defending at Bovines the repose, and perhaps the existence,
of the country. The bishop and the corporation of Beauvais
distinguished themselves in this day of patriotic memory; and
it seems that upon the field of battle they forgot their anterior
differences; at least, we no longer find, down to the death
of Philip de Dreux, in 1217, any storm arising among them;
and that bishop having obtained an order from the king that
the mayor and peers of Beauvais should take an oath to him,
it does not appear that they interposed the slightest difiiculty
therein. There is one remarkable fact in the letter of the
king; it is addressed to two persons, strangers in the town
of Beauvais, whom he charged with the execution of his
orders. Thus the kings of France, on every occasion, and
in every place, extended their authority by means of their
officers, and incessantly applied themselves to form regular
public functionaries, independent of the clergy, the nobility,
the corporations, and having nothing to do but with themselves.
" Philip, by the grace of God, king of the French, to his
dear and faithful Gilon de Versailles, and Reinaud de Bethisy,
health and love. We order you to cause to swear
fidelity in this form to our dear relation and faithful bishop
of Beauvais, all the men of Beauvais, mayors and jux'ats,^
and all others in the borough. Let each swear by the

' Jiiratis. In this instance tlie ^vorll must be taken as synonymous with
peers, and not with simple members of the borough. This confusion is
coustuitJy met with.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 417

holy and sacred gospels to guard faithfully the body and
limbs of the bishop, his life, his honour, his moveables, his
rights, as far as consistent with the faith due to us. . . You
shall previously make them swear fidelity to us in the same
form. Given at Melun, the year of the Lord 1216."'

Milon de Nanteuil, after some difficulties succeeded to
Philip de Dreux; a good understanding reigned between him
and the burghers, and no external quarrel, either with the
king or the neighbouring lords, troubled the first twelve
years of ivis episcopacy, when an irregular act of Louis IX.,
or rather of the regent Blanche, for a long period destroyed
this tranquillity.

The concession of Philip de Dreux, and the charter of
Philip Augustus, as you have seen, had given to the burghers
of Beauvais the right of electing a mayor, charged, in concert
with the peers, with the government of the borough. In
1232, this charge was to be given; and we catch glimpses in
the somewhat confused accounts of this event, of two parties
which profoundly divided the borough: the one formed of
great burghers, rich people, changeurs, as they were then
called; the other of people of low estate, of that turbu-
lent and envious populace which filled the cities of the middle
ages, and became more ardent, and more ungovernable in
proportion as the progress of wealth and civilization raised the
burghers beyond its level and separated their interests from
its own.

Perhaps it was of her own inclination that the regent
desired to interfere in the affairs of Beauvais; perhaps also
the great burghers sought in the royal power a support
against the turbulence of their adversaries. However this
may be, a mayor, and what appears to be a great fault, o-
mayor who was a stranger to the town, was nominated h]
the king; and we find the burghers eagerly ranging them-
selves around this intruder, whose illegal nomination they hjitl
reason to reject with anger.

The populace of Beauvais, doubly wounded in its party
and its rights, did not patiently siii)niit to the usurpation;
a violent sedition broke out. 1 might here recount the

> I.ouvet, t. ii., p. 344.
VOL. III. E E

418 HISTORY OF

excesses committed, the vengeance which the young king
took for them, the protestations of the bishop against this
encroachment on his rights as high justiciary, the haughty
and contemptuous manner with which the king received
these, and treated tlie bishop himself on several occasions,
the complaints made of this by the bishop before the pro-
vincial council, and finally the conclusion, or rather the com-
position of the affair; but I prefer laying these events before
you in the colouring which they borrow from the language
and the passions of the period; and I will translate here,
adding the necessary explanation, the inquiry made into these
circumstances in 1235; merely, for the better understanding
of the narrative, inverting occasionally the order of the
depositions, without adding to, or changing anything in them-
selves. I will begin with the second witness, who wiU better
enable you to understand the first.

" Second Witness.

" Bartholomew de Franoy, knight, says that a dissension
already existing between the burghers and the commonalty
of the city of Beauvais, Robert de Moret, a burgher of Senlis,
was made mayor thereof by order of the king, and new dis-
cord arose touching this matter between the burghers and
the commonalty, many of the latter themselves desiring to
nominate the mayor; they attacked the mayor and the prin-
cipal persons of the town, who were called changeurs, took
them prisoners, and wounded and killed several, as the de-
ponent witnessed. After this assault, the deponent was
immediately sent by the bailiff to the bishop at Brcelle,
charged to tell him not to come into the town unless with a
sufficient force; and whilst he was on his way to the bishop,
he met him on the road to Beauvais, and delivered to him
his message; but the bishop would not allow this to prevent
him coming, and at night he entered the town; and having
heard the whole account of what had passed, held counsel as
to the manner of obtaining justice for these things: and as
about the middle of the night the bishop heard that the king
was coming to B(!auvais, he sent to him the present witness,
and master Robert the official, to pray for his advice upon so
enormous a matter, saying that he was ready to do justice
accordmg to his advice. Upon this the king answered that

CIVILIZATION IN FRANC K. 419

he himself would do justice, and the queen* answered the
same. That day, therefore, the king came to Broelle, and
the bishop went thither, and prayed the king not to come to
Beauvais to his detriment, since he was ready to execute
justice according to his decision. The king replied: ' I will
go to Beauvais, and you shall see what I will do.'

* The king entered Beauvais, and went to the house of the
bishop. The latter again called upon him to do nothing to
his detriment, for that he was ready to execute justice, ac-
cording to his decision, upon offenders. But the king did
not give way; and the next and following days he pi'oclaimed
the ban, and destroyed houses, and seized upon men.

" First Witness.

" The head prior, canon of Beauvais, says that on a certain
day, he does not remember which in particular, three years
ago next Lent, he went to the council of Keims, held in the
town of Noyou, and there heard Milon, of blessed memory,
formerly bishop of Beauvais, complaining to the council of
the multiplied injuries which the king had done him at Beau-
vais; when, in spite of his remonstrances, warnings, and sup-
plications, he had entered his town with armed troops, and
followed by many people of the commune, because of certain
homicides and otlier enormous crimes committed in this city,
and had proclaimed the ban, seized men, levelled houses, and
destroyed household furniture belonging to the episcopal j»,./is-
diction, all to the prejudice of his seigneury and justiciary
authority; for to himself belonged all the jurisdiction of the
town, and the exercise thereof. And to prove this, the said
bishop produced, and had read, certain letters from the king
of France,^ confirming his seigneury, and his entire jurisdic-
tion in tlie town; and he supplicated tlie council to oj)pose
itself to these things, and to aid the church of Beauvais.

" The said bishop had sent his oilicial and a knight, to in-
form and petition tlie king as to these things; and the next
day, the vigil, or day before the vigil of the Purification, the
king being at Braille, the said bisliop went to him, and said,
* My lord, do not wrong me; I call upon you, as your liege
man, not to interfere in this affair, for I am ready to do jus-

' Blanche of Castille, mother of S:unt I.oais.
" Charter of Louis le Jcuue in 1107, in the ajfair of lleury of F'-ance.
£ E 2

420 HISTORY OF

tice immediately, and with the advice of your council; and 1
pray you to send one of your councillors with me, that he
may see if I render true justice.' And the bishop did not
receive a favourable answer hereto from the king.

" The following day the king entered Beauvais, and the
bishop went to meet him with several of the chapter, and
again petitioned him in the manner aforesaid; and read to
him the letters from the king Louis, touching the jurisdiction
possessed by the bishop of Beauvais, and the letters from the
lord pope' regarding the same, and again petitioned him, and
said, ' that whatever justice the king should order to be done
in this affair, he would consult thereupon with the king's
council, provided it were done by himself, the bishop, or his
delegate;' and he warned him in quality of bishop, and the
king gave him no answer of consequence; and when the ban
had been proclaimed on the part of the king, the houses de-
stroyed, the men taken, the bishop complained to the king,
and demanded of him to restore him the right of justice, of
which he had dispossessed him.

" The council replied to the bishop, that the bishops of
Laon, Chalons, and Soissons should be sent to the king, and
should warn him on the part of the council to amend these
things; and that if he did not do this, the same three bishops
should go to Beauvais to inquire into these things. And the
witness adds that he heard these three bishops say that they
had given notice to the king to send, if he pleased, some one to
this inquiry. These bishops came then to Beauvais, and made
inquiries, and received many citizens, and the witness thinks
that the citizens of the other party also produced witnesses
before them. The bishops proposed to Simon de Pissy and
Pierre de Hale, placed by the king in guard of the city, to
be present at the inquiry, and the witness saw these officers
attend; and, the inquiry terminated, the bishops reported it
to the council, as had been agreed; and there it was decided
that the king should be warned again and again, and the wit«
ness knows that the archbishops and bishops went to the
king, and warned' him twice; he knows it, for he was with
them.

" Moreover, he said that the archbishop afterwards went

' A bull of pope Lucius III., coiifinniug the charter of Louis le Jcune.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 421

to the king with many prelates and the envoys from the chap-
ter of Beaumont, and they supplicated and warned him to
have pity on the church of Beauvais; but the king did nothing
of the kind. And then the archbishop having held a council
with some prelates, ordered the sentence of interdict to be
launched, according to the form expressed in his letters; he
believes, however, that the sentence of interdict was only
issued by the archbishop of Reims, and that this interdict
established in the province of Reims, was observed in the
dioceses of Laon and of Soissons.

*• Third Witness

" Raoul, a priest of Saint Waast of Beauvais, deposes that
he has heard it said that the interdict had been put upon the
province of Reims by the council, because of the injustice
done by the king to the church; and that he was at Beau-
vais it will be three years ago at the Feast of the Purification,
when, the eve of the day of this feast, the king came to Beau-
vais, with many soldiers and people of the commune; that
the Monday before the feast a skirmish had taken place
between the citizens and the populace, and that he had seen
the populace leading the mayor named by the king, with his
tunic torn, and his robe torn down to the waist; several
people were killed and wounded, and the populace were heard
to say, ' It is thus we make thee mayor.' Now the king in
naming this mayor had done an injustice to the bishop, be-
cause it was the custom in Beauvais that the twelve peers,
citizens of Beauvais, should elect from among themselves two
mayors, and present them to the bishop; and on this occasion
the king had named a stranger to be mayor.

" He says that thirty-six years ago, as well as he can re-
member, while king Philip was warring against king Richard,
the people there destroyed the house of a certain Enguerrand
de la Tournelle, and that for this, bishop Philip cited certain
burghers to appear before him; and as on account of this
there was great discord between the bishop and the com-
mune, king Pliilip came at last to the town, and there was a
great disturbance.

" The king' then sent Simon de Pissy, and certain knights

SalUt L0UI8.

422 HISTORY OF

and servants to keep the city against the right of the bishop,
and these were warned in the bishop's name to quit ihetown;
and as they did not leave it, they were excommunicated. In
the same way, according to the aforesaid mode, the mayor
and the peers of Beauvais were admonished and then excom-
municated.

" Then two of the king's servants, Durand de Sens and
Chretien de Paris, estabHshed themselves in the bishop's re-
sidence, seized his house and his wines, and collected his
rents, and Pierre de Hale sold the wine, and when the bishop
came to Beauvais he lodged with the treasurer.

" Fourth Witness.

" Pierre, a priest, called De Meschines, says, that the right
of administering justice in the town belonged wholly to the
bishop; namely, as to murder, rape, spilling of blood, theft,
adultery, the right of domiciliary visits in affairs of robbery,
and of highway regulations.

''Fifth Witness,

" The seigneur Evrard, abbot of Saint Lucian, brother of
Baudoin de Mouchy, says that the king had the right of
taking the citizens on his incursions and in liis wars, or if he
so preferred to receive money instead; and that he had heard
it said, that sometimes he had received for this fifteen hun-
dred livres, and sometimes less."

This last testimony does not seem, any more than much of
the rest, to relate to the object of the inquiry; it serves, how-
ever, to throw a light upon it, by indicating the various rights
of the bishops, the king, and the commune, which has de-
cided us on retaining it here; we find in it, besides, curious
information respecting the privileges of these three distinct
powers.

" Sixth Witness.

" Master Bernard, chorister, deposes, that the bishop Milon,
said to the chapter that a certain bishop of Reims had pro-
mised him that the interdict should be put upon all the dio-
ceses of the pi'ovince, if he put it upon his own; that he did
put it, and tlien came to the council held at Saint Quentin,
by the authority of the lord of Reims, and that in this coun-
cil the interdict was taken oif, in the hope of ol)taining peace,
and according tc the letters of the lord pope."

CrVILIZATION IK FRANCE. 423

Bishop Milon did, in point of fact, impose this interdict;
but to obtain for this measure' the necessary co-operation oi
the canons of Beauvais, he was obliged to treat with these
proud associates, and to submit to give them the following
declaration;

" Milon, by divine mercy, bishop of Beauvais, to all who
shall see these letters, salvation in the Lord. We make
known to all, that we will and accord that no prejudice shall
be done to the rights of the chapter of Beauvais, from having
conformed to the interdict in the month of June, 1233,
Monday, the feast of the apostle Saint Barnabas; and that
from this said interdict, however long it may last, no right of
property or custom shall be acquired by us from the said
chapter; but we will and accord that the chapter and church
of Beauvais shall remain wholly in the same state in all re-
spects as before the interdict was promulgated in the church
of Beauvais, and the said chapter conformed to it.

" Given the year of the Lord, 1223, in the month of June."

Two years afterwards, Godefroy de Nesle, successor of
Milon, renewing the interdict over the diocese for the same
cause, found himself also obliged to make a similar declara-
tion; we there read this remarkable sentence: " Know all, that
having placed our diocese under interdict, we have prayed the
dean and chapter to conform thereto, out of compassion for
us, and that, yielding to our prayers, the dean and chapter
have, on their personal authority, accepted the interdict."

" Co?itinuation of the Sixth Witness.

" lie said that it will be three years at the Eve of the Puri-
fication, since the common people of the city rose against the
mayor and the money-changers of this town; and that the
mayor and the money-changers having by force seized upon
a house' into which tliey retired, the next house was set on
fire, and they were taken by assault, and several of them
killed.

" lie adds that the bishop came to Beauvais the following
night, and that, as he heard, eighty of the most guilty in this
atfair, by their own confession, presented themselves before
the bishop, and were by him summoned to submit themselves
to his high and low justice. They then took counsel with the

' it was the lioiise of an armourer.

424 HISTORY OP

mayor Robert Desmureaux/ who dissuaded them from it,
saying that if they did so, their life and limbs would be in
danger. They then went away without submitting to the
bishop, who was angry at the counsel which had been given
them, and reprimanded his people for not having detained
them ; these replied that they were not strong enough for that.
The same day, the bishop came to the king at Broelle, and the
day following the king came to Beauvais, where on the mor-
row he took from the bishop's prisons those men of Beauvais
who had been taken prisoners, and proclaimed his ban that all
should come to the market-place; on their arrival, he had
them taken, imprisoned in the market-house, and the day
after many were banished from the kingdom, and the king
had this signified to the mayor and the peers.

" Now twenty persons had been killed and thirty wounded;
and when the king came, the children of those who had been
killed and the wounded complained to the king, and it was
ordered by his council and the council of the borough, that
the houses of the guilty persons should be levelled, and
fifteen houses were accordingly pulled down. The mayor of
the commune struck the first blow, and the people of the
commune completed the destruction.^ But the king did no
injustice to the bishop in doing these things in the town, for
the bishop had not himself administered justice, and the
mayor may do justice upon a citizen of Beauvais, on his
body by the axe, and on his goods by the destruction of his
liouse.

" Seventh Witness.

" Pierre Maillard a man of the borough, says, that when
Philip was at war with the count de Boulogne, the bishop

' The name of this mayor is almost always -written in French, and we find
it given in these three different forms : de Moret, de Mouret, Desmureaux.
It seems somewhat surprising to find him so soon on terms again with those
who had but just before sought his death ; hut these sudden changes are of
frequent occurrence in the histories of boroughs, the inhabitants of which
constantly found themselves under the necessity of sinking all their own
differences, in order to combine against external enemies, the kings, or
their lay or ecclesiastical superiors.

* It is evident that this witness was favourable to the king: the testi-
mony of the eighth witness is quite of the opposite character; but he makes
the number of houses destroyed fifteen hundred, which is an obvious exag-
geration.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 425

begged the king to confide to him the keys of the town, and
that he himself had seen that the keys were sent and given to
the bishop on the part and by order of the king. He also
says that the walls and ditches belong to the borough.^

" Eighth Witness.
"The archdeacon Pierre states, that the year of the
Incarnation of our Lord 1225, the month of September,
Saint Michaelmas day, he was present when the commons of
the lord king of France and of the count de Boulogne went,
as it was said, to Beauvais, by order of the lord king. Item^ ■
that he was present when the lord Milon, formerly bishop,
spoke to the king the Eve of the Purification, the year of the
Lord 1232. Item, that he was present at the provincial
council assembled at Noyou the year of the Lord 1232, in the
first week of Lent, and that the bishop carried there a com-
plaint by his official against the lord king for inj ustice done to
him, in these terras: ' Holy fathers; the bishop of Beauvais
signifies to you that, whereas the justice and jurisdiction of
the city of Beauvais belong to the bishop, who can judge all
and every one of Beauvais, and that himself and his pre-
decessors have peaceably enjoyed this right, the lord king, on
the occasion of an offence committed against him, has entered
Beauvais in arms, with many of the. borough people, and de-
spite the admonitions and supplications of the bishop, pro-
claimed his ban in the city, seized men, destroyed fifteen
hundred houses, banished many persons; and when, on quitting
the town he demanded from the bishop for the expense
of these five days, eighty livres Parisis,^ and the bishop upon
this new and unusual demand required a short delay from the
lord king in order to deliberate with his chapter, the lord
king relused aU delay, seized the things belonging to the
bishop's house, and went away, leaving guards in the town,
and in the houses of the bishop; wherefore the said bishop
entreats the holy synod to give counsel and aid to himself and

his church

" And the three bishops came to Beauvais, and informed

'We here see that the town had gaiued somewhat since l'J14; the
property in its walls and ditches heing thus recognised and a.<^8ured to it.

■•^ Tlic sum demanded by Saint Louis was a sort of host-tribute, which
the superior suzerain was entitled to demand of bis men when he paid
them a visit.

426 HISTORY OF

the bishop of Beauvais, and those who were there for the
lord king, and Robert de Muret and the peers of the city,
that they came from the council to inquire into the jurisdic-
tion of the church of Beauvais and the injuries which the
lord bishop said he had received. The said bishops then
inquired into these things.

" Item. The said witness was present in Passion week at
Laon, when the council was assembled and the inquiry held.
And the following year, on a day which he does not remember,
before Martlemas, he was present at Beaumont, where they
conferred a long time touching a settlement of the matter;
and as the archbishop of Reims, who said he had the authority
of the council, could not effect this, they consulted on the
manner of putting the interdict; and there were present the
bishops of Senlis, Soissons, Chalons, Cambrai, and Beauvais;
but nothing was done beyond conferring amongst themselves;
the archbishop and the council then remained a long time
together, and the archbishop said to the deponent, ' Know
that sentence will be pronounced.' "

The archbishop of Reims did in fact go to Beaumont to the
king, with several bishops and deputies from the chapters, to
intreat him to pardon the church of Beauvais, and to enter
into an accommodation with it; but the king could not agree
with them, and dismissed them. Upon this the interdict was
immediately pronounced by the archbishop.

" Item. He was present when the lord bishop of Soissons,
on the part of the lord archbishop and bishops who were at
the council, in spite of the appeal of the bishop of Beauvais,
annulled the interdict pronounced on the church of Beauvais;
and that was done the Monday or Tuesday before Christmas,
and the Sunday previous the bishop had appealed."

It was not entirely of their own free will that the bishops
raised this interdict; they were in some measure forced to it
by the clamours which reached them from every quarter.
Two chapters of the diocese of Senlis refused to submit
to it; and the curates of this same diocese, " seeing that tliey
gained nothing by ceasing to pray to God for tlie dead,"
menaced their bishops that they would appeal if he did not
raise the interdict. The dioceses of Laon and Soissons ab-
solutely refused to observe it; the chapter of Amiens declared
to the archbishop of Reims that it recognised neither the

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 427

interdict nor the council. Finally, several bishops of the
province of Reims opposed the measure, and in presence even
of the council announced that they would appeal to the pope.
The archbishop of Reims, far more decided in the affair,
saw himself forced to yield, and appeal was the only resource
left to the bishop of Beauvais; he accordingly had recourse
to it, and his protest was in these terms:

"Lord archbishop; you know that, by the authority of the
council, you and your suffragans have placed the interdict
upon your dioceses for the injuries done to the church ot
Beauvais; none of these injuries have been repaired, and
you well know that it is important to me that the interdict
should not be taken off before I have received satisfaction;
and since the interdict was pronounced with your consent
and that of your suffragans, I appeal against its revocation,
to the lord pope, placing myself, my church, and my case,
under his protection."

But the pope, Gregory IX., did not take up the affair of
the cluirch of Beauvais so warmly as might have been ex-
pected; he himself persuaded the bishop to raise the inter-
dict, promising him, by way of consolation, that he should be
at liberty to repeat it if he did not receive satisfaction. It
appears that the bishop decided upon submission; but in-
consolable at tliis result, he retired to Rome, where he died
soon after. Godefroy de Nesle succeeded .him in 1235,
immediately replaced the interdict, and also went to die at
Rome, witliout having settled this important dispute with the
king; yet this king was Saint Louis, who in this aflair showed
more firmness, we might even say obstinacy, than we might
have been disposed to expect from him; he even had to
resist the solicitations of pope Gregory, of whom there still
exists a bull with this title:

"Bull of pope tiregory, in sending to the king legates to
engage him to desist from the wrongs done by him to tlic
cluircli of Beauvais."

There are three other bulls of the same pope on this affair;
the last is entitled thus:

■ " Letters touching the interdict laid upon the province of
Reims, because of tlie injuries done by the king to the
churches and bishops."

Robert de Cressonsac, dean of the church of Beauvais,

428 HISTORY OP

succeeded Godefroy de Nesle in 1240, and at last the king
settled this long enduring quarrel, which, at least on the
part of the king, rested more upon the right of host-dues
than the right of justice; for an arrangement havmg been
concluded upon the first question, peace was completed, and
the interdict raised. This time the arrangement was a final
one, and not like that made, in a similar case, by Pierre
de Dreux, for his life only. Here is the text of the treaty,
for such it really is:

" Louis, by the grace of God king of the French; we
make known to all that we have maintained our right to
have what host-dues we in our discretion choose from the
bishop of Beauvais, or the said bishop to make them good to
us; but having regard to the fidelity to us of the present
bishop of Beauvais, and wishing to aid this church in the
dangers and expenses which its future bishops may incur, we
will and accord that he who for the future shall be bishop of
Beauvais, shall not be bound, in respect of host-dues, to us
and our suctessors, to pay more than one hundred livres
Parisis a year in our town of Paris, at the Ascension of our
Lord, whether we go to Beauvais or not; if we go to
Beauvais, the dues paid shall not exceed that sum. And
for the said sum we acquit the church of Beauvais of
all claim for host-dues, that we have or might claim from
it, always excepting the other claims that we may have
upon the other churches of Beauvais. And that this writing
may be valid for ever, we have ordered it to be fortified with
the authority of our seal, and below by the signature of our
royal name.

" Given at the Hospital near Corbeil, in the month of
eTune, the year 1240 of the Incarnation of our Lord, the
twenty-second of our reign. Present in the palace those
whose names and seals are here: No seneschal; Stephen the
butler; John the Chamberlain; no constable; and the chan-
cellorship vacant."

The bishops of Beauvais still found means to free them-
selves from part of this due. The king having given to the
chapter of Rouen the annual pension of one hundred livi^s,
of which he reserved only twenty-five payable by this
chapter, Jean de Dormans, bishop of Beauvais, in 1363,
bought this annuity for certain lands situated in the Vexin,

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 429

which he transferred to the chapter; the bishop of Beauvaia
then only owed the king twenty-five livres per annum, and
one hundred when he should come to Beauvais.

As to the right of justice, which is not mentioned in this
arrangement, it was more difficult to regulate, and was, as we
shall see, a continual source of debate between the king and
the bishop, the bishop and the citizens. As to Robert de
Mouret, the cause of so much dissension, it appears that he
retained peaceable possession of his mayoralty ; it is true
that he had a powerful party in the town, that of the haute
bourgeoise party, which is almost always certain to triumph
over its popular adversaries, when a violent commotion has
made the want of repose more strongly felt, and thus given
the ascendancy to those who put themselves forward as the
defenders and guarantees of public order.

In 1254, Guillaume des Grez acceded to the episcopal
throne of Beauvais, and the first years of his episcopacy wit-
nessed the renewal of the quarrel which his predecessor had
iust allayed. This time it was with the chapter that the
commune had to do, and the bishop, perhaps, derived some
satisfaction from watching the struggle between these two
rivals of his power. The decree given in 1257, by the par-
liament of Paris, clearly explains the matter in hand:

" The year of the Lord 1257, Louis reigning, and Guil-
laume des Grez governing the church of Beauvais, the mayor
and conmions of Beauvais brought an action before the lord
king, against the dean and chapter of Beauvais, setting fortli
and maintaining that amongst the liberties and privileges
granted to the commons of Beauvais by the kings, it had
been granted and recorded in the charters, ' That whoever
shall injure a jurat of the town, the mayor and the peers,
when complaint of tliis is brought before them, shall do, ac-
cording to tlieir judgment, justice on tlie body and goods of
the deiituiucnt.' And, say tliey, several <;xampies have been
made upon abbots, knights, and many others. And that a
certain man of the said dean and eiiapti'r, named Ktienne de
Moucliy, living in their territory of Mareuil, had struck a
burgher of the town, named Clement, and that the dean and
cliapter, often requested by the said mayor and peers to
send the otlender into the town, tliat he niiglit expiate his
crime according to tlieir judgment, did not trouble them-

430 BISTORT UP

selves to do so; they therefore demanded that the dean and
chapter should be constrained to do it by the lord and king.

" The dean and chapter on their side maintained that
their man not having been convicted of the crime of which
he was accused, and not admitting it, not having been
taken in the fact, and having offered to uphold his right
before themselves, the dean and chapter, his lords, they were
ready and had offered to the mayor and peers to cite before
them the said Stephen, and to pronounce upon the affair,
and that they were still willing, and earnestly enjoined on
their court to grant fall justice to whomsoever should complain
of the said Stephen.

" Having heard these reasons, and examined the charters
produced by the mayor and commons, it has been decided by
the lord king and his council, that the dean and chapter
should hear the matter before their court. Given publicly
at Paris, in full court of parliament, the same year 1257."

The burghers must have been little satisfied with this
decree, which so completely gave the victory to their adver-
saries; perhaps their defeat appeared to the bishop a good
opportunity for renewing against them the eternal question
of the right of justice, for he re-engaged in it without any
cause known to us; and meeting in the mayor and peers of
Beauvais with the same resistance as before, he, in 1265,
placed the interdict upon the town and suburbs, after having
given to the chapter all the humble declarations they de-
manded from him as from his predecessors. The king, judg-
ing this affair worthy of his presence, went to Beauvais; and
the bishop, as if to do him the honours of his city, raised the
interdict for all the time it might please the king to remain
there. I am even inclined to believe that he did not renew
it after the departure of Louis, and that the parties, out of
consideration for their powerful mediator, consented to some
hollow compromise. Their passions, checked against their
will, were all the more prompt to inflame anew, and
Beauvais became as full of agitation as ever when Renaud
de Nanteuil, successor to Guillaume des Grez, sought, in
1273, contrary to the ancient custom of the place, to take
upon himself the right of removing the sentinels placed by
the mayor and the peers, on the occasion of a tumult in the
town. The people rose violently against the infringement of

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 431

its riglits, and the bishop, seeing himself obliged to withdraw
his sentinels, and to let the citizens have their own way, had
recourse to the arms which could not be denied him, and
placed the town with its suburbs under interdict. This
rigour did not terminate the insurrection, to which was added
the dis{)ute, ever renewing, of the right of jurisdiction;
finally, at the end of two years, this dispute had become suf-
ficiently grave to attract the attention of Philip le Ilardi.
The choice of the persons whom he sent to Beauvais alone
suffices to indicate the importance which he attached to their
mission. They were, the cardinal de iSainte-Cecile, legate of
the holy see; Ansold, lord of Offemont, and the chanter of the
church of Reims. These three royal envoys, after liaving
passed some time at Beauvais, at last brought the parties to
an accommodation, commonly called the great composition
{compnsitio pads), and which, says Louvet, ought rather to
have been called the great co7ifusion. The reader will with-
out hesitation admit the justice of this reproach; events alone
will dtanonstrate it.

" Philip, by the grace of God, king of the French; we
make known to all present and to come, that there has
been dispute and contention between our dear and loyal
Renault, bishop of Beauvais on the one part, and the mayor
and peers of this town of Beauvais on the other, touching
divers articles contained herein; finally, by the mediation of
our friends and faithful the venerable Pere Simon, by the
grace of God, cardinal de Sainte Cecile, and legate of the holy
see, Ansold d'Ott'cmont, knight, and M. Thibault de Pon-
ceaux, (chanter of Reims, our secretary, by us sent on this
matter to the town of Beauvais; after several altercations and
many arrangements made upon the said articles, they have ar-
rived at this point of agreement, namely, that the said bishop
iuY himself and his party on one side, and the said mayor and
peers for themselves and their party on the other side, save
and except an express condition that, upon such articles
as the parties may find too rigorous, we should apply such
modilication as shall seem good to us, have made before the
said legates, Ansold and Thibault, tlie agreement and settle-
ment following:

" 1. That whatever may have been done heretofore, for
the future the mayor and [)eers cannot, and may not, otlicially

432 HISTOUV OP

interfere or take cognizance of any offence or crime, even
where complaint touching such have been made to them
before, except in cases of truce, as set forth below.

" 2. Also, they shall not take cognizance of any crime or
offence, for which the delinquent forfeits his life or one of
his limbs, even though complaint thereof may have been
made to them before it has been made to the bishop or his
justice, and even though the mayor or one of the peers shall
have been struck by a townsman ; nor, in like manner, of any
misconduct or quarrel of which complaint shall have been
first made to the bishop or his officers.

" 3. Nevertheless, the bishop or his officers may not hinder
or forbid any townsman, or bind him by oath or otherwise, not
to complain to the said mayor and peers, if he choose, instead
of to the bishop or his justice, or not to make peace with the
other party, without the leave and permission of the said
bishop or of his justice, save and except the right of the
bishop.

" 4, For the future, also, the said mayor and peers may
not cut off the hand of him who has struck them, or any of
them, nor deprive him of any other limb; but may punish
him by money or other penalty, more rigorously than if he
had struck a simple commoner,

" 5. Nor can the said mayor and peers take cognizance of
matters touching disputed inheritances, though the dispute
may have been brought before them previously to its being
brought before the bishop or his justice.

" 6. But if any townsman, before complaining to the
bishop or his justice, has complained to them that his neigh-
bour has turned the gutter of his house otherwise than where
it ought to be, or that it is not in other respects as it ought
to be, in consequence of which he is in danger of suffering
loss or damage; or if a difference arises because the parapet
or wall of a neighbour leans or hangs over a man's house, so
that he is in danger of suffering loss or damage; in such cases,
the said mayor and peers may receive the complaint and take
cognizance of it, and remedy the grievance according to the
report of the sworn carpenters, who, after they have been
selected for this purpose, shall take their oath before the
bishop or before his justice, or before the said mayor and
peers, faithfully to fulHl their charge and duty.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 433

" 7. If it happens that any townsman wound another with
a knife, sword, club, stone, or other weapon, the said mayor
and peers may not take cognizance of it nor interfere touching
the said offence, while the wound is unhealed, even though
complaint has been made to them before it has been made to
the bishop or his officers; except that for the safety and com-
mon good of the town they can by their office command the
parties under penalty of a sum of deniers to keep the peace
until a certain time, but they cannot command any one to
give security.

" 8. If he or they whom they have commanded to make a
truce, will not obey, they cannot constrain him, but they can
disown and efface him from the town-roll, and then call upon
the bishop or his justice to constrain him to make truce until
a certain time prescribed by them, and to pay the penalty
imposed for not having obeyed their order.

" 9. And the said bishop or his justice shall be bound
three days after the requisition has been made, to constrain
this man, by the seizure of his body and goods, or to expel
him from the town of Beauvais; if he fail to do so, the said
mayor and peers three days afterwards may appeal to us
for the execution of their ordinance; and if any one say that
the bishop or his officers have not been called upon, and are
not in fault for not executing what they were stated to have
been required to do, the said mayor and peers who have
appealed to us, shall be bound to prove upon oath that the
said bisliop or his people have been sufficiently requested by
tliein, and liave not executed it in the fixed term, in which
case faith shall be given tliem without furtlier proof.

" 10. Item. It has been agreed and settled between the
parties, that if any one complain of a wound after it is cured,
to the mayor and peers before he complains to the bishop, the
said mayor and peers may take cognizance of it, l)ut not
impose any ])enalty, even though there be mutilation or cutting
off any limb; they may only condemn the delinquent to in-
demnify the wounded man according to the usage of the town,
which is (as the parties have agreed) that lor a wound with-
(»ut mutilation, they have been accustomed to pay twenty sols
three deniers, with all the costs and expenses whicli have
been incurred in the cure; and if the wounded man be a
labourer, he shall have payment for tk» days that he has lost

VOL, III. F »

434 UfSTORY OF

on account of the said wifund. That if there ha? been mehaiMf
and that the wounded man was a man accustomed to live by
the laboui* of his body and limbs, and that on account- of the
said mutilation he cannot work, they may, having regard to
the condition of the person, and the nature of the wound,
adjudge him a certain competent sum, and order the delin-
quent, or, if he be since dead, his heirs, to pay yearly to the
person wounded, so long as he shall live, the said sum; the
said mayor and peer shall also make the malefactor pay a fine
according to the nature of the offence.

" 11. If the delinquent will not acquiesce in their sentence,
they may not constrain him, but only efface him from their town
roll, and call upon the bishop or his justice to constrain him
by taking his body and goods, or by banishment, to execute
what has been required by them. If the said bishop or his
justice say that the said mayor and peers have not proceeded
in the affixir as they ought, or that the case was not one of
which they ought to take cognizance, the said mayor and
two peers shall declare upon oath to the said bishop that the
case was such that they could take cognizance of it according
to the ordinance and agreement made by the said legates,
Ansold and Thibault, and according to what is contained in
these presents, and that in the affair they have proceeded
faithfully and legally, neither the bishop nor his justice, nor
any other person, can stay them longer, but on the contrary
shall be bound to execute their request as is stated above;
and if he does not do it in the said term, the mayor and two
peers may come to us as near Paris as may — at Tours,
Bourges, or other place nearer, and summon us to uphold
what they have ordered and decreed.

" 12. If by chance any one shall say that the bishop or his
Justice has not been sufficiently warned, and has not been in
fault, the said mayor and peers shall be believed without any
other proof, on their oath before us that the said bishop or hig
people have been sufficiently summoned, and that they have
not done what they ought within the prescribed time. And
then if it be our good pleasure, we may command the said
bishop and compel him by seizure of his furniture, so that,
however, it be done without injury, to constrain the expelled
townsman to return to the obedience of the said mayor and
peers, as has been set fortk and if wx are further distant from

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 435

the town of Paris than Tours or Bourges, in whatever place
it may be, the said mayor and peers shall not be bound to
come to us, and make their request in person, to constrain the
said bishop as above said: but may go to our bailifFof Senlis,^
whom we especially appoint in our place for this purpose, and
summon him to constrain the said bishop, by seizure of his
goods, to bring within the obedience of the mayor and peers
the said expelled townsman; and after having taken the oath
in the prescribed form, as to the due calling upon and default
of the said bishop, the said bailiff shall compel the said bishop
(in manner nevertheless that no injury be done to him), as we
ourselves should do if we were neax-er Paris, and as in case of
truce.

" 13. Item. If it happen that a townsman of Bourges address
injurious language to another, or strike him with the hand or
the foot, the said mayor and peers may take cognizance of it,
if complaint be made to them before it be made to the bishop
or his justice, supposing even that he had lost blood at the
nose, mouth or nails; tliey may order him who has thus in-
sulted or injured the other to repair the said insults or
damage which he has done, according to the custom of tlit
town, which is to pay five sols for an insult, or for an injiry
when no blood has been spilled, or, if blood has been spilled,
twenty sols and three deniers; and besides, they shall condemn
the guilty person to pay them a fine.

" 14. If he will not acquiesce in their judgment, they can-
not banish him for that, but only exclude him from their
Iwioks, uiid then call upon the bishop or his justice, or our-
selves in his default, as has been stated above; and the said
mayor and j)eers shall have cognizance and justice in the said
case, even though it happened during the night.

" 15. Item. If any one of the town proceed before the
mayor and peers, against another commoner, in an action for
fdrniturc or hdusehold goods, before accusing him to the
bishop or his justice, the said mayt)r and ])eers may summon
the accused before them; and after having In'ard his adver-
sary's statement, they may order the accusfd to deny or con-

' Wo >lmll find tliia royal officer froqucmly iiilprposing in tlic nffairs of
Prauvais, a town sitiinled within liis bailiwick. Acconiing to Loysel, tliis
city had no bailiwick of its own until KiS'i and yet lie himself, at pugt
Ulo, (jiiotcs a (lici>ii)n given in 1.37'J bv the bailili of Beauvais.
F F 2

436 HISTORY OP

fess the accusation. If the defenandt refuse to avow, deny,
or proceed at all before them, then he may leave their justice
safe and free; but if he denies and contests the accusation
before them, then they may ask him whether he will submit
to their examination; but if he replies that he will not plead
before them, but elsewhere that he considers more fitting,
then the said mayor and peers cannot oblige him to proceed
further, and he may retire free and safe. If he consent to
their inquiring into the affair, they may proceed to the
inquiry; and if by that he is found liable to the demand made
against him, or if at the outset he acknowledges the debt
without further inquiry, then they may constrain him to make
the payment within a fortnight, or to restore the things
demanded of him, and which he shall have admitted to be due,
or which have been found due upon inquiry, without incur-
ring any penalty. And if he fail to return them, or pay the
amount within the prescribed period, they may not therefore
impose upon him any penalty, nor banish him from the town,
nor exclude him from the roll; but they may go to his house,
or send their sergeant, who, if he finds it open, may enter;
but if it be shut, they can force neither door, window, nor
any other entry; finding the door open, and having entered,
they may take in this house all that they can find of his, but
without forcing door, window, coffer or lock. If the person
upon whom this execution has been made, or another sent
by him, endeavour to repossess himself of what has been
taken, or is about to be taken, they shall not for this res-
cue fail to take and carry away the goods in payment of
the debt admitted or adjudged, and they shall inflict a pe-
nalty for the attempted rescue.

" 16. If the defendant will not make reparation for the
rescue, or pay the penalty, they may not for that banish him
from the town, but they may exclude him from their roll,
and then call upon the said bishop or his justice to order him
to make reparation for the rescue, and to pay the [)enalty,
which he shall be bound to do in manner as aforesaid in the
article of the healed wound with or without mutilation; and
on his refusal or default, the mayor and two peers may come
to us, according to the form expressed in the said article.
But, however, the said mayor and peers, on the occasion of
a debt confessed or proved before them, as above, may not

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 437

seize by execution th« furniture and goods of the debtor in
the public square or market place, or in the house of another,
but only in his own house.

" 17. It is agreed between the parties that henceforth the
said mayor and peers may not, in any case, remove any one
from the commune of Beauvais, nor in punishing any one
use the term remove or banish; but that they may exclude
him from their- roll, and call upon the said bishop, or his
justice, or ourself in his default, to do as above set forth.

" 18. It is agreed between the parties, upon the article con-
cerning the form and manner of levying the assessed tax ia the
town of Beauvais, that when the mayor and peers have assessed
the tax, and fixed the terms of payment, they shall come to
us to obtain our letters patent, by which we shall order the
bishop or his justice not to hinder them; but, on the contrary,
to permit the said mayor and peers to levy their tax upon the
assessment, and by the day fixed by them; and after the said
bishop or his justice has received our letters patent, the
said mayor and peers may levy the tax by force, if need be,
break open doors, coffers, windows, and locks, seize in the
market place, streets, and houses of all the townsmen, on
the bishop or his justice having had due notice. And the
said bishop or his justice may not forbid, disturb, or hinder
the tax from being levied as above.

" 19. Item. The said mayor and peers stating, that having
been for a long time in peaceable possession of the right of
placing guards and sentinels at the gates and ramparts of the
town, they have been deprived of it by the bishops, who
removed these sentinels, and put others in their place, it has
been in this manner arranged and determined between the
said parties: the citizens of Beauvais having first recognised
and confessed before the said legates Ansold and Thibault
that the lordship and right of the doors and keys belong to
the bishop, and tliat the watch kept is in his behalf, so that
always wlien a new bishop is created at Beauvais, they are
bound to bring him the keys of the town, even although not
required by him, and that after having kept them awhile, he
returns them to thcni, and commits to tliem tlie care of the
gates, ramparts, and walls, which the said bishop may resume
whenever he pleases, they being bound to return them to
him when he so requires, the said bishop, in consideration

438 HISTORY OF

of this recognition and acknowledgment of the citizens of
Beauvais, has willed and granted that those who had been
placed by him on guard at the gates and ramparts of the walls
shall be withdrawn, and that the said mayor and peers may
place others to remain there, as is wont.

" 20. Item, the said mayor and peers, stating that they
have from time immemorial peaceably possessed the right of
placing guards and sentinels in the city of Beauvais to guard
the said city during the night, and that the said bishop had
created trouble and disorder by removing the guards they
had placed in the city, and substituting others on his own
private authority; it has been also agreed and granted that
the said bishop shall withdraw the said guards placed there
by him, and the said mayor and peers shall place others
whenever and as often as it shall be necessary for the future,
having first obtained leave of the bishop or his justice at
Beauvais, and on condition that the malefactors taken by the
said guards shall be by them placed in the bishop's prisons.

"21. It has also been agreed between the parties concern-
ing the article of the cloth facture, that for the future the
bishop shall allow the mayor and peers to receive from the
collector of Beauvais the scales and weights of the cloth;
and if there be any dispute as to their weight, it shall be
determined by the weights of the collector to whom they
appertain, and who holds them from the bishop in faith and
homage.

" 22. And it has also been settled that the mayor and peers,
knowing better than the bishop the good and capable workers
in cloth,' shall choose for the future, without being hindered
by the bishop or his people, six, seven, or at the most, ten
honest men expert in this art, who shall take care that the
cloth ware be such as it ought to be, and shall swear to the
mayor and peers, and before the bishop, that they will execute
their charge well and loyally. And if tliey find any cloth so
defective that in their opinion it ought to be burnt, the
said mayor and peers shall have it taken to the market-place
of Beauvais with wood and fire to burn it. And before the

' I'lie various manufactures in wool were in great activity at Beauvais,
mucii ot wLose population was connected with the making of olcths, serges,
Upestry, &c. Tliere were also dyers here before the twelfth century, as
vse find from the decree issued against Bishop Ansell in 1019.

CIVILISATION IN FRAN'CE. 439

third hour,' they shall give notice to the justice of the bishop
to come and set fire to the said cloth. If he does not appear
and has not burnt the said cloth before the hour at which
they go to vespers in the church of the blessed Saint Peter,
then the said mayor and peers may take the said cloth and
give it to the Hotel Dieu of Beauvais without the permission
of the bishop or his justice. If the defectiveness of the cloth
be not such that the said honest men can declare that it
ought to be burnt, but only cut, the said mayor and peers
shall bring it to the market-place at Beauvais, and shall give
notice to the justice of the bishop, before the third hour, to
come and cut the said cloth; and the said justice ought and
may cut tiie cloth until the accustomed hour for ringing to
vespers at the church of Saint Peter at Beauvais; and the
cut pieces shall be returned to the owner thereof, so that he
shall be obliged to sell them by retail in the town of Beau-
vais. And if, after having been summoned as above, the
bishop's justice has not cut the cloth before the appointed hour,
the mayor and peers may have it cut in the market-place, or
jn the place where they hold their public pleas, and the
pieces of cloth shall be restored to the owner to be by him
sold by retail in the town of Beauvais.

"23. Item. It has been agreed that if the piece of forty
ells have two pounds, the cloth of twenty ells one pound less
than the recognised weight, this cloth, if it have no other de-
fect, may not be either burnt or cut, but shall remain whole
and entire to the owner; only for the light weight he shall
pay twelve deniers; or if the difference be less, according to
the quantity Avanting; and the said deniers shall be given to
the weighers aforesaid. But if the defectiveness of the piece
of forty ells exceed two pounds, or that of the cloth of twenty
ells one pound, it shall be burnt or cut as aforesaid.

"24. Item. It has been agreed between the parties as to
the manner of citing the townsmen before the bishop of
Beauvais, tiiat the said bishop or his provost may cite the
townsmen by the sergeant of the bishop, without the sergeant
of the mayor being present or called; and they may punish
those wlio, cited by the sergeant of the bishop, have not
a[>peared, for such is the custom in tiie town of Beauvais.

' The third hour corresponds with cur nire o'clock, a.m. Vcsjiyrs were
then cciolniUvd ii; nixuit ti\('. r.M.

440 HISTORY OF

" 25. Item. It has been agreed that for the future the bishop
and his justice shall cite before them any townsman of whom
complaint has been previously laid before the mayor and
peers in cases within their jurisdiction, which cases are set
forth in the articles above, provided always that the said
mayor and peers have not failed to administer justice in such
cases within their cognizance.

"26. Item. It has been agreed that in all the aforesaid
articles of which it is set forth that the mayor and peers shall
take cognizance, if the mayor, being absent by reason of
illness or other cause, cannot appear, his lieutenant may take
cognizance and act with the peers as though the mayor were
present.

"27. Item. It has been agreed that for the future the
provost of Beauvais or some other of his officers of justice,
may not cite before them a townsman, nor place guards in
his house, for personal or household debts, nor for any other
case unless it is for a crime, so long as he consents to proceed
before them, and to give them good bail.

" 28. Ite7n. Regarding the superintendence of bread, of which
the said mayor and peers declared themselves recently de-
prived by the bishop, for the future he shall appoint inspec-
tors, as he thinks good."

" 29. Item. It has been ordered by us and our court, that
the said mayor and peers may not in any way avail them-
selves as against the things set forth above, of any usage
that they may have had heretofore, and such shall serve them
in no stead, nor harm the bishop and his church."

" 30. Item. It has also been ordained by us, that the said
peace or composition shall not in anything injure or preju-
dice the said mayor or peers, or their borough charter, any
more than the bishop, his church, or the charter of our an-
cestor, Louis, king of the French, of excellent memory, which
is in the possession of the said bishop, excepting in such things
as are contained and set forth in the above composition:
which composition, and the things contained in it, we hold
for good and enduring; and at the request of the parties, we
have to these presents set our seal, saving in all things and
to all men our own rights. Given at Montargis, the year of
the Lord 1276, in the month of August."

" It seems," says Louvet, " that this composition was ap-

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 441

proved of by the parties rather out of the respect they bore
the legate and the commissioners of his majesty, than from
the equity and justice they saw in it, especially as, in read-
ing them, several articles are found to be so ill drawn up,
and so remote from anything like justice, that the parties
would have just cause for declining them."' And, in fact,
whether it was that the defects of the great composition ren-
dered its execution impossible, or tliat no treaties are suffi-
cient to unite in good understanding interests and powers
so utterly opposed, and yet so closely mingled together, as
were the interests and powers of the town of Beauvais, and
those of its bishop, a new subject of dispute soon rekindled
reciprocal animosity, and the strife recommenced more fiercely
than ever, despite the thirty articles of the great compo-
sition.

Amongst the ancient rights of the bishop of Beauvais was
that of making use of the citizens' horses when he required
them for his affairs. Renaud de Nanteuil, wishing to make
use of this right in 1278, his people had the horses that they
had seized taken from them by order of the mayor, who took
the horses under pretext of their being needed by the town,
for as yet he could not venture to assail in full front the pri-
vilege whose use began to appear to him an abuse. The
bishop having inquired into the affair, and the mayor refusing
to acknowledge his jurisdiction, the cause was brought before
the parliament of Paris, which issued the following decree: —

" A dispute having arisen between the lord king on
one part, and the bishop of Beauvais on the other, as to
the riglit of justice of the whole body of the commune of
Beauvais, and a certain inquiry which was had into the
said right of justice having been brought before the lord
king, not as betbre one of the parties concerned, but as before a
superior, and tlie said inquiry remaining still undecided upon,
the said bishop demanded that the said inquiry should be ex-
pedited, for tliat by tlie delay of the said inquiry a great
danger menaced himself and his church, as to his jurisdiction
in Beauvais. On this occasion he could not judge Guillaume
Vierie, mayor of Beauvais, touching a certain rescue which
he had nuidt! at Beauvais upon his people for a certain horse
which they liad taken for the atfairs of the said bishop; and

' Histoirc du diocese de Beauvais, t. 11. p. 465.

442 HISTORY OF

the said mayor stated that he had taken the said hcrse for the
business of the town, and that he would not answer before
the said bishop for this fact, which concerned the town,
and he could say the same in all cases; wherefoi-e the said
bishop demanded that this disorder should be remedied.
Having heard the demand of the said bishop, and the defence
of the mayor, the lord king has withdrawn his protection in
all that regards the rescue.

" Item. It has been decreed that in the said inquiry the
witnesses of the town of Beauvais cannot be admitted, be-
cause the affair concerns them. Given at Paris, the year of
the Lord one thousand two hundred and seventy-nine, in the
parliament of All Saints."^

The town, thus condemned, was obliged to submit, and to
allow the bishop to take its horses at his discretion. They
freed themselves from this vexation in 1395, but only at the
price of an annual payment of fourteen livres Parisis.

In 1280, the mayor and peers of Beauvais, discontented at
the manner in which the tax was assessed and levied, com-
plained of it to the king, from whom the parliament sent
them to their natural lord, reserving, however, to the king,
the right of taking care that the bishop acquitted himself of
his duty. The parliament could not do less for the royal au-
thority, and I am astonished that it did not do more, by
thoroughly entering into the complaint of the citizens of
Beauvais. The decree is in these terms: —

" Having heard the supplications of the citizens of
Beauvais that the king would order the taxes assessed by his
officer to be duly levied by force, if necessary, they were
directed to apply to their bishop, upon whose default the king
would see to the matter, and compel the bishop to apply such
care and diligence that the things complained of might not
continue, and that no fraud be committed in the levy of the
taxes.

" Iteyn. As the officers of tlie kmg had, to make np the
taxation of the town, taxed eacli townsman the eum of three sols
in the livre of their household goods, and that the said mayor
and peers had on tlieir own persui al author ty diminished
this tax, and reduced the three sols to two, it was said, that

Louvot, ii. -107

C1V1LIZATU)N IN FRANCE. 443

no account should be taken of this diminution, and that every
one should pay three sols in the livre.^ The bishop of Beau-
vais, in his turn, wished to find something to say against the
great compositioii, in which, however, he had certainly not
been neglected. In 1281 he addressed a request to the king
to obtain a more extensive jurisdiction over the district of
Beauvais. The citizens maintained before the parliament
that the jurisdiction claimed by the bishop belonged to the
king, and that the question had been several times decided
by the court. The argument was too favourable not to be
received, and a decree was istued which reserved to the king
the decision and jurisdiction of all points relating to the liber-
ties of the district. This was not what the bishop wanted;
the citizens had beaten him.

" Philip, by the grace of God king of the French: We
make known to all present and to come, that our dear and
loyal bishop of Beauvais, having intreated us to permit him
to use and to enjoy the right of justice which he claimed to
have in the city of Beauvais over the entire district, and over
the person of each townsman, saying, that himself and his
predecessors had enjoyed it until now; on the other hand,
the mayor and peers of Beauvais, whom we cited before us to
hear the said supplication and to defend our right and their
own, if they felt themselves interested in the affair, having
maintained that Ave were in peaceable possession of the execu-
tion of justice over the whole commune of Beauvais, in every
case regarding the said commune, and that they had several
times declared so in our court: having read the inquiry made
by our order into these matters, and heard the reports of our
court that each party demanded, having seen the charters,
j)rivileges, and guarantees produced by the two parties, and
the reasons of both having been sufliciently licard, judgment
has been pronounced in our court that the jurisdiction
throughout l>eauvais in matters of obligations, contracts,
agret;nifnts, and offences, belongs to the said bishop. And
by the same judgment it has been decreed that respecting the
right of justice in the affair in question, and as to tlie liberties
of the said district, conceded to it by privilege, and as to all
the rights of the said commune, they belong to us. In conlirma-

' I.ouvct, ii. 400

414 HISTORY or

tion of which we have affixed our seal to the present letters.
Given at Paris, the year of the Lord 1281, in the month of
August."!

In 1288 the commune again gained its cause in an affair
carried before the parliament of Paris, and in which, indeed,
justice appears completely on its side. The bishop in ques
tion was named Simon de Nesle:

" A dispute having arisen between the mayor and the peers
of Beauvais on one side, and Henri Aleaume and the bishop
of Beauvais, each for himself for as much as concerned him,
on the other side; the said Henry stated, that the said mayor
and peers had subjected him to their justice, he being justifiable
to the bishop in whose jurisdiction he was, sleeping and waking,
and before whom he demanded to be sent, seeing that he was
not the man of the mayor and peers of Beauvais, and that he
had long left their commune, and had done all that was re-
quired at the time of leaving it. And the said bishop has
demanded that the said Henry should be sent to his court,
being ready to do full justice by and to him. The said mayor
and peers stated that this ought not to be, as they had sub-
jected the said Henry to their justice as their citizen, and
taxable for the tax imposed upon him, of which they have
maintained that the cognisance belongs to us. For, said they,
the custom and usage of Beauvais is, that whoever wishes to
leave the commune of Beauvais ought to inform the mayor
and peers thereof, to give good bail to be responsible for
him, or to place his goods in our hands; and before all
things render account of his administration, if he has exer-
cised any charge, pay the arrears, and apply to pay the tax on
quitting; then he may leave the commune; otherwise he will
always remain a citizen, and taxable. Inquiry having been
made diligently into all these things, and the ai'guments on
both sides being heard, it has been found that the mayor
and peers have sufficiently proved their statement; where-
fore it has been pronounced by our said court, that the said
Henry ought not to be sent to the court of the said bishop,
but must, as to the said case, undergo our examination. "^
Simon de Nesle was a bishop of violent manners, of war-

' Loysel, Memoires de Beauvais, p. 209.
• Euquetes et estimationfi expediecs dans le Farlement de la Toutfant

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 445

like habits, of untractable temper, and consequently very
unlikely to adapt himself to the turbulent character of the
citizens of Beauvais; accordingly they did not long live
on good terms, and, by the unanimous statement of the
chroniclers of the time, the first faults were on the bishop's
side. " The people rose against him," it is written, " be-
cause of several vexatious customs which he endeavoured
to introduce into the town of Beauvais." The loudest com-
plaints arose, it appears, from the exactions added by the
bishop's officers to the dues demanded from every one who
made use of the episcopal mills and ovens. And as, with all
their liberties, the citizens of Beauvais had not that of grind-
ing their corn and baking their bread where they pleased,
these vexations, which affected them every day, and in the
first necessaries of life, irritated them to the last degree; the
mayor and peers had it proclaimed through the town that all
should grind and bake where they pleased, and that all were
likewise at liberty to place planks across the river. This
last clause had reference, no doubt, to some toll with which
the bishop impeded the passage over the bridgesof tlieTherain.
Simon de Nesle, as may be supposed, did not endure with
patience this renunciation of obedience to him. The two
parties came to blows, and sanguinary excesses took place on
both sides; but the bishop was defeated and forced to quit the
town, after having set fire to the suburbs. Exasperated by tliis
defeat, and enraged at being called, mockingly, Si»io?i (he
Stripped, he made an appeal to the clergy of his diocese, and
in the following missive denounced to them the crimes of the
people of Beauvais. We shall presently see those with
which they in their turn reproached him; it does not appear
that either picture was exaggenited:

" Simon, by the grace of God hisliop of Beauvais, to all
and every priest established in the town and suburbs of lieau-
vais, to whom these presents sliall come, salvatimi in our
Lord.

" It is a true thing, notoriou- an<l attested by ])ul>lic vuice,
that the mayor, peers, and coiiii il. and commons ot' lieauvais,
desj)ite the oath tliey have \i-'j.'. • ately sworn to us a > hi. -hop
of Beauvais, to preserve tlie i is, the honour, the state ol
our church and ourself, ha\ tlie peril of tin ir souls,

wandering from the catliulii iierversely, .1 'I without

446 HISTORY OF

thinking of their salvation, audaciously dared to ring the bell
of the commune destined to assemble the people, and held
counsel and deliberation among themselves: then, to the not
slight but very great prejudice and damage of our episcopacy
and our church, to the injury, offence, outrage, contempt, and
despite of Almighty God, of the blessed Mary ever Virgin,
of the glorious apostle Peter, in whose honour the aforesaid
church is founded, of all the saints, of the liberty of the church
and all the faithful in Christ, they came with a great army,
furnished with crossbows, bows, javelins, bucklers, stones,
axes, and swords, iniquitously to attack our house or epis-
copal manor, situated in the town of Beauvais; they impetu-
ously and in a hostile manner invaded it, assaulted our people
placed to guard and defend it, and set fire to it, unjustly
burning and destroying a great part of this manor; this part
being thus burnt by them, they entered the other, broke the
doors, windows, and locks, spilled sixteen hogsheads of wine
of the bishopric and church of Saint Peter, placed there for
our sustenance and nourishment, and that of our officers.
They also carried away other provisions, furniture, and uten-
sils, which we estimate at the value of two thousand livres
Parisis.

" And, also, they violently broke the doors and tore off the
locks of the prisons of the said manor, and took from the
prisons, to set them free, several persons, laymen and eccle-
siastics, detained by our ofhcers for several crimes — namely,
Quentin de Roquencourt, for a notorious murder; Mathieu
Poulain, for having forged letters; Jean de Beaumont, for
rape; all priests. Gregory Bardoul, layman, for murder;
and several other priests or laymen, detained in these prisons
for various offences.

" And not content with all these things, but accumulating
crime upon crime, and going from bad to worse, they forcibly
entered two blessed and consecrated chapels or churches
belonging to the said manor, burst open the doors, locks,
windows, frames and iron-work of the windows, and carried
away the chalices, books, and blessed and consecrated orna-
ments of the said churches or chapels.

" And, shameful to say, they committed several vile ob-
scenities within the said churches, thus, like infidels, wickedly
and without the fear of God, committing an enormous sacri*

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 447

lege, damnably incurring the sentence of excommunication
pronounced by the canons against those who break open and
violate churches, especially when the said churches are gifted
with perpetual and sufficient revenues. And afterwaids, con-
tinuing in their malice and obstinacy, they several times
horribly and iniquitously attacked, with a great army and
warlike arms, as has been stated above, the tower of our
bishopric, built behind our house, as also the castle contiguous
to the said tower, and which was made for the preservation
and defence of it; also, they have killed several of our people,
who were placed there to defend and preserve the said tower
and castle — namely, Erard de L'Olive, Manasserus and his
son, and several others; they also endeavoured to destroy and
raze to the ground the said tower and castle.

" For these tilings we command you, in virtue of holy
obedience and under penalty of suspension and excommuni-
cation which we shall fulminate against you if you do not
what we order you, that you publicly and loudly denounce
and excommunicate in your churches and offices the violators
of the said churches, until they have performed sufficient
penance; also, citing manifestly and publicly in your churclies,
the mayor, peers, councillors, and the whole conmiunity of
Beiiuvais, to come, on our order, before us at Saint Just, in
the diocese, the day of Saint Magdalen, to see and hear the
decree and sentence that we intend to give on the said day,
regarding the above-mentioned offences, as it ought to be
done according to tiie hwv, and let them know that whether
they a[)pear or no, tliey will be equally proceeded against.
And as a sign that you have executed our command, you will
affix your seal to these ])resents. Given under our seal, the
year of the Lord one thousand tliree hundred and live, tiie
Thursday after the summer feast of Saint Martin."'

I do not know that in any case the mayor and peers would
have thought fit to submit to the injunction of their adver-
sary, and to acknowledge, as guilty subjects, his sovereign
judgment: at all events, it was not at the moment of victory
that they would make such a concession; but the embar-
rassment of a refusal was spared them, for the citation was
signified to them the day on which they were commanded to

' Louvet, ii. 48,

448 HISTORY or

appear. The distance from Beauvais to Saint Just, where
the bishop then lay, was six leagues; they required time to
come to a decision, and to prepare a defence; in brief, a decent
pretext was a piece of fortune on such an occasion: the mayor
and peers profited by it, and did not appear. As they had
not submitted, they were, as they no doubt expected, excom-
municated, and the town of Beauvais placed under interdict.
From this they appealed, by the following document, which
was signified to the bishop on the 12th of July, 1305. They
availed themselves of the irregularity of the citation.

"In the name of our Lord, in the year 1305, the third of
the indiction, the 12th day of the month of July, the discreet
person Gerbaud de la Fontaine, in the name of the mayor
and peers of Beauvais here present, and of all the community
of the same place, has publicly read before the reverend father
the bishop of Beauvais, and his ofiicial, a schedule of the
tenour following:

" Because you, my lord, the bishop, your bailiff, people,
and officers, have done great injuries, and many wrongs and
oppressions to the mayor, peers, and whole community of
Beauvais, by striking, wounding, and killing certain of the
said community, by seizing and ruining their goods, by
destroying with all manner of hostilities their possessions,
and burning them to the value of a hundred thousand livres;
and not content with that, but heaping evils upon evils, you
have caused the said mayor, peers, and whole community to
be cited to appear before you at Saint Just on the very day
of citation, which is a thing unheard of, unreasonable, and
contrary to custom and statute, the said mayor, peers, and
whole community, feeling themselves aggrieved by you against
justice in all these things, and considering that they may be
still more so hereafter by you and your ofiicers ; —

" For these reasons, we, the mayor, peers, and jurats of
the said community, declare, that we interpose an appeal from
all these wrongs and grievances to the holy see apostolic.

" And in order that you may not proceed further against
the said community, or any commoner thereof, we now once
more declare to you that we interpose an appeal, putting
under the ])rotection of the apostolic see the said mayor,
peers, ourselves and all the community, taking to witness all
present, and praying you, James de Jassein, notary of the

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCR. 449

most holy Roman church, to deliver to us a public act of all
this.

" These things were done in the abbey of Saint Lucian of
Beauvais, on the day and year abovementioned."

We must not be surprised to see a protest against the
bishop of Beauvais dated from the abbey of Saint Lucian.
Simon de Nesle had stirred up all parties against him; for
he spared nobody. The banditti, who maintained his cause,
made no more scruple to burn the house of a canon, tlian one
of a burgess, or to lay waste the lands of an abbey, than those
of the community: and probably when they took it into their
heads to rob, ill-treat, to even kill an enemy, they did not
give themselves the trouble to inquire wliat jurisdiction he
was subject to. As to the chapter, indeed, that was nothing
remarkable; people were accustomed to see them contending
with the bishop, and little reverence was paid to these
proud and worldly-minded dignitaries; but the abbey of Saint
Lucian, founded in honour of the apostle of the Beauvaisan
country, and endowed with so many privileges, regarded
with such high respect! — an outrage to that was indeed
revolting. Accordingly, the haughty Simon himself was
brought to his senses, and felt himself obliged to issue a sort
of pastoral letter, in which we find proofs of the very excesses
with which he was reproached by his adversaries.

" To all who shall see these presents, Simon, by the grace
of God, salutation in our Lord. Be it known, that about the
feast of Pentecost, in the year 130o, differences having
arisen between us and the mayor, peers, jurats, counsellors,
and whole community of Beauvais, our people occupying on
that account all the surrounding country; :md some fires, and
other occurrences, which appear to carry with them injustice,
having taken place within the lands and jurisdiction of our dear
sons in Jesus Christ, the abbot and convent of the monastery of
St. Lucian of Beauvais, to the prejudice, as thry assure us, of
the said religious persons, our will nevertheless had no part
in these proceedings; and it is not our intention that by these
facts, if they have so happened, any damage should be cause<l
to the rights and jurisdiction of the said religious persons, nor
any new ri<rht thereby acquired to us or our successors. In
faith of which we have caused our seal to be put to the me-

TOL. III. O G

450 HISTORY OF

«ent letters. Given in the year of our Lord 1305, on the
Saturday next after the feast of St. Mary Magdalen."'

The brothers of St Lucian were probably appeased by this
amende honorable of the bishop and no longer thought of
joining the mayor and peers of Beauvais, nor of appealing
to the competent authority for reparation of the damages
which they had suffered. Simon de Nesle, however, was
still little less embarassed, for he had soon on his hands an
enemy much worse to deal with, namely, the king of France,
who seems to have been only watching for a pretext to inter-
fere in the dispute. Having learnt at Montmirail en Perche,
where he then was, that the quarrel between the burgesses
and bishop of Beauvais was still going on, and that the
latter, finding he could do little with his spiritual arms, was
endeavouring to overcome his enemies by famine, and had,
with that view, prohibited the inhabitants of the neighbouring
country to carry any provisions into the rebellious city,
under pain of excommunication, Philip le Bel remonstrated
loudly against this abuse of power by the bishop, taxed him
with trenching on the rights of his paramount sovereign, and
even reproached him (a strange reproach in the mouth of a
king) with thereby violating the rights of the pope, before
whom the matter had been carried by the appeal of the com-
munity; and, finally, he commissioned the bailiff of Senlis to
cause an end to be forthwith put to this oppression. The
importance which he attached to the performance of this
command is obvious from the sharpness of his language.

" Philip, by the grace of God, king of the French, to the
bailiff of Senlis, health ! We write in the following form to
our fixithful and well beloved the bishop of Beauvais:

" Philip, by the grace of God. king of the French, to our
faithful and well beloved the bishop of Beauvais, or his
vicars, health and loving kindness! We learn that whilst in
regard to the quarrel which has arisen between you and the
mayor, peers, and community of Beauvais, and to the excesses
committed on the one side and the other, we are causing the
truth to be sought out by the inquest of certain commissioners,
and whilst the inquest is still going on, you, under pretence
of the said excesses, have issued a sentence of interdict

Louvet, t. II. p. 494.

CIVIUZATION IN FKANCE. 451

against the city and community of Beauvais and all the per-
sons who dwell there, and have caused prohibition to be
made in the neighbouring towns, under pain of excoramunica
tion, against carrying provisions into the said city, which,
without doubt, is acting in prejudice of us and our temporal
lordghip, and also in prejudice of the appeal heretofore inter-
posed by the said mayor and peers against you and your
officers to the apostolic see. Wherefore, we order you
immediately to revoke this oppression so as to content us;
otherwise we cannot tolerate it, but will promptly apply an
opportune remedy. Given at Montmirail en Perche, the loth
of S'^ptember.

" We enjoin thee immediately to present this letter to the
said bishop, and to require him on our part to put an end,
without delay, to the said oppression. And if he will not do
so, guard and defend our right and jurisdiction in all this
matter, promptly, and by just remedies, in such sort that no
complaint may be made of thy default, and that we may not
have to reprimand thee for neglect. — Given at Breteuil, in
the year of our Lord 1305."'

The king's orders met with little obedience. The bailiff
of Senlis repaired indeed to Beauvais, and there intimated to
the adverse parties an express prohibition, under pain of lines
and other ptinishments, against doing to each other thence-
forward any wrong or injury; but their passions were still
too violent to listen to the voice of authority. A new con-
flict took {)lace as terrible as before, and sullied with as many
crimes. The king, then, irritated at this contemjU of his
commands, caused John de Moliens, the mayor of lieauvais,
and the bishop's bailiff, to be both aricittd. Philip le Bel
himself dared not attack the bishop in person, but he avenged
himself on his temporalities, and jurisdiction, which wt-ie
seized, as were the goods and jurisdiction of the community
of Beauvais. The bailiff of Senlis, moreover, received orders
to prosecute the affair vigorously. Tlie proceedings which
he instituted, joined to the terror caused by the measures
already taken, disposed the parties to desire an accommoda-
tion, and in order to obtain it, tliey mutually relaxed their
pretensions. A kind of truce was then agreed upon, and on the

' Louvet, t. ii. p. -I'JO,
O Q 2

452 HISTORY OF

Wednesday after All Saints Day, 1 305, the mayor and peere
of Beauvais gave procuration and full powers to three persons
to proceed to Lyons, where the bishop, and probably the
king, were to be met with, in order to treat in their name for
a durable peace, and for taking off the interdict and excom-
munication. The following is the proces-verbal of this union,
omitting only the details which have been already given in
other documents.

" In the name of the Lord, amen ! Be it known to all, by
whom this public act shall be seen — "

Here follows the enumeration of tne complaints of the
commune and the bishop respectively.

" At length certain honourable persons having interfered,
and persuaded the parties for the love of the public good, and
for their own advantage, to proceed in the ways of peace and
concord; and the parties themselves having appeared before
me, a notary pubUc, and the underwritten witnesses, the
said bishop being present in person, and the said mayor,
peers, and jurats being represented by John de Caillou,
WiUiam de Marchal, and Theobald le Mellian, citizens of
Beauvais, and procurators duly appointed of the mayor, peers,
and jurats, by. letters sealed with the seal of the community
of Beauvais, which they received on the Wednesday after the
feast of All Saints, in the year 1305, the said parties pro-
ceeded as follows, in presence of me, a notary public, and of
the underwritten witnesses:

" To wit, that the said procurators, and Simon de Montere,
a citizen of Beauvais, here present, coming before the said
bishop, present in person, after having as well in their own
name, as in the name of those whose powers they have re-
ceived, corporally touched the holy and sacred gospels, and
sworn to fulfil the orders of the church, and to pay the fines
which may be imposed on them, if it shall be so adjudged,
have prayed the benefit of absolution, if they need it in any
particular, and to be released from the burthen of the inter-
dict. They then renounced, absolutely and expressly, all
appeal made, or procuration given, against the said bishop, in
the court of Rome, or in any other ecclesiastical court, on
behalf of the said mayor, peers, jurats, and whole community,
as well as all citations and proceedings made in this matter,
and all benefit which from these appeals, procurations, cita-

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 4J3

tions, and proceedings might accrue to them to the detriment
of the said bishop or of his adherents; and they promised on
oath to give up to me, the notary, all acts, or rescripts apostolic
touching this affair, and also the other acts done or accorded
by the superior officers of our lord the king. The said pro-
curators and the said Simon, moreover, promised both in their
own name, and in the name of those whose powers they have
received, and under the penalty of ten thousand livres of
Tours, that the things aforesaid, and all that shall be said and
done by the said procurators and the said Simon shall be held
valid by the mayor, peers, and jurats of the said community,
and shall be ratified by them, or by persons sent for that pur-
pose, in presence of the lord bishop, and they engage them-
selves under the foresaid penalty that this shall be done.

" Moreover, the noble man, William, lord of Vicenobon,
knight, and counsellor of our lord the king, promised the said
bishop, at the request of the said procurators and the said
Simon, that our lord the king himself should compel, by the
royal authority, the mayor, the peers, the community, the
procurators and Simon faithfully to perform all the matters
aforesaid, and to pay the agreed penalty if it should be
incurred.

'* The said bishop having acquiesced in the demands and
promises aforesaid of the said procurators and Simon, granted
to them distinctly in canonical form the benefit of absolution,
and entirely and expressly released them from the interdict:
he also declared the said mayor, peers, jurats, counsellors, and
whole community to be absolved from all sentences of excom-
munication, or other canonical punishment, which they may
have undergone from the power of the ordinary. He said
that he caused and would cause to c«'ase all that concerned
and regarded him in the sentence cf excommunication de-
nounced by the canons, and incurred by them for the facts
above-mentioned. The bishop, moreover, promised that if
justice required any fine to be laid on the mayor, peers, jurats,
counsellors, or community for any one or more of the said
facts, he, the bisliop, would not proceed to the fixing of such
tax except it were by and with the king's counsel. These
things were done at St. Just, near Lyons, in the year 1S05,
and on the 8th day of December.

' Afterwards, John, mayor- of Coudun, deputed by the

454 HISTORY OF

eaid community, as the said procurators and Simon affirmed,
ratified on oath all the things aforesaid."'

The interdict was taken off, and the church appeased by
this accord; but the king had as yet pronounced nothing; and
the mayor, as well as the bishop's bailiff, remained still in
prison: the affair, therefore, was further prosecuted before
Philip le Bel, who issued the following decree: —

"In the name of God, Amen! Philip, by the grace of
God, king of the French, to all who shall see these presents,
health! We make known, that inasmuch as the mayor,
peers, jurats, and community of Beauvais gave us to be
informed that our dear and faithful bishop of Beauvais, his
bailiffs, people, officers, and accomplices had burnt their farms,
with a great company of armed men; had arrested and taken
all the persons whom they found; had turned the course of
the river which runs through the town, and had committed
in an hostile manner other enormous excesses set forth in
the informations taken on the occasion; we did, in virtue
of our office, depute certain auditors with commission and
power to call parties before them, and to search out the truth.
To which auditors the said bishop, appearing in person,
declared that he would not make himself a party, nor proceed
before them; but maintained that he had exercised his own
right, and done justice to his subjects in acting as he had
lawfully acted, asserting, moreover, and saying that he had
good reasons to give in his defence, and offering to proceed
before us.

" Now inquest having been made with care and diligence
on this matter, and as it behoved to be made for civil pur-
poses, as has been declared by judgment, it has been suffi-
ciently proved, that proclamation was publicly made at Beau-
vais on the part of the mayor, peers, and jurats of the said
community that no person was to plead before the bishop or
his officers, but that all should plead before the mayor and
peers;

" That no person was bound to grind or bake at the mills
or bakehouses of the bishop, but might go where he pleased ;

" That any person might lay down boards over the river of
the said city;

"That the mayor and peers had forced the gates of the city

» Louvet, t'. ii. p. 498.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 455

against the bishop and his people, and had taken by assault
the said bishop's palace, and burnt some of his houses;

" That by means of these rebellions they had excited and
raised a sedition against the said bishop, who claims to have
jurisdiction over the whole city, in respect to obligations,
contracts, and offences, with exception of certain points,
liberties, and privileges granted by the kings to the said
community, and other rights of the community itself, of
which the cognizance and jurisdiction belong to us.

" Which invasion and burning of gates occurred after pro-
hibition made on our part by the bailiff of Senlis, whom we
had sent expressly for that purpose.

"By reason whereof the mayor, jurats, and community
have been condemned, as to what regards us, to pay us a fine
often thousand livres, small Parisis; and by the same decree,
we have raised the sequestration laid on the mayoralty and
community, and have ordered that John de MoUiens, mayor
at the time of the said rebellions, who has been sufficiently
proved to have accepted the office only under constraint of a
just fear, shall be enlarged from the prison in which he has
been kept. And forasmuch as it has been proved by the
said inquest, that after the prohibition made on our part to
the bishop by the bailiff of Senlis, sent expressly for that
purpose, several excesses were committed against tlie said
community by the officers of the said bishop, it has been
ordered by the same decree that the said bishop shall put
into our liands the fine agreed upon with us, Avhich he lias
forthwith delivered, saving in all things his right as to what
touches his portion of the same.

" Item, considering the proceedings had by the commis-
sioners of our court, it is ordered that the bishop shall be
heard, to give his reasons to show that the said inquest ought
not to condemn him to any reparation towards the community,
and other reasons which he may tliink fit to allege.

" And in like manner shall the said mayor, pwrs, and com-
munity be heard thereupon. And for the purpose of hearing
what the one party may have to say and allege against the
other, we have assigned them to be at Paris on the day of the
bailitf of Senlis in the approaching parliament; and there
riglit shall be administered to them by our judges according
to reason.

456 HISTORY OF

" Item. By the same decree we have raised the sequestration
laid on the temporalities and jurisdiction of the said bishop,
seized by us on account of the facts aforesaid. Save, never-
theless, that the bishop and his officers are forbidden to take,
on account of the aforesaid inquest, any proceedings against
the mayor, peers, jurats, and community, in any manner
whatever. We have also enlarged the bailiff and other
officers of the bishop detained for this matter in our prisons.

" Lastly, our court has forbidden the said bishop to do, or
suffer to be done by his people or officers, on account of
these things, any wrong or harm to the mayor, jurats, and
community, so long as the suit shall be pending in our court.
In faith of which w^e have caused our seal to be affixed to
these presents. Given at Poissy, in our presence, the Thurs-
day after the feast of St. Barnabas the apostle, in the year of
our Lord 1306."'

The fine of the community to the king is here clearly ex-
pressed; that of the bishop is not; but we learn from the
following document that it amounted to six thousand livres
Parisis. This was not too severe a punishment for the
misdeeds of which the bishop had been guilty; but it was a
strong measure to treat him in the same manner as the com-
munity was treated. Assuredly, he was but little pleased
with the decree.

" Philip, by the grace of God, king of the French, to all
those who shall see the .present letters, greeting. Know all
men, that our well beloved and faithful the holy bishop of
Beauvais having been accused of making, by himself or his
people, many seizures fi-om his burgesses of Beauvais, and
causing them much damage in person and goods contrary to
the prohibition made on our part to him and his people, as
our officers informed us, the said bishop alleged for himself
and his people various excuses, in particular that he had
committed no disobedience towards us, inasmuch as he con-
tended that he had a right to do all that had been done to the
said burgesses by the said bishop's people. In fine, the said
bishop having promised, of his own free will, to pay and
furnish, at fixed periods, six thousand livres Parisis, good
and old, of due weight and alloy, we have thought fit to

' Louvet. t. ii. p. 501.

CIVILIZATION TN FRANCE. 457

remit fully to the said bishop and to his people all punish-
ment, greater or less, which we might inflict on them in
person or goods, and we have ordered to be set at liberty and
restored to the said bishop all those of his people, who on
account of the aforesaid matter are kept in our prisons, as
well as those who have been already released on bail. In
faith of which we have caused our seal to be affixed to these
letters. Given at Poissy, the 18th of June, in the year of
our Lord 1306." '

The bishop and burgesses had by this time learnt enough of
the rigorous proceedings of the king and his parliament not
to wish that they should not occupy themselves more with
an affair in which both parties had so many I'eproaches to
make to each other. They preferred, therefore, the mode of
arbitration, and chose two arbitrators, with a full resolution
to accede to their terms. It is easy to perceive from the
earnestness of their promises, how wearied they must have
been with their long and arduous contest. These are the
terms in which the burgesses announced their resolution and
their choice:

" To all who shall see these presents, the' mayor, peers,
and jurats of the community of Beauvais, and the whole com-
munity, health and entire loving kindness. We make known
that inasmuch as between the reverend father and lord Messire
Simon, by the grace of God bishop of Beauvais, our spiritual
and temporal lord, both in his own name and in the name of
his bishopric, on the one part, and us both in our own name
and in that of the commune on the other part, there had
been a suit and dispute, because the said bishop accused
us, 8cc."

Here follow the accusations brought by the bishop against
the community; after enumerating tliem in great detail, the
mayor and peers add, " We, on our part, said," and then they
set forth their own complaints. Afterwards conies the accom-
modation, in these terms: —

" Finally, to obtain the blessing of peace, in reference to
all and every of the excesses and (litft'rences which have
arisen on one side and the other, we liave by common con-
sent given full power to the discreet and honourable per-

' I.oiivet, t. ii. p. 508.

458 HISTORY OF

sons, Maitre William, called Bonet, treasurer of Angers, and
Messire William de Marcilly, knight and counsellor of the
most illustrious prince Philip, king of the French, willing
and according that they may, on all and each of the aforesaid
matters, proceed, say, establish, pronounce, and give defini-
tive sentence, at any time, and on any day, whether holiday
or not, promising under the penalty of ten thousand livres,
as a fine payable by the party contravening the said judgments
and sentences to the party acquiescing in them, not to con-
travene, but to obey faithfully and inviolably the sentence
and decision of the said commissioners on the facts aforesaid,
without any reclamation, prayer, or request against the same,
made to any superior, or other person, in order to cause any
retractation or change to be made in their dictum, judgment,
and ordinances, and without hope of any mitigation being
applied to the arbitration by any other person's will.

" For the performance of which things we, the mayor,
peers, jurats, counsellors, and citizens of the community, bind
ourselves and the whole community, with all our goods,
moveable and immovable, present and future. In faith of
which, having notified all persons needful, we have caused to
be hereto affixed the seal of the community. Given, a.d.
1306, on Thursday, the eve of St. Simon and St. Jude the
apostles."'

The burgesses being sincere in their desire of an accom-
modation, and in their promise of submission to the decision
of arbitrators, probably wished more ardently even than the
bishop that an end should be put to this quarrel. Their in-
dustry sufifered, their agriculture was menaced every day, the
social bonds no doubt became relaxed in these long discords,
and the piety of those times dreaded, perhaps, above all things,
the return of the interdict, a source of desolation in the bosom
of families, whom it reached in all the circumstances of life.
It was in the most pacific disposition, therefore, that the com-
munity looked for tlie judgment of the arbitrators; and per-
haps they had need of all their desire for an accommodation,
to accept it with a good grace. After a recital of the facts
which we already know, the arbitrators expressed themselves
thus: —

" We, then, accepting for the good of peace the said com-

* Louvet, t. ii p. 509.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE, 459

mission, having before our eyes the ruins and places destroyed
by the said crimes, having taken counsel with honourable
.men, sought for truth, and considered all that was to be con-
sidered, have ordered, pronounced, decided, and judged as
follows: —

" That the said mayor, peers, and jurats present before us,
and the whole community, with hands joined and knees bent,
shall humbly ask pardon of the lord bishop for the things
aforesaid, and for these same things shall engage in their own
names individually to pay the fine hereinafter mentioned.

" Item. That they shall restore and bring back to the place
from whence they were taken, the chains and fetters, which
at the time of the said rebellion they carried* away from the
bishop's house, and also shall bring a stag's horn in lieu and
stead of the bone of a giant, which was taken away from the
place where it hung in the episcopal palace, which restitutions
and demonstrations of humility and respect were devoutly
performed in our presence.

" Item. That the mayor, or some one of the peers or
jurats, shall offer a silver image of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
of the weight of four marcs, on the day of the Purification,
or on that of the Annunciation of that Blessed Virgin, when
the procession shall go to the great chapel of the episcopal
mansion, from whence the images and sacred utensils were
taken at the time of the revolt, and where the said silver
image shall remain for ever, to the honour of God, and of the
Blessed Virgin Mary.

" Iteyn. The bishop shall or may retain in his prison
thirty persons of the community, who, nevertheless, shall be
delivered when we think fit.

" Moreover, we condemn the mayor, peers, jurats, and
community to pay to the said bishop eight thousand livres
Parisis, for all fine and penalty on account of all and every
offence committed. The payments shall be made at the fol-
lowing terms, to wit, one thousarnl livres at Easter, and two
thousand Ix'fore the All Saints day following. Item, two
tliousand before Easter, in the year of our Ix)rd, 1308 (and
so on.) We moreover ordain and pronounce, that if at any
term of payment they shall be in default, the fine shall not
on that account be raised to ten tliousand livres; nor if the de-
fault exceed eight days shall it yet be raised to ten thousand

460 HISTORY OF

livres; but for every day's delay beyond the eight days, they
shall pay as a fine to the said bishop fifty sous in addition to
the principal. And the bishop, inasmuch as he is a temporal'
lord, may constrain them to this, all that we have said remain-
ing, nevertheless, firm and inviolable, so that no reclamation
can be brought against him on that account by any adversary
in any court whatsoever. And both parties shall put their
seals, together with ours, to the present letters in testimony
of the truth.

" In consideration of these fines and satisfactions, we or-
dain and pronounce, that the said bishop shall not disturb,
molest, or vex, directly or indirectly, in any point whatever,
on account of the said excesses, the mayor, peers, jurats,
counsellors, or community, nor require any person to vex
them, nor ask any one so to do, nor cause it to be done, nor
try to get it done, but on the contrary shall maintain them
safe and secure against all who have been of his party. And
in like manner the mayor, peers, jurats, counsellors, and
community aforesaid, and every one of them, shall institute
no action, nor bring any complaint henceforward, nor de-
mand henceforward that any be brought for the aforesaid facts,
and the murder of several of their party, against the said
bishop and his people, or any accomplices in this fact, espe-
cially against John, lord of Rainceval, or John of Sonions,
knight; but they shall hold him and them acquitted of all
complaint made or to be made against them or any one of
their fellows for this or any other fact: and if in this decision
anything should appear obscure or equivocal, we reserve to
ourselves its explanation.

" Furthermore, the bishop, if he shall be required so to dc
by the mayor, peers, jurats, and community, shall cause it to
be inquired and known whether the miller at his mills to which
people are obliged to resort for the grinding of their corn,
exact as right of grinding more than is accustomed, and if it
be found so, shall cause the excess to be abated, as is fitting
to be done, and so that the matter may be brought to the re-
gular state.

" All and each of these things, then, being, as is above set
forth, pronounced, ruled, decided, and adjudged by us, the
said bishop in his own name, and in that of the church, of his
successors, and of his people and their associates, and the said

CIVILIZATION IN FKANCK 461

mayor, peers, jurats, and community in their own name and
that of the whole community,. have given thereto their assent
and ratification. In faith of which we have caused to be
affixed to the present letters, our seals, together with those of
the bishop and of the community. Given at Beauvais, the
Friday before the feast of All Saints, in the year of our Lord,
1306."'

Thus terminated this great affair; and it is clear that the de-
sire of peace must have been strongly felt at Beauvais, lo cause
sucha'judgment, resting on the sole authority of two arbitrators,
to be received therein as a sovereign law and almost as a be-
nefit. In fact, the community was treated very severely: ail
the wrongs it had done were brought into account against it,
and all those which it had suffered were disregarded : obliged to
recognise the authority it had wished to shake off, constrained
to pay one fine to the king for their disobedience, and another
to the bishop for his damages, and receiving no compensation
for all the ravages of their property by the bishop's ioUowerj,
they must have long felt the consequences of such a crisis.
And indeed, the remembrance of it was so acute, that they
made no more attempts to do justice to themselves, and ex-
posed themselves no more to the disasters of a civil M'ar, and
above all to the wrath of the king, who had now become too
strong an opponent for a community or even for a bishop.
Nor had the prelate of Beauvais much reason to congratulate
himself on the result of this quarrel. He had received, it is
true, eight thousand livres Parisis, and the people, in their
ill will, persuaded themselves that he employed this money
in building the towers of his episcoi)al palace and decorating
it with his arms and his image. But he had been condemned
to pay six thousand livres Parisis to the king os a punish-
ment for his disobedience; he was obliged by the judgment
of tiie arbitrators to give six liundred to the canons of
Beauvais, in compensation of the injury done to their houses
at the time of the fire perpetrated by his people in the city
of Beauvais; in fine, his own liouse bad been entirely laid
waste. Assuredly, he could have little left of the eight
thousand livre.? of the community. The king's treasury alone
was a gainer by this business: it bad sufi'ered no loss, and it

• LouTi't, t. li. p. 016

462 HISTORY OF

had gained ten thousand livres from the ccmmunity, and six
thousand from the bishop. The ascendancy of the royal
power over all the petty local authorities became so conspi-
cuous, that from that time no idea of its escaping its rn-
fluence was ever entertained at Beauvais. It was from the
king that they submissively sought the redress of all griev-
ances, and the decision of all differences: they never more
attempted to enforce it otherwise than by the humility oi
their language; and if mention was still made of their ancient
rights and old privileges, it was only from a sort of respect
for past times, and rather to ornament their obedience than
to dispute it.

This new disposition of men's minds was not long before
it found a public manifestation. In the spring of 1308, not
quite two years after the judgment which we have just cited,
the burgesses and the bishop finding themselves in contest
on several points of their old dispute, there was no longer
any talk of ringing the communal bell, or of putting the
city under interdict, much less of fighting in the streets; but
the affair was regularly and peaceably carried before the par-
liament of Paris, whose decree explains it very fully:

" Philip, by the grace of God, king of the French, to all
who shall see these letters, greeting: We make known that a
difference having arisen in our courts between the bishop of
Beauvais, on the one part, and the mayor and peers of
Beauvais, or. the other part, the said mayor and peers, in the
name of their community of the said city, alleged and main-
tained that they were in use and possession of the right of
appointing wardens or superintendents for the wool, yarn,
dyeing, and all matters connected with the making of cloth,
in the whole town of Beauvais; as also of punishing, reform-
ing, and causing to be observed by their jurisdiction all that
they thought necessary to be reformed in the matters and
things before mentioned. They further alleged that they
were in use and possession of the right of holding their
citizens, and all those of the said community, on whom ac-
cording to custom they had inflicted any fine for offences com-
mitted in the said fabrication, quit and exempt from all other
penalty to be imposed and levied by the said bishop, by
reason of the same offences. They also alleged that they
were in possession of the right of levying and taking the

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 463

monies customarily levied at Beauvais for making the roads,
And of employing the same at their will in repairing the
roads of the said city, without the bishop's having any power
to interfere in the levy of the said monies, or to change in
any manner their employment. And complaining that the
said bishop impeded and troubled them, in numberless ways
in the said matters, they prayed us to cause the said troubles
to cease, and to compel the said bishop to abstain from the
same. The said bishop on his part, and with reference to
the things aforementioned, claimed jurisdiction for his court,
and constantly maintained that he was in possession of all the
rights above mentioned, and which he had always used, de-
manding that for this reason his court should be returned to
him, and that the said mayor and peers should be examined
by him as under his jurisdiction. The said mayor and peers
maintained that the cognizance of the said affair ought to rest
witli our court. "Whereupon the said parties being diligently
heard, it was ordered, by decree of our court, that at the end
of the present session inquiry shall be made as to the posses-
sion, the usages, and all the facts above alleged by either
party. The inquiry being made into all things, the reasons
of the two parties heard, and privileges and charters pro-
duced upon the subject on the part of the said borough ex-
amined, it was pronounced by judgment of our court, that
the jurisdiction over all the said things ought to be given up
to the said bishop. In faith of which we have caused our
seal to be affixed to the present letters. Given at Paris, in
our parliament, the Thursday before Palm- Sunday, the year
of the Lord 1308."'

On this occasion, we see the parliament gave judgment in
favour of the bishop; still the borougli was not deterred from
addressing itself to that court, and there seeking justice
against the obstinate pi'etensions of its lord. Jean de Ma-
rigny, brother of the unhappy superintendent iMiguerrand,
recently promoted to the episcopal see, having in 1313,
following the example of his predecessors, resumed all the
disputes between him and the burghers, the latter did not
attempt to decide the quarrel by force, but, despite the
bishop, carried it before the parliament of Paris. I know

• Loysel, p. 311.

464 HISTORI Oj?

not whether it was by the influence of the superintendent,
or whether the parliament was sincere in its jurisprudence,
but the borough once again lost its cause.

" Philip, by the grace of God, king of the French, to all
those who shall see these present letters: we make known that
the mayor and the peers of the town of Beauvais have main-
tained in our court that the corporation, of the said town, and
the right of justice over the said corporation, belonged to us,
and that our well beloved and faithful bishop of Beauvais has
seized certain goods of the said borough, to the detriment of
the said borough and that of our right, for which reason they
have demanded that the said goods should be regained and
confided by us, as being suzerain, to the said mayor and
peers. The said bishop, on the other hand, calling himself
peer of France, and count and seigneur of Beauvais, has
maintained that the right of justice over the said borough be-
longed to him, and that he had justly caused the said goods
to be seized in virtue of a judgment of his court, seeing that
the said mayor and peers, summoned by the said bishop for
the defence of his fief and of the right of the church of Beau-
vais, had not complied with his mandate.

" Item. The said bishop complains that the said mayor and
peers had compelled a certain man of the said borough oi
Beauvais to undergo a chastisement, although this right, aa
be himself said, belongs to the said bishop and not to the said
mayor and peers; which thing, therefore, the aforesaid had
done in prejudice of the bishop of the church of Beauvais, al-
though they were bound to him by an oath of fidelity. The
said mayor and peers being thereupon duly called before the
court of the said bishop, had been declared contumacious by
the repeated judgment of the said court, and held convicted
according to the custom of the country, so that they owed re-
paration to the said bishop for all the things wherein the said
bishop made complaint and demand that his goods should be
given back to him, and the jurisdiction of the city restored
to him. The said mayor and peers, and our attorney, have
maintained, on the contrary, that for several reasons it
should not be so, and that the jurisdiction in the aforesaid
matters should remain unto us. The inquiry thereupon made
by order of our court, having been carefully examined, and
certain decrees of our court, and the documents produced by

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. i65

the parties having been considered, the judgment of our court
is, that the said goods should be restored to the bishop, and
that the cognizance of these two cases should be given to him,
saving, however^ the reasons and protests put in by the said
mayor, peers, and bor;*gh of Beauvais, as to the principal
fact, and saving also cur right in all things. In testimony
whereof we have affixed our sc"al to these presents. Done at
Paris, in parliament, the Wednesday before the Ascension,
the year of our Lord, I313.">

Defeated in this matter, the borough had its revenge in
1330, in a case before the bailiff of Senlis, in which the
bishop was not concerned, but in his place one of the king's
commissioners, who, though a native of Beauvais, claimed, in
virtue of his office, to be exempt from the poll-tax. Tlie
bailiff of Senlis did not concur with him, and condemned him
to fulfil all the obligations of a member of the borough, or to
leave it in the regular way. This judgment was given in
old French:

" To all who shall hear or see these presents, Jean de
Sempi, now bailiff of Senlis, wishes health. Let all know
that there has been brought before us a dispute between tha
mayor, peers, and jurats of the borough of Beauvais on tlie
one "part, and Henry de Saint Messien, sergeant of the king
for the provostry of Senlis, on the other part; the said mayor,
peers, and jurats say, and maintain, that tlie said Henry had
been and was their burgess, and liable to pay them taxes, and
that from time to time there had been assessed upon him va-
rious town taxes, amounting in tlie whole to sixteen livres, or
thereabout, whereupon they required tiiat the said Henry should
be condemned and constrained by Ui. to pay to the corpora-
tion the said sixteen livres, Parisis, of tuxes in arrear, with
interest thereon, and the costs of the said application to
us. On the oth^r hand, the said Henry affirmed and con-
tended that he was sergeant to the king, and thereby free
and exempt from all borough rates and taxes; and that he
and his predecessors had been long enough in office to create
the custom and to free and exempt t'loni all such taxes; adding
:)thor reasons why the said mayor, peers, and jurats should
.lot oblige him to pay the said taxes, and why he should be re-

' Loysel, p. iji,l
H U

466 HISTORY OF

lievcd from their pursuit. And hereupon both parties ap-
peared before us, and were sworn in the case, and i)ut in their
evidence; and comroissioners were next appointed by us, who
made full inquiry into the said matters, and reported there-
upon to us; and upon the conclusion of these inquiries, both
parties earnestly called upon us to pronounce judgment. TVe
having carefully considered the said proceedings and the said
inquiry, and taken counsel of learned ^iersons thereupon, say
and pronounce that the said mayor, peers, and jurats have
better proved their case than has the said Henry; and that
the said Henry is, has been, and ought to be, their burgess,
taxable by them, notwithstanding his sergeantry, and may
not exempt himself from the payment of any dues, more
than other citizens, and inust therefore pay the s,ud taxes,
and all arrears thereupon. In confirmation of whioh judg-
ment, we have sealed these present letters with our own seal,
iaving in this, and in all other things, the king's right. Given
at our comi; of Senlis, the Saturday after Low Sunday, in the
year 1330. Present, Maitre Guillaume de Balegny, advocate
in the parliament; Maitre Jacques du Change, canon of
Senlis; Sire Henri du Change, lieutenant of our said bailiff
Maitre Gautier de Moy; Guillaume de Hillers; Gerat de
Part, our clerk; Jean Loquet, clerk of the provost of Senlis;
Simon de la Ferte, royal advocate ; Jehan de Han, and several
others, besides the aforesaid parties."'

The burghers, it seems, were in a good vein of law-suits:
in 1331, the canons of Beauvais carried one against them
before the parliament of Paris, to complain of the mayor
and the peers, who had imposed some punishment upon de-
linquents claimed by the chapter as under their jurisdiction,
but the parliament did not find the mayor and peers guilty,
ttod taking as good their reason " that the exercise ot
right could not be unjust," acquitted them of the plaint ot
the canons. This must have been a great triumph for the
borough.

'■ Philip, by the grace of God, king of the French, to all
who shall see these presents, health. AVe make known that
the attorney and the dean of the chapter of Beauvais, com-
plaining in our court, have, entered an action against the

> Loysel, p. 343,

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 467

mayor, the peers, and the corporation of the city of Beauvak.
for 'that the said mayor and peers, abusing their privilege,
have, contrary to the articles of their charter, imposed
certain punishments, vulgarly called hachies, upon some
of the vassals under the jurisdiction of the said dean and
chapter; and this, as the attorney says, without leason-
able cause, but to the wrong, injury, and contempt of the
said dean and chapter, and which they had no right to do.
The charter of the borough being seen, the said dean and
chapter requested that our court would pronounce that the
mayor and peers have abused their privileges, and for that
cause ought to lose their borough, and be deprived of the
said privileges; and that if the court would not take the said
borough from them, that it would enjoin them no more to im-
pose such punishment upon the vassals, and those under the
jurisdiction of the said dean and chapter; and the said dean
and chapter propose many means of, and reasons for arriv
ing at that end. The mayor and the peers pretend, on the
contrary, that the cause cannot be tried or decided according
to the conclusions and ends to which the said attorney in-
clines; and that we could not decide against them upon that
foundation; for the said borough is subject to us, and was
founded by us and our predecessors: the said dean and chap-
ter are only its neighbours, and cannot decide against the
mayor and the peers, that they have abused their privileges,
and ought to be deprived of their borough; and our attor-
ney alone can, in the said case, decide thus against them.
They added that, neither with regard to the fine, could the
said attorney decide against them because of the fines im-
posed upon the vassals by the said dean and chapter, for
they were not their body men, and the exercise of right
could not pass for an injustice. They gave many other rea-
sons in support of their opinion.

" The parties l>eing heard, as well as the reasons stated on
either side, and attention given to the conclusions of the said
dean and chapter, our court rendered judgment to the effect
that they did not admit the conclusions at which the attorney
liad arrived. In testimony of which we had our seals allixed to
tlie jiresent letters. Given at Paris, in our parliament, tho
last day of February, in the year of the Lord Ki^l."'

' T.ovsel, p 315
H » 2

468 HISTORY OF

These burghers, who possessed so many privileges, who
«'.a'med and obtained by decree of justice rights, the exer-
cise of which appear to us in the present day so inherent in
the exercise of sovereignty, had not even actual possession of
their town hall and their markets; they were obliged to hold
them at a quit-rent of the bishop, and the latter might in-
terdict their use in case of delay of payment. The following
judgment is curious because of this contrast: —

" Appeared at Beauvais, before us, Guilbert Doublet, bai-
liff of Beauvais, in the last Tuesday but one in November,
1379, the attorney of Mons. de Beauvais, on the one hand,
and the mayor and peers of the town of Beauvais appear-
ing by Nicaise the bailiff, their attorney by procuration,
sealed with the great seal of the county of Beauvais; at
which cause were present the said Nicaise the bailiff, Jean
de la Croix, Raoul, Jean Jacques de Senlis, Clement de
Camberonne, Jean Derveil, and Cretofle du Puis, all and
each of them. The said Nicaise having put in his procura-
tion, the affair proceeded. The mayor and the peers of the
?aid corporation complained that possession had been taken
at the desire of Monseigneur de Beauvais, by Thomas Goumon,
cne of our sergeants, of the house called La Maison de la
V oulte, and of the hall in which the said mayor and peers
assemble to hold their meetings and to have their feasts,
which house and hall are held at a ground rent of the said lord
bishop, the Maison de la Voulte at a ground rent of six deniers
Beauvaisins per annum, payable in equal parts, at the
festival of St. Remy, and at Christmas, and the hall and
appurtenances at a rent of fourteen deniers Beauvaisins per
annum, payable at the same days, which said rents ought to
have been paid at the said terms, with the arrears thereupon,
from last St. Remy.

" The said taking possession was signified to the mayor
and peers Monday last past, by the sergeant at the hour of
ringing prime at the church of St. Pierre de Beauvais, as
tiie said sergeant states. The said attorney for the corpora-
tion admits to us, that the places named are held of the said
lord bishop at the rent stated, and he agrees that the said
rent ought to be and shall be paid by Guillaume le Grand-
Villiers and Thibault, treasurers of the said borough, namely,
twenty deniers Beauvaisins for the current rent, and seven

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 469

Bols six deniers for the arrear due last St. Remy. An?!
whereas the said attorney for the said lord bishop says that
there ought to be a further sum paid in respect of the said
arrears, the said corporation and its attorney say that if the
said bishop can show his right to more than these seven
sols six deniers Parisis, it shall be paid at some future
day, without prejudice; and thereupon the said mayor and
peers require of us that the said lord bishop shall no longer
hold possession of the said house and hall. Whereunto we
answered, that as since there had been possession in the
name of the said lord bishop, the said mayor and peers
had had several meetings in the said places; whereat, and for
other cause, the attorney of the said bishop had, in the name
of his lord, made several complaints against the said mayor
and peers and their officers, before the sergeant of the king our
lord, who, after having read the agreements and statements of
the two parties, remitted the matter to the lord king in his
parliament. And we answered that, touching the said com-
plaints and matters connected with them, we should not in
any way interfere. But we said that, with the consent of the
said bishop's attorney, and to us not to prejudice the case
before the parliament, we were ready, as far as we were con-
cerned, to raise the said possession. In witness whereof we
have put our seal to these presents."'

As is clearly seen, all was then terminated by the voice of
justice; no more recourse to force, no longer tliose energetic
and brutal prosecutions which characterise the communal life
of the middle ages. The citizens, as well as the authorities
of Beauvais, have entered into the regular and progressive
order of the French monarchy. Their town still possesses
great privileges; the bishop is still count of Beauvais, and
a peer of France; but the republican spirit has disappeared,
as well as the feudal spirit and the ecclesiastical arrogance;
prelates and burghers feel themselves subjects of the same
master, and only ask of the king of France good government
for the present, respect for the past. "We shall therefore no
longer encounter in the history of Beauvais those passionate
an I outrageous scenes, when the greatest social interests, the
lir.-t public powers, are at war in the streets of a small town,

» Loysel, p. ."n.

470 HISTORY OF

obscure in the history of the country. The old subject of
di^ag^cement still subsists; for, in 1617, the question of the
right of justice is still pending in the parliament of Paris;
but these affairs are pursued with little noise, according to the
monotonous foi*ms of justice, and tlieir discussion has so little
effect, that the historians of Beauvais neglect even to make
us acquainted with its vicissitudes.

The borough, however, did not cease to exist; and it was
not that institution which lost most by the extension of the
royal power. Not only did it by that institution gain the
repose, the internal order so necessary to industry, to its com-
merce, but it had to do, in the person of the king, with a
suzerain less jealous of the petty burgher liberties than a
bishop who was more nearly concerned, more trammelled by
those liberties, and whose predecessors had spent their lives
in combating them. The town even saw its privileges ex-
tended, in recompence for its good conduct in the wars against
the English. Two annual fairs had been granted it in 1360,
with all franchise and liberties for the persons and goods of
those who repaired thither. The inhabitants of Beauvais,
who, in 1350, had been placed under the particular safeguard
of the king; were, in 1472, exempted from all taxation, and in
the same year received the valuable right of being able to
possess the fiefs of the nobility, without being obliged, for that
reason, to pay indemnity, or even to go or to send to war —
the keeping and defence of Beauvais being held as sufficient
military service. Louis XI. further granted them, as nobles,
exemption from various impositions. Charles IX., in 1572,
confirmed all the liberties of the borough. Lastly, Henry
IV., in recompence for the fidelity of the people of Beauvais
towards the crown of France, engaged himself, by letters
patent of 1594, to give them no governor, to hold no fortress
or citadel in their town, and never to place any garrison
there.

These great and lucrative favours might very well console
the burghers of Beauvais for having their right of peculiar
justice eclipsed by the jurisdiction of the parliament of Paris,
the power of their mayor to levy taxes restrained by the
assessors charged with that function in the name of tlie king,
and finally the keeping of the town shared by a captain nomi-
nated by the king. But the bishop, whose seigneurial rights

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 471

tad suffered more than those of the borough, whose temporal
jurisdiction the parliament daily contracted; who saw the
establishment at Beauvais, in opposition to his ancient pri-
vileges, of" a hall for royal coinage; who daily found himself in-
terrupted in the exercise of his power by that swarm of judi-
cial and financial officers with whom royal policy had covered
France; the bishop, I say, had not received the same recom-
pence for so many losses as the borough had; he lost at
least as much as it, and gained nothing. What privileges
could have added to the rights of a bishop of the middle ages?
what exemptions could have compensated for the declining
power of a high baron?

One consolation offered itself to the bishops of Beauvais:
their ancient and perpetual enemies had suffered like themselves ;
for a long period there had been no mention of castellans; be-
tween the aggrandisement of the borough and the strengthen-
ing of the royal power, those seigneurs once so formidable had
been completely crushed; their very pretensions had vanished;
there scarcely remained a shadow of their influence and func-
tions. But it was not thus with the chapter of Beauvais:
every day more independent of the bishop, it had even
attempted to dominate over him; and in this struggle, the
advantage did not always rest with the episcopal authority;
the right of excommunication, given by Ansel to the chapter,
was a terrible weapon which canons could use against all, and
especially against their bishops. In 1109, bishop Godfrey
disputed possession of an estate with them; the chapter put
an interdict upon him. In 1 145, Henri de Blargies, provost
of the bishop Robert, having resorted to acts of violence
against tlie canons, the chapter put an interdict upon him, and
the bishop was obliged to give way; his provost was delivered
to the chapter, dragged ignominiously out of Beauvais in a
cart of dung, and sent to the Holy Land. The same thing
happened in 1266, and the bishop was obliged to implore tlie
indulgence of tlie canons, supplicating them to raise tlie inter-
dict, and to pardon his officers. The same in 1*272, and again
in 1281. Accordingly, in 13oo, the threat of interdict sufiiced
for the chapter; the bishop gave way before it was put in exe-
cution. We have seen, in the great quarrel of 1232, to what
humiiitios of language a bishop was constrained to descend if
he wished to obtain the co-operatiou of his haughty associates

472 HISTORY OP

against his enemies. There was no longer any means of
retaining them under that jurisdiction for which the suzerain
lords of Beauvais so long disputed. Fortified within its fierce
independence, the chapter defied the count and the bishop.
No one could judge one of its members except itself: it had
its interdicts; at need, it had the arms of its vassals against the
least encroachment upon its rights.

One may easily imagine then with what secret joy the
bishops of Beauvais saw these inconvenient neighbours yield
to the royal authority, and how favourably they regarded
those decrees of parliament which accomplished what neither
canons nor ecclesiastical mandates had effected. In default of
their own, they rejoiced to behold the hand of royalty fall
heavily upon the delinquent canons; and it must have been a
day of great consolation to them when they saw the canons
condemned, in 1614, by a decree of the provost and parlia-
ment of Paris, to proclaim in their church an interdict issued
by the bishop.

As to the putting it on themselves, the canons had long
tacitly renounced this; the imperious progress of order and
regularity allowed not of such exceptions, such extravagances;
they renounced it without avowing it, but still they re-
nounced it. The bisho{) and the chapter from that time
therefore re-entered the ordinary paths of ecclesiastical power,
and they no longer concern us.

The borough, less a stranger than the chapter to royal
authority, and the administrative progress, also preserved its
individuality more obstinately, and we almost every year
find some traces of its existence and privileges. It would
be wearisome to expatiate upon all these circumstances; but
we may be permitted to cite some few, wherein will be seen
the continuance of the communal life and of the municipal
spirit in Beauvais.

In 1472, the monks of Saint Lazare, appointed to the ad-
ministration of the hospital of Beauvais, were suppressed; a
great dispute arose as to who should receive the administra-
tion. The great almoner, the bishop of Beauvais, and the
chapter, disputed for it; the mayor and the peers claimed it
as representatives of the borough; a hundred years, and I
know not how many decrees of parliament, were required to
terminate this afiair, which ended, like almost all affairs of the
kind, in a composition.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 473

(

In 1488, the episcopal see of Beauvais became vacant, and
the choice of a successor was the source of a thousand in-
trigues. The party whose interest it was to delay the elec-
tion, employed bribes, promises, even threats, to deter the
chapter from proceeding in it; but the bourgeoisie was im-
patient of the delay, as well as of its causes, and the
mayor and peers resolved to remedy it; they posted sentinels
at the gates and roads of the town, interdicted even the entry
to Beauvais of all chance comers, assuring the chapter against
all fear; and the election took place.

In 1568, the mayor and peers claimed before the king's
officers, as against the bishop and chapter of Beauvais, the
execution of the ordinance of Orleans, enacting that a pre-
bend' in each chapter should be appropriated to the mainte-
nance of a master charged with gratuitously instructing the
poor and the children of the town; they succeeded in their
application.

In lo83, a commissioner of aids, coming to Beauvais to
collect a newly imposed subsidy, refused to lay down at the
gate the arms of tlie town which he bore; the people, shocked
at the violation of its privileges, angrily collected: in the
confusion occasioned by the crowd, some persons were
knocked down: the spectators cried out that the gate-keepers
were being killed. The rumour of this went through the
town, and 2000 persons in arms almost immediately col-
lected at the Porte de Paris, and the commissioner would
have been massacred with all his people, but for the prudence,
the courage, the coolness of some citizens, who interposetl,
and rescvjed him from his perilous position.

In 1617, the chapter, in the name of the bishop, whose
powers it was exercising during the vacancy of the see,
sanctioned the establishment at Beauvais of the Minim friars;
the consent of the mayor and peers was in like manner applied
for, whereupon these convoked a general assembly at the town
hall, that the people might give its assent.

We have the same fact, in 1626, with reference to a convent
o^ I'rsiilines; the only ditferenee was, that on this ocension 'the
consent of the mayor and pe* rs of Beauvais h.'.d been pre-
ceded by letters patent of Louis XIII.. which, however, did
not HMuler that consent superfluous.

I might produce many more such facts, but tlio.-e I Iiavp

474 HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE.

given suffice. I have followed, step by step, the history of a
French borough from the eleventh to the seventeenth century.
Upon this so limited theatre, you have seen the various phases
of the burgher spirit; energetic, brutal in its origin; obstinate
in the defence of its privileges; prompt to accept, and skilful
in supporting distant and superior powers, in its desire to
escape the oppression of neighbouring and subaltern powers;
changing its language, and even its pretensions with the pro-
gress of the changes in society and in government; but always
persevering, intelligent, and with a thorough perception how
to turn the general progress of civilization to its own profit.
Thus was formed the third estate. Dating from the twelfth
century, it is no longer in the charters or in the internal inci-
dents of towns that we must seek the history of its destinies;
these march onward in a sphere far more vast and moi*e lofty;
they have become the destinies of France.

INDEX,

Abailard appealed to by his pupils for
philosophical arguments for religious
doctrines, i. I'i3.

Abbaconites, ii. 323.

Absence of means of permanent power
under the feudal system, i. 7(J.

Absolute ix)\ver, incorrigible evil and
infallible effect, of, 262; progress of
under Philip le Bel, iii. 276.

Adoptians, heresy of, ii. 317.

Agricultural population in Gaul, state
of from fourth to fourteenth century,
iii. \i'>, el teq. ; not materially changed
by the invasion, lA.,- improvement in
its condition, HO ; texts illustrating
this improvement, ib., etteg.

Alaric, contents of the collection of laws
made by, ii. 8.

Aleuin clio»en as representative of the
intellectual movement of his time,
ii. 230 ; meeting of, with Charlemagne,
233 ; consequences. il>. ; his occupa-
tions under Charlemagne, 2.'!4;
restoration of ancient manuscripts by,
i7>.; revisal of the sacreil writings by,
•2'.]'} ; ancient manuscripts, ardour for
the ri'prcxluction of, caused by the
labours of, 23ti ; list of some of the
distinguislied auditors of, at the
School of the I'altice, 23 S; review of
the letters of. to Clmrlemagne, 2t8
— 24ii ; letters of, 2 17; retires to
the at>lipy of St. Martin of Tours. iV-.,
his activity of lite there. i7/.; letter
to Charlemagne, refusing to attend
bim to Home, i7'.; his death, 2ts;
account of his worlds, 24S, 2.'i2 ;
suniniary of his character, 2.'>.'i.
.Mexaiulrian Xcoplatonism and Cliris-
tianity, two essential differences be-
tween, ii. 2S1.

Alfred, his attempted reviral of ci^ 1'j2»'
tion in England,!. 60.

Alliance of philosophy and history one
of the characteristics of the present

• day, i. 64.

Allodium, meaning of, as contradistin-
guished from benefirium, iii. 22.

Ambrose, Saint, bishop of Milan, his
works, i. 3-oS

America, discovery of, by Christopher
Columbus, i. 211.

Ammianus Marcellinus referred to, i.
416.

Ancient peoples often merely confedera-
tions of towns, i. 28.

Angesise, his collections of canons, ii.
212.

Anglo-Saxons, conversion of the, by Gre-
gory the Great, ii. 173; missionaries,
employed by the ])opes, 174.

Aniinic Ve liatioite, account of and ex-
tracts from this work, ii. 2.^1.

Apostles, the first instruments in the
foundation of Christianity, i. 324.

Arabs, peculiar character of their inva-
sion, i. b'.i.

Archbishoi)s, institution of. ii. 46.

Archdeacons, institution of, ii. 4 6.

Arrhiciipelhmui, gradual assumption of
imiKirtance by the. ii. 32.

Archiepiscopal system, decay of the, il.

4S.
Aniobius. his opinion. " that that which

is ethereal immortal, cannot feel

pain." i. 314.
AristcK-racy, true meaning of the term,

i. 310; birth of the territorial,

44S.
Aristocratic institutions, progress of,

ill. ::{.
ArijUxrutic |)rinciple, prevalence of the,

476

INDEX.

in the Gaulo-Franklsh church ; its de-
cay, ii. 163 ; prevalence of the, in
Gaulo-Frankish state after the inva-
sion, 165.
Aristocratic spirit, predominant in the
Roman cities, iii. 331; good and
evil of this spirit, ib.

Aries, council of, in 472, i. 387 ; that of
813, its canons, 318.

Art, its share in the civilization of na-
tions, i. 6.

Ascetes, or first forms of monks, described,
ii. 61. ■

Assemblies in the eighth century, i. 444.

Assises de Jerusalem, quoted in illustra-
tion of the obligations of vassalage,
iii. 157.

Athanacum established at Lyons, i. 398.

Attila to Theodosius, embassy of, narra-
tive of, ii. 415.

Augustin, St., called upon to maintain
the general systems of the doctrines of
the church, i. 381; death of, in 430,
386.

Ausonius, the poet, characterized, i. 340.

Austregesilus, St., passage from the life
of, ii. 135.

Austria, the house of, elevates itself, and
becomes dominant in Europe, i. 215.

Auxilia, a service due from vassals to
their suzerain, iii. 102.

Avitus, St., sketch of his life, h. 146 ; list
of his poems ; resemblance to Milton,
147 ; his poems reviewed, 147 — 156 ;
extracts, with analogous passages from
Paradise Lost, 148—156.

Bacon and Descartes, the authors of the
greatest philosophical revolution the
world has undergone, i. 217.

Bailiffs, use and nature of their ofHce,
iii. 277.

Bands, distinguished from tribes, ii. 41.

Barante, M. de, his Histoire det dues de
Bourgogne, i. 148.

Barbaric royalty, government of Charle-
magne did not resemble it, iii. 70.

Barbarism, prevalent character of, iii.
105, 196.

Barbarous epoch, its true character re-
vealed by the simultaneous preten-
sions of the different principles of civi-
lization to a predominance tlierein, i.
49 ; confusion and instability of insti-
tions during, 51.; characterized, ib. ;
condition of individuals during, i4.

Barbarous invasion, proofs of its lonf
duration after the fall of the Romaa
empire, i. 52, 53 ; arrested, 60.
Barbarous society, difficulty of ascertain-
ing its character ; reason of that dif-
ficulty, i. 39.
Bavon, St., passage from the Life of, ii.

128.
Benedict, St., history of, ii. 72 — 74 ; re-
preliension and reformation of monkish
irregularities by, ii. 73, 74; his rules
of monastic life, 74 — SO ; introduction
of perpetual vows by, 78; peculiar
political institutions given to monas-
teries by, 79, 80 ; good sense and mo-
deration of his rules, 80 ; rapid spread
of his rule, 80, 81 ; his instructions
concerning tlie admission of priests
into monasteries, 87, 88.
Benedict d'Aniane at the council ot

Francfort, ii. 316.
Benedict the deacon, his collection oi

canons, ii. 213.
Benedictine monks, agriculturists, ii. 75;
passive obedience of to tlieir supe-
riors, 77 ; personal property not per-
mitted to, 78.
Beaumanoir, text from, with regard to

feudal judgment, iii. 175.
Beauvais, history of, and ordinances re-
specting, iii. 390; murder of Henaud,
898; letter of tlie peers of, to
Suger, 405 ; plaint of the chapter of,
against the bishop, 413: inquiry into
the disturbances caused by an irregu-
lar nomination of a king's officer, 418
— 427 ; decree relating to the parlia-
ment of Paris, 429.

bishop of, right of, to use

the citizens' horses, 241; decree of
the bishop concerning, ib.; decree of
parliament concerning it, 444 ; appeal
of, against the interdict of Simon de
Nesle, 448; enumeration of tlie com-
plaints of the borough and bishop of,
452 ; accusations brought against tlie
borough by the bishop, 457 ; judgment
of the arbitrators concerning, 458; a
judgment of the bailiff of, 468.
Benefices, different kinds of, iii. 22 ; legal
condition of, 23 ; theories of the politi-
cal liistorians respecting them, 23 ; the
tlieory of their revocability, a fallacy,
24 ; their instability, 25.
Benefices, various texts illustrative of the
popular opinion respecting their fixity,

INDEX.

477

ill. 25 ; their permanent character, 26 ;
second stage of their progress, I'A. ;
tlieir third stage, 28 ; texts illustrating
that stage, viz. '.jat of lite duration,
29.
Benefices, temporary, mention of a spe-
cies of, iii. 28.
— — — liereditary, appear at all
epochs, iii. 29 ; necessity for tliis, ib.;
illustrative texts, 30 ; period at which
they became universally hereditary,
82 ; causes of this, ib.
Btneficia., necessity of studying the his-
tory of the, in order to study that of
the /forfo, iii. 22; difference between
beneficium and allodium, ib.
Beneftcium indicated the same condition
of territorial property, as, at a later
period, was expressed by feodum, iii
21 ; these two words synonymous, ib.
Bertin, Chronique de Saint, extract from,
concerning the return of the crown to
the Carlovingian race, iii. 205.
Bishops, position of, in their dioceses
in the fifth century, i. 327 ; the start-
ing point of ecclesiastical organization,
ii. 45 ; causes of their independence of
the clergy, 52 ; the sole administrators
of church property, 53 ; power of,
over parish priests, 64 ; hicreased po-
litical importance of, strengthened
their religious dominion, ib. ; erect
fortifications, iii. 83.
Boniface, St., sketch of the life of, ii. 175 ;
oath taken by him upon his nomina-
tion, ib.; his statement of the decrees
of the first German council held under
his presidence, 17»;; extract from
letter addressed by him to pope Za-
cfiarias, 177; his retirement from
tlie bishopric of Mayence, and death,
17S.
Boroughs first occupy a place in his-
tory in the 11th century, i. 125;
of the i2th an<l 18th centuries con-
trasted, liM! — 128; two keys to the
history of, 129; condition of, down
to tlie Ifith century, 143; causes of I
their want of inttuonce in the state,
143, 144; diversity in their his-
tories, 144; the great ones created
by the cru.Mados, 159; opi>osition of!
the, and feudalism, 189, 190; origin [
of, iii. 29", 298; instances of their
military service, 299 ; Koman, their
origin, review of, 305 ; oiirercoces in i

the internal organization of, ib.; cor-
porate, their formation as such, 316.

Boroughs of the middle ages do not re-
semble the Roman cities, iii. 326 ; or-
ganization of the, 333 ; those in
southern France more aristocratic
than those in northern France, 334;
distinction between those of France
and those of Italy, 335 ; destiny of in
Italy, 338 ; way in which most bo-
roughs formed themselves, 341; ex-
ample of the intervention of royalty
in, given in a charter of the abbey of
St. Kiquier, ib. ; first cause of the de-
cline of, 338; second cause, 340;
third cause, 848 ; necessity for the in-
tervention of royalty, 344 ; disappear-
ance of many at the end of the 13th
and beginning of the 14th century,
345 ; examples of, ib. ; public collec-
tions of ordinances relating to, first
appear under St. Louis and Philip le
Bel, 348.

Bourgeoitie, nowhere so completely de-
veloped as in France, iii. 292 ; origin
of, 300.

Bourges, sketch of the history of, iii. 306.

Bovines, account of the public rejoicings
after the battle of, iii. 240.

Bray, Nicholas de, his description of the
entrance of Louis VIII. into Paris, iii.
241.

Brfriarium Alaricanum, the, collected
by Alaric, i. 486 ; interpretation of,
ii. 8, 9.

Aniani, collected by command of

Alaric, ii. C, 7.

Brosse, Pierre tie la, his trial and exe-
cution, iii. 279.

Brussel, mistake of, regarding the mean-
ing of the woni/'/, iii. 20.

Burghers, sources of the influence of the,
upon modem civilization, i. 129; the
class of, described, 137.

Burpundians, establishment of the, in
Gaul, i. 434; establishment of the
Frank and Visigoth kings, iii. 98;
law of the, not the same with that
of the Franks, i. 485; lioman law
among the, ii. II.

Cabai., character of the, and of the
English government, fh)m l(i67—
lt;79, i. 244.

Canons sent in 747 to Pepin, by Pope
Zachary, ii. 312 ; in 774, by Adrian I.

478

iNDEX.

to Charlemagne, ib.; of the church,

collections of, 839.

Capetian kings, their importance not so
Uttle as is supposed, iii. 207 ; their in-
activity has been greatly exaggerated,
210; causesof this, ib.

Capet, Hugh, crowned at Reims, iii. 206 ;
abdicates the ab'ootships of Saint Ger-
main and Saint Denis, ib.; his appro-
priation of the Christian character of
royalty, 207.

Cape of Good Hope, discovery of the,
i. 211.

Capitation Tax, vexations of, iii. 131

Capitularies, the term not applied only
to the laws of Charlemagne, ii. 212 ;
list of the capitularies of the descend-
ants of Charlemagne, ib. ; two different
collections of, 212; Baluze's edition of
these and other collections, 213 ; erro-
neous notions concerning the meaning
of the word, 214; analysis of Baluze,
215 ; attempted classification of his
contents, ib. ; extracts from Baluze,
ib., et seq.

of Charlemagne, Louis le De-

bonnaire, Charles le Chauve, Louis le
Begue, Carloman, Eudes, and Charles
le Simple, comparative analytical
table of the, ii. 303.

Carloman, analytical table of the capitu-
laries of, ii. 300 ; capitulary decreed
by, in 743, 323.

Carlovingian kings, the accession of,
marks a crisis in religious society,
ii. 17.

Carlovingians, character of the revolu-
tions which substituted the, for the
Merovingians, ii. 1C2.

Cassienus the monk, 1. 354.

Caste, the doniinicai of a victorious, the
organizing principle of some ancient
civilizations, i. 22 ; essentially heredi-
tary, has therefore no existence among
the Christian clergy, 93,

Castle, description of one, in the Mid-
dle Ages, iii. 8G, 87.

Celebrated men of the time of Charle-
magne, table of, ii. 347.

Celibacy of priests an obstacle to the
establishment of a theocracy, i. 182,
183.

Cenobitef, or fourth form of monastic in-
stitutions, ii. fi2.

Central government, organization of, ii.
493.

Centralization of government, attempt*
at, by Philip Augustus, iii. 232.

Centialization. advantages of, to Frar.c*
iii. 354.

Cesaire, St. life of, sketched,' ii. 105; ex-
tracts from the writings of, 106.

Charles XII., expedition of, against Eus-
sia, i. 256.

Charlemagne, his endeavours to revive
civilization in France ; the revival of
civilization the leading motive of all
his actions, i. 59, 60 ; erroneous no-
tions prevalont as to what was really
effected by him, ii. 183 ; apparent eva-
nescence of his greatness, ih.; eventful
character of his period compared with
the preceding period, 185 ; he may be
considered under three principal points
of view, 186 ; table of his wars, 186
—188; character and results of his
wars, 188 — 191 ; how far he succeeded
in his attempt to found a great system
of administration, 191 ; his govern-
ment of the provinces, 192 ; his miin
dominici, ib.; his central government,
93 ; table of the general assemblies
convoked under him, ib. ; curious docu-
ment of Hincmar concerning those
assemblies, 194 — 196 ; Charlemagne
himself their centre, 196 ; table of the
capitularies of, 197, 198 ; activity the
characteristic of his government, 199 :
table of the acts and documents which
remain of his epoch, 199, 200 ; the
central government wmch lie esta-
blished could not long survive him,
201 ; the effect of his local govern-
ment remained, ib.; influence of, in
the intellectual order; difficulty of es-
timating it, 202 ; table of the cele-
brated men born, or who died under
his reign, 203, 347 ; vast permanent
change effected by in western Europe,
207 ; character of this change, 207,
208 ; failure of his attempt to re-
establish the Roman empire, 208, 209;
analytical table of his capitularies,
220, 221 ; moral legislation of, 221—
223 ; political legislation of, 223 : pe
nal legislation of, 225 ; civil legislatioa
of, ib.; religious legislation of, 226 ;
canonical legislation of, ib. ; domestic
legislation of, 227 , occasional legisla-
lation of, ib. ,■ his endeavours to at-
tract learned foreigners into his states,
231 ; ordinance of, conccrrang tli»

INDEX.

479

restoration of ancient manuscnpts,
284 ; revisal of the four gospels by,
286 ; progress and causes of the dis-
memberment of his empire, 275 ; table
of the dismemberment, 277 ;. address
of, to pope Leo III. (695 — 816,)
334; concessions of, to the pope, ib.;
letter of, to pope Leo III. in 799,
887; popularity of the traditions con-
cerning him, iii. 282.
Charles II. enters the career of absolute

power, 1. 245.
Charles le Bel, judgment of, in a dispute
between the provost of the town of
Niort and the town itself, iii. 860. .
Chwlesle Chauve, capitulary of, in 877,
ii. 279, 298 ; false idea of, given by
history, 371.
Cliarles le Simple, analytical table of

the capitularifj of, ii. 301.
Charters, example of the, sometimes
granted by the bisliops to the monas-
teries, ii. 95 ; to towns of France, list
of several, iii. 315.
Cheraliert da Arenei, /.M, account of this

institution, iii. 85.
Chivalry, origin of, i. 81 ; limits of its
career, iii. 5 ; meaning of its cere-
monies, 104; origin of, according to
Sismondi, 105; true origin of, 107;
ceremonies of, and oaths taken upon,
entering the order of, 108 — 111 ; old
ballad upon, 112; rapid decay of, 117;
anecdote concerning, from M. 3Ion-
teil, ib. ; testimony of king John con-
cerning, 118.
Chore'piscnpi, institution of, ii. 45.
Christianity, long period of time between
the intro<Iuction of, and its etl'ccts
upon tlie social state, i. 14 ; its condi
tion at thi' end of tlie fourtli and be-
ginning of the fiftli century, 33 ; pre-
8orve<l by the churcti, amid tlie ruin
of the Konian en)])ire, 34; invested
with moral inlluincc, not political
jiowcr, 1x0, isi.
Christian literature in Gaul, charac-
terized, i. i!.')(i.
■ i^cx'iety, dilferonce in the intel-
lectual n.<peot of, i. ^y\.
theology, sitateOf in Gaul, ii. 3fiO.

Chro<legaiicl, bi.-^liop of Metz in the year
7(!0, ii. :!i;!.

Ohurcli, the Cliristinn, its earliest and
sinipicst condition, i. 3.i : its passage
through three essentially ditferent

states, 85 ; second condition of, ib.,
third condition of, separation of the
government from the body of the
faithful, I*.; the power acquired by
it through the part which it took in
civil aflairs, and its consequent in-
fluence Dpon civilization, 37 ; origin
of the separation of temporal and
spiritual power, 38 ; early appearance
of unwholesome principle in it, lA.;
the three grand benefits conferred by
it in the fifth century up)on European
civilization, ib. ; its endeavours in the
fifth century to establish the theo-
cratic principle, and its alliance with
temporal princes, upon its failure, 39 ;
attempt of to revive civilization in
Spain, 58 ; completely organized in
the fifth century, contrast in this
respect between the church and the
other elements of European civiliza-
tion, 84 ; considered under these as«
pects, 85 ; its government, value, and
necessity, discussed, 86 ; its progress,
94 ; reasons for the power and popu-
larity of, 95 ; dangerous situation of,
at the fall of the Roman empire ;
means taken to avoid the danger,
99 ; relations of, with the barbarian
sovereigns, ib. ; usurpation of the tem-
poral power by; causes of that usur-
pation, 100 ; radical vice of the rela-
tions of, with the people, 105 ; influ-
ence of the laity upon its government,
not quite extinguished in the twelfth
century, IOC ; limited effects of, as re-
gards the development of the indiviihial
109 ; its influence in ameliorating the
social condition and in the atolition of
slavery, 110; improvement of legisla-
tion by, 110, 111 ; effect of the situa-
tion oif, upon the development of the
modern world, 114, 115 : evil effects
of, in a jwlitical point of view ; two
political systems defended by, 115;
account of the condition of, between
the 6th and (ith centuries, 118,
119; iti* fall into, and condition in the
Hth century, IIU; two great facts
which developeil themselves in the
bosom of these barbarisms. 119, 120 ;
rfl'ects of the death of Charlemagne,
and the fall of his empire upon the,
I'-'l : its endeavours to obtain unity
under feudaJi^ni ; their failure, lA. ;
the theocratical or niouaittical, create*!

480

INDEiL.

by Gregory VII., 122 ; resistance of the
feudal nobility to tlie, 181 ; false ideas
concerning the unity of the Roman,
corrected, 183 ; its state in the 12th and
13th centuries, 184 ; external situation
of, and its relations with civil society,
320 ; general government of, in the
5th century, entirely episcopal, 327;
three great features which characterize
the state of, in the 5th century, 330 ;
situation of, at the time of the estab-
lishment of the barbarians, 448 ; his-
tory of, from the 6th to the 8th cen-
tury, to be studied under two points
of view; first, in her relations with the
states, 2ndly, in her peculiar and in-
ternal constitutions, ii. 19 ; remarkable
unity of, ib.; valuable results of that
unity, ib. ; from the 4 th century, the
idea of unity predominated in the, 20;
idea predominating in, from the ear-
liest times, 21 ; liberty of intellect
wantingin the early, jJ. ; her relations,
at different epochs, with the state, 27 ;
two facts observable with regard to
the, in the 6th century, 28 ; of the
west, under the barbaric kings; how it
differed in its relations with the state,
from its condition under the empire,
30 ; acquisition of civil power by, 33 ;
internal organization of, from tlie 6th
to the 8th century, 35; condition of,
at the commencement of the Sth cen-
tury, 58 • comparative leniency of the
treatment of its labourers, iii. 138.

Civil and religious societies, a remark-
able similarity exists between them in
their origin and primitive states, ii. 18.

Cities of the ancients, great differences
between them and the boroughs of the
middle ages as to internal administra-
tion, iii. 329 ; the great characteristic
difference between them, 331.

Citizens, humility of the, in the 12th and
' subsequent centuries ; its cause, i. 1 3 9 ;
energy of the, 140.

Civilization, a fact, i. 5 ; difficulty of re-
lating it, ib. ; variety of questions
to which its consideration gives rise,
ifj. ; its history is the greatest of all
liistories, ib. ; the extent to wliich it
gives value to all other facts, 6 ;
popular meaning of the term, 8 ;
etymology of the word, 9 ; exten-
sive bearings of the term, 10; illus-
trations of ita meaning, 11; the ne-

I cessity cfcombinmg the two elements
. of the development of the social
' state and of the individual man, 12;
( general conviction of mankind <,on-
j ceming the close connexion of its
I two elements, 13; two methnda of
treating the history of, 17 ; ancient,
seem each of them to have emanated
from some single fact or idea, 22 ;
modem, we must beware of forming
too favourable an opinion of its per-
fection, 19; of the Egyptians, Etrus-
cans, Greeks, 22 ; Greek, results of
its unity of principle, 23 ; the crea-
tive force of its principle soon ex-
hausted, ib. ; Egyptian, the unity of
its principle the cause of its stationary
condition, ib. ; of the different tribes
engaged in the conquest of the em-
pire, about the same in degree, 39 ;
modern, indebted to barbarous society
for the sentiment of individual inde-
pendence and personal liberty ; also,
for the principle of military patronage,
41; its constitutive facts, 267; Eng-
lish, especially directed towards so
cial perfection, 274; Germany, de-
velopment of in, slow and tardy,
27(i; the fundamental character of
its continues" and universal progress
denied to Spain, 278; second great
epoch in the history of France, ii. 182;
modern civilization in general and
French in particular; fundamental
elements of, 395 ; modern, disorderly
and indeterminate fermentation of the
different elements of, 405.
Clan, existence of the, in the ancient

Germanic states, iii. 132.
Claudienus, Mamertius, extracts from

his productions, i. 403.
Clergy, their civil influence in the fifth
century, i. 36 ; tlireefold character of
tlie chiefs of, in the 10th century; its
effect in causing the clergy to aim at
universal rule, 102 ; separation of the,
and the Cliristian people, 103 ; effects
of the dispersion of, 108 ; between
the Sth and Sth centuries, the, con-
tained two orders, ii 44 ; subdivision
of tliese, ib.; decline of the, 62; epi».
copal organization of, into chapters,
313.
Clovis, death of, i. 475.
Codes Regularum, a body of law fof tSM
monastic society, ii. 310.

INDEX.

481

Uoercion interdicted in the government of

th'> religious societies, i. 91.
— claims made by the church to the

right of, deplorable consequences of,
L 102.

Colbert and Louvois, the greatest men
under Louis XIV., i. 2C0.

Colomban, St., life of, ii. 113; struggle
between, and Theodoric of Rurgundy,
114; the writings of characterized i
extract, 117.

Coloni, their hard condition, iii. 126 ;
compensatory advantages of their po-
sition, 129 ; mode of belonging to this
class, 131 ; origin of its formation, ib.;
texts illustrative of their condition,
13!> ; the oppressions under which they
laboured, 141 ; their resistance, 142;
erroneously confounded with the serfs,
143 ; they were to a certain extent
efficaciously distinct, 144 ; those of the
church, privileges of, 147 ; improve-
ment in their condition, ib. ; acquire
fleft, ib.; illustrations of their improve-
ment, 14S.

Colonies, foundation of the great, and
the most active development of the
commercial system, i. 217.

Commons, House of, formation of a na-
tional and patriotic party in the, un-
der Charles II., i. 244.

Commons, great movement for the en-
francliiscnients of the, at the com-
mencement of the 12th century, i.
279.

Compass, discovery of the, i. 211 ; date of,
i. 476.

Conjuratnre.t, OT\f[\n of the. i. 4 70,

Constable of France, liis duties and po-
sition in the feudal periwl, iii. 100.

Constantinc, the emperor, pre,«ent in
person at the council of Aries, in 314 ;
and at that of Nicea, in S'.'.'i, i. 321.

Coiistantinus Augustus, his mandate to
Volusianu.s in 321, i. 3.'>(i.

Constantinople, the taking of, by the
Turks, till" fall of the Kastem empire,
and the flight into Italy of the Greek
fugitives, i. 210.

Cooper's Novels, considered as pictures
of the condition and manners of the
savages of North America, i. 430.

Cor^iorntions, result of an inquiry into
the ditferent kinds of, iii. 301.

Cortes of Spain and rortugal, i. 192. ,
VOL. III. I I

Councils, list of the principal, in the 4th
and 5th centuries, i. 338, 339 ; fi-equeut
holding of, in the 5th century, i. 338 ;
of Orange, in 441, canons of, 339 ; of
Carthage, in 418, condemns Pelagiu.s,
384; of Constance in 1414, 206; of
Basle, failure of its attempts at reform,
207 ; two sat at Carthage and Mile-
vun concerning Pel»gianism, 384 ; of
Lyons, in 473, against the predestir.a-
rians, 387; of Orange and Valencia, in
529, against Pelagianism, 388 ; and
canonical legislation of Gaul, 4th and
10th centuries, table of, 4*8 ; legislation
of general, 4th — 8th century, ii. 24 ;
consent of kings necessary to the con-
vocation of, 31 ; of Toledo and Uraga,
&c., decrees of the, against bishops,
55 ; table of tlie, which met under the
Carlovingian race, 312.

Critical spirit, unfavourable to a just ap-
preciation of the poetical periods of
history, iii. 10.

Crusades, characteristics of the, i. 149; the
heroic event of motlern Europe, 150;
moral and social cau.ses of the, 151 ;
different characters of the chronicles
of the first and last, 153; effects of
the, upon European civilization, 154;
summary of the effects of, ICO.

Crusading movement, cessation of, 150;
causes, 151.

Coutume de Beauraisin, quotation from,
regarding the relations of vassal and
suzerain, iii. lO'!; texts from, referring
to di'ffaute de droit, 17ti.

Curiiiles, their functions and duties,
306.

Cromwell, Oliver, his efforts to constitute
a parliament to his views, i. 24 1; his
intelligent respect for the monuments
of the past, iii. 14.

DEMornATicAi, pretensions to the origi-
nal ]H)ssessiou of European society, i.
4.-).

Democratic principle the, the foundation
of the commercial republics which
covered the coasts of Asia .Minor and
of Syria ; also of the society in Ionia
and I'h'vnieia, i. 22.

spirit, the, prevailed in the towni

of the Middle Ages, iii. 351 ; goo<l and
evil of this spirit, ih.

Diah'gue of the Christicm 7-c\eu4 m/lt/L-

482

INDEX.

philotrphet ApoUonius, by Evagarius, i.
405.

Dionysius the Areopagite, works of, ii.
377 — 379.

Diplomacy came to be regarded aa a
royal prerogative ; consequences, i.,
203 ; birth of, in Europe at the end of
the 15th century, 256 ; its change of
character in the 17th century, 257 ;
capacity and skill of French, 259.

Domestic life, developed under the feu-
dal system, i. 72.

Eastern emperors, the authority of,
over religious society, ii. 28.

Ecclesiastical power, its predominance
under the last Capetians, iii. 232 ;
attempts to shake its influence by
Philip Augustus, ib.

society, formation of the, i. 315 ;

four principal causes prevented the
tyranny of the, over the laity, ii. 43 ;
internal organization of the, from the
5th to the 8th century, 44.

legislation, view of, iii. 273.

Edward II. of England, form of the
homage done by him to Philip de Va-
lois, iii. 156.

Eginhard, councillor and private secre-
tary to Charlemagne, ii. 266 ; liis mar-
riage with Emma, 267; his death,
273 ; his works, io.

Egypt, theocratic principle the base of
its civilization, i. 22.

Election, two principles of, in the Chris-
tian church, 1. 94; struggle between
them, 95.

Elizabeth of England, her contest against
Philip II., i. 216; the reign of, the
greatest period of English history for
literary and philosophical activity, i.
233

Emperors, attempts made by the, to
maintain the unity of the Roman ]
empire, i. 30 I

Empire, the idea of the, transmitted by I
Rome to modern civilization, i. 33. ,

of the west, division of the, in the |

5th century, i. 295; labours of Clovis, I
&c. to assume the names and to exer- !
cise the rights of, 447.

Eneas of Gaza, dialogue of ii. 377.

Eiifranchisment of tlie comrcontj, diffi-
culty of assigning a date to the, i. 133 ;
of the Doroughs, completed in the 12th
oencury, 13'J; its immediate results,

social and moral, 136; ol the burgeajes,
worked little change in their relations
with the state, 136 ; movement of
manifested in civil society, 232.
England, the lead it has taken in po-
litical institutions, i. 3 ; history of, ia
the 15th century, consists of two great
events, 201; centralization of power
in, in the 15th century, ib. ; under
Henry VIII., interferes in continental
politics, 216 ; increase of its commer-
cial prosperity in the 16th century,
232 ; the division of land in, in the
16th century, »*.; origin of its free
institutions, 233 ; the political condi-
tion of, in the 16th century, wholly
different from that of the continent,
235 ; the two national wants of, tj. ;
the instrument and strongest support
of the party of religious liberty, 246 ;
development of society there more ex-
tensive and glorious than that of hu-
manity, 274; periods of its greatest
intellectual activity, 275; intellectual
condition of, and of Ireland, superior
to that of the continent in the time of
Charlemagne, ii. 231 ; reasons assigned,
ib.
English language, essential defect of, i.

276.
Essais sur VHistoire de Fiance, charac-
terized, i. 294.
Establissement de la Faix, copy of this

document, iii. 317.
Estate, the third, of 1789, thedescendant
of the corporations of the 12th cen-
tury, i. 12S.
Etampes, ordinances relating to, Iii

374.
Eudes of Boulogne, his co-operation with
Pliilip Augustus in resisting ecclesias-
tical domination, iii. 233.
Eudes, king of France, capitulary table

of, ii. 301.
Euric, accession of, i. 4S6.
Europe, its condition, from the 5th to
the 9th century, i. 53 ; moral and in-
tellectual development of, essentially
theological, 114 ; essential trait which
distinguishes modern from primitive,
147; striking similarity of destiny in
which the history of modem, presents
itself, as existing between the civil and
religious societies, in the revolutions tc
which they have been subject, 223 ; his-
tory of, in the 17th and 18th cent., 2-51

INDEX.

483

European civilization, characterized ; its
complexity contrasted with the sim-
plicity of ancient civilization, i. 24,249;
ita course compared with the course of
the world, 26 ; two methods of study-
ing its history, 270 ; reasons for pre-
ferring the study of the history of the
eiNilization of a particular country, tV/.;
reasons for studying that of France, ib.

European society, modern and primitive,
contrasted, i. 161 ; secret of the great
transformation of, to be sought be-
tween the 13th and 16th centuries, 147,
148; its anomalous character during
tliat period, 148; different systems
which Iiave been, in various measure,
adapted into, 317.

Kutropius, cliaracterized, 341.

Erigena, John, or John Scotus, history of,
ii. 370 ; works of, 372 ; address against,
by Florus, 373; condemned by the
council of Langres, 374 ; treatise of,
on predestination, 37&; two great
works of, 382.

Evagrius, his works, i. 800.

Estates, the donation of, by the conquer-
ing chiefs, the clianges it brought about,
iii. 23 ; instability of this description
of property, ib.

Extortions practised by the nobility upon
the burgesses redoubled at the com-
mencement ofthe 10th century, i. 132.

Extraordinary commissions, rise of, iii.
278.

Facts, historical, various classes of, i. 4 ;
external and internal, their mutual
interaction, i. 15.

Family, the feudal, contrasted with the
patriarchal family' and the clan, i. 70,
71.

Families composing an .ancient German
tribe, proprietmry heads of, iii. 42 ;
political sovereignty vested in them,
I*.

Faustus, his " ("irnoe and the Liberty of
tlie Human Will," i. 3S7.

Feodum, synonymous witli lieneficium, iii.
21.

Fonda) association, hierarchical organiza-
tion of, one of tlie essential elements
of feudalism, iii. 20 ; cliielY;, attempts
of, to place tlieirriglit.s under the gua-
rantee of instituti<in>, i. 7<;.

desiKitism contrasted with the

theocratic and inoiiarchical desiHjtism,

1 I 2

i. 73; society, characterized, 87; its
utter isolation, 88; its indolence, ih.t
its ennui, lA.; jurisdiction, general prin-
ciples of, iii. 171 — 176 ; inadequacy of,
178; legislation, its distinctive cha-
racter in modern society, 169; liber-
ties, cause of their perishing, 199 ; ob-
ligations, definite and perfectly under-
stood by both parties, 186; right.s
defective mode of enforcing, 177;
services, nature of, 160 ; society con-
trasted with modem in certain points,
166 ; characteristic of, 169.
Feudal principle, the preponderance of
the, did not destroy the other prin-
ciples of European civilization, i. 6 7.
system, origin of, i. 61 ; confusion

of society under the, 174, 175 ; anta-
gonism to, on the part ofthe people, iii.
9 ; influence of that hostility upon mo-
dem events, 10; general tendency to
overlook its good points, ib.; alterations
worked by, on the Germanic tribes,
65 ; characteristics of, 56 ; its progres",
74 ; definitively formed at the end of
the tenth century, 76 ; originated in
the fief, ib.; did not form the entire
civil society, 77.

village, account of, iii. 121.

tie, entirely a reciprocal and

Toluntary relation, iii. 184.

trials, nature of, iii. 17«.

castles, probable origin of, iii, 80 ;

Cliarles le Chauve orders many to be
destroyed, ib. ; their immense increase,
under the last Carlovingians, 81 :
constant attempts to siippress them,
ib. ; a letter from bishop Kulbert to
king Uobert respecting tlieni, iJ. ;
other documents on the subject, S3.

Feudalism, its rise described ; facility
with wliich all things became assimi-
lated to, i. 66 ; nuKliflcation of the
material condition of society produced
by, OS ; investigated in its i>rimitive
element — the jiossessor of a fief and
the inliabitiints of his domain, 08, 0!i;
inlluence of, on tlie development of
the individual, 79 ; results of an ex-
amination of. T'l, SO; errors of some
men of intellect eonoerning, 81 ; at-
tempts to reguliite it ; their failure, 8 1 :
opi)0.sed to the progress of society ;
consiquencl's of this ftict, si ; ought
to l>e regariied from two points of view
82 ; teneral cliaracterof, iii. 4 ; the ene-

484

mies to which it succumbed, ib. ; neces-
sity for a distinct idea of the origin
of, 17 ; way in which this is to be
achieved, 19 ; diversity of ideas as to
commencement of, of Bnissel, Boulain-
villiers, Montesquieu, &c., and whence
they arise, 1 9 ; three constituent ele-
ments of, ib. ; origin and meaning of
the word, 20; the change introduced
into its character by Louis le Uros,
212.

Fidelity, oath of, manner of swearing it,
iii. 155.

Fidticia, .a service from vassals to their
suzerains, iii. 162.

Fief, importance of the possessor of
in comparison with those who peo-
pled his domain ; peculiarity of his
position j his position contrasted with
that of the Roman patricians ; moral
•esults of his position upon himself,
i. 70 ; diminution of the number of, in
consequence of the crusades ; their
magnitude increased, 158; meaning
and origin of the word, iii. 21, 78;
mistake of Brussel concerning, 20 ;
first found in a charter of Charles le
Gros, 21 ; Germanic origin of, the
most probable, ib. ; did not exist on
the GaUo-Roman soil, 78 ; various
and new officers whom they had in
their train, 98 ; how the numerous
trains formed by them were con-
stituted, 99 ; their various nature,
152 ; origins of, ib. ; association of
the possessors of, principles of right
and liberty which presided over, 192,
193; possessors of, inequality be-
tween, 196, 197.

Fifteenth century characterized,!. 196.

Fleury's " Ecclesiastical History," i.
294.

Floras, deacon of Lyons, his lament, ii.
284.

Fontaine, La, quotation from, iii. 99.

Pierre de, quotation from, as

to drawing the distinction between
vassals and superiors, iii. 175.

Force tlie only guarantee of right, under
the feudal system, i. 78.

Fortified places, great extension of, in
the 11th century, iii. 85. ■

Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers, sketch J
of his life, list of his writings, ii. 157 ; I
his poems addressed to Saint Rade-
gonde and to the abbess Agnes, re- '

viewed and quoted, 1S8, 169; othet
poems reviewed and quoted, 160.

Foulques, bishop, quarrels of, in Beau-
vais, iii. 395.

France, the prominent share it ha*
taken in the civilization of Europe, i.
S ; cause of this, ib. ; the focus of
European civiUzation, ib ; straggle
of, for independence in the 14th and
15th centuries, 197 ; and Spain,
straggle between, fiist for the posses-
sion of Italy, afterwards for that ol
Germany, and lastly for the prepon-
derance in Europe, 215 ; influence ot,
in Europe, during the 17th and 18th
centuries, 25.3 ; state into which she
had fallen after the government of
cardinal Richelieu, 256 ; interior of,
under Louis XIV., 259 ; internal state
of, ii. 278 ; table of the feudal dismem-
berment of, 281 ; its extent under
Louis le Gros, iii. 226 ; its extension
under Philip Augustus, 231 ; kings of,
table of their ordinances, letters and
acts from Henry I. to Philip de Va-
lois, iii. 359 — 368.

Frankish states, fluctuating character of
the, 163; internal organization of the,
165.

Franks, establishment of the, between
th^years481 and 500, i. 434 ; after the
fall of the empire, ruled by the Roman
law, ii. 13 ; proofs, ih.

Austrasian, important charac-

teristics of the, ii. 169 ; the assistance
of the, needed by the popes against the
Lombards, 179.

Free institutions, system of, their origin,
iii. 60.

Fredegaire, his continuation of the Ec-
clesiastical History of Gregory of Tours,
ii. 148.

Freedom of the present day, its source,
i. 26.

Free inquiry, the first collision of, and
the centralization of power in Eng-
land, i. 231 ; the essential fact of the
18th century, 263.

Free-thinkers, school of, formed, i.
210.

Free artisans at the commencement of

the 5th century, i. 308.
French civilization, intellectual charac-
ter of, i. 65.
Frencli government, improvement of, at
the end ;f the reign of Charles VII.,

INDEX.

485

1. 199 ; in the 1 7th century, at theYiead
of European civilization, 262.

French government, in tlie Middle Ages,
comparison of, with the English, and
of the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries
of French liistory, with the correspond-
ing centuries beyond the channel,
i. 260.

nationality, commencement of

the formation of, i. 19S.

parliaments, multiplication of,

in the loth century, i. 199.

Fronde, the, commencement of, i. 216.

Fulbert, bishop of Cliartres, a letter of
his to king Robert, complaining of the
building of castles by a neiglibouring
seigneur, iii. 82.

Fulda, monastery of, the first instance
of tlie transfer of monasteries from
episcopal to papal jurisdiction, ii. 97.

GaiITS, Imtitutet of, ii. 8.
Gaul, social state of, to Ith and 5th cen-
turies, i. 292 ; ancient chiefs of, 301 ;
four classes of persons, four different
social conditions which existed at this
period in, 304; number of great men
in the 4th and 5th centuries, 340 ;
civil literature of, characterized, 356 ;
in the 5th century, under the influence
of three spiritual chiefs, 353 ; Gaulish
Christian society, 357 ; ixK-'ts of, three
ilmarkable, 357; principal questions
debated in, in the 6th century, 368 ;
condition of, after the great invasion
and settlement of the Germans, 433 ;
remarkable differences in the condition
of, in its various parts, 435 ; descrii>
tion of the state of, about the last
half of the cth century, 430.
Jallo-Frankish society, chaos of the,
civil and religious, after the invasion,
ii. 1 ("•.■> ; state of, at the end of the "tli
century, KiS; internal history of tlie
church of, sth — I Dth century, 311;
refusal of bishops to acknowledge the
archbishop of .AIolz as vicar to the
pope, 3:t',i ; political history of the
principal events of, from 5th — loth
contiiry. table of, t.TS ; religious his-
tory of the principal events of, fron\
5tli — lin!\ century, table of, 43(; ; lite-
rary history of the principal events of,
fmm .')tli — loth coutury. table of. 4 40 ;
position of proprietary Gorman chiefs
in. hi. 5 1 ; inviuiiou of, by the Germans,

distribution and habitation of various
classes at the, 78; changes catised
thereby, 79.

Gallo-Roman territory, its first in-
vaders, iii. 49.

Gennadius, his Treatise on Illustriout
Men, i. 360.

General history of France, necessity of
reading, before studying its civiliza-
tion, i. 289.

Greneral ideas, absence of, in the piiddle
ages, iii. 16.

Germain, St., passage from the life of,
ii. 128.

German chiefs, their relations with their
companions, iii. 22.

German free-men, their designation
among the Lombards and Franks,
iii. 51.

historians and feudal publicists.

in general attributed too extensive an
influence to the barbarians, i. 410.

reformers, intellectual state of.

at the 16th century, i. 276.

tribes, their dwellings, iii. 42;

constructed similarly to those of the
North American Indians, ib.

Germanic church, success of, due to the
labours of the Anglo-Saxon mission-
aries, ii. 332.

element, prevalence of, in early

European civilization, i. 62.

Germans, the, constituted nearly the
whole of the tribes that conquered
the Roman empire, i. 3!) ; social con-
dition of the ancient, 55 ; state of
the, a little before the invasion, 4 14 ;
various views of, 416 ; powerful spirit
of tribe or family among the, 46D;
conversion of the, beyond the Rhine,
ii. 178 ; condition of the, prior to the
invasion, 402 ; early custom among,
of giving the rank of warrior to the
young nun, iii. 103.

institutions, ancient, i. 420.

German invasion, characteristic fact of
the, i. 443.

Germ.iny, centralization of power in, in
the 15th century, i. 201 ; activity of
spirit in, for the last fifty years,

, ancient, distinct .societies of,

iii. 41 ; ascendancy of the chiefs over
their companions, ib.

Gii'soler, his Munual of Kcclentutticai
History, i. 294.

486

INDEX.

G')dfref of Bouillon, i. 150.

Good sense a distinguishing trait of
French genius, i. •212.

Gottschalk, archbishop of Mayence, con-
demned by a council, ii. 365 ; death
of, 367.

Government, how it originates and es-
tablishes itself in every society, i.
89 ; is not necessarily coercive, ib. ;
highest perfection of, is to be able to
dispense with coercion, 90 ; necessary
influence of tlie governed upon, 106;
peculiarity of, under Philip le Bel, ill.
274.

Grammarians, abundance of in Gaulish
civil literature, i. 356.

Gratianus Augustus, his mandate to
Antonius, pretorian prefect of the
Gauls, i. 350.

Great men, influence of, upon the early
civilization of Europe, i. 56 ; their
activity is of two kinds, ii. 183;
Napoleon an illustration, 184.

Greek literature and art, surprising
uniformity of idea throughout, i. 24.

Greek and Roman antiquities restored
in Europe in the 14th century, i. 209 ;
manuscripts sought for and published
by Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and
their contemporaries, ib.

language spoken in all the great

towns of .*onthern Gaul, 393.

Gregory IV., iaUrference of, in 833 to
reconcile Louis le Debonaire and his
sons, ii. 33 S.

Gregory VII., mistaken notions con-
cerning the character of; his real cha-
racter and objects, i. 122 ; ruling idea
of; two great faults committed by,
183; extract from an epistle of, to
the emperor Maurice, ii. 29 ; letter
from him respecting the treatment of
his labourers, iii. 136.

Gregory of 'lours, his account of the re-
mains of the two tribes in a single
nation, and under a single empire,
i. 473; sketch of his hfe, ii. 140; hst of
his writings, 142; characteristic ex-
tracts from them, 143 ; his Ecclesias-
tical History described, 144.

Guarantees for institutions wanting un-
der the feudal system, i. 76 ; political
investigation of two diflerent kinds,
ib.\ object of those possessed by vas-
sals, iii. 171.

Guises, the struggles of the, against the '

Valois, ends in the accession of Hecry
IV., i.'SlS.
Gunpowder, invention of, i. 211

H.AXLAM, Mr., his opinion as to the
right of guardianship, iii. 165.

Ilenkes, his General History of the Chrii-
tian Church characterized, i. 294.

Henry I., his ordinance respecting the
guard of the gates of Orleans, iii.
367.

Henry II. of England characterized, iii.
227 ; his policy against Philip Augus-
tus, 228.

Heresy, state of legislation against, i.
364; the Burgundian, Gothic, and
Frank kings refused to trouble them-
selves in questions of; sentences of
their kings upon this matter, ii. 26.

Hermits, the second form of monks, ii. 62.

Hierarchy of ranks and titles in the
Koman empire at the commencement
of the fifth century, table of the, ii.
412.

Hilary, St., bishop of Poitiers, i. 359.

Hincmar, endeavours of, to establish
unity in the church, i. 121; dispute
between him and the bishop of bois-
sons, ii. 344; his history, 350; con-
sidered under three points of view,
351 ; his works, 352; councils at which
he assisted, 353 ; relations of, with
the pope, 356 ; analogy between him
and Bossuet, 369 ; considered within
his diocese, ib. ; considered as a theo-
logian, 360.

Hilduinis, abbot of St. Denis, his Areo-
pagetica, ii. 380.

History should be limited to the narration
of facts, i. 4 ; various classes of tliese
facts, ib.; importance of studying in-
direct influences in, 107 ; illustration,
ib. ; essentially successive ; the fact
of its being so too often forgotten ;
illustration, 117; method of; position
of facts with regard to ; anatomy and
physiology of, ii. 2 ; triple problem to
be resolved by, common fault of, 3.

Historical facts, necessity for studying
the progressive formation of, iii. 17 ;
why, 1 8 ; more so in the history of
societies than in that of individuals,
ib.

Historians, political, their various views
as to benefices, iii. 23.

Homage manner of doing, iii. 155.

INDEX.

487

House, construction of citizen's in the
12th century, i. 134.

Human mind, its fluctuation between a
tendency to complain and to rest satis-
fied, upon equally insufficient grounds,
i. 19.

Huss, John, his religious reform, i. 20.

■ and Jerome of Prague, sum-

moned by the council of Constance,
and condemned as heretics and revo-
lutionists, i. 209.

Hussites, war of the, i. 209.

Hypatius, a rhetorician at Ckinstanti-
nople in 532. ii. 379.

Ideas, force of, can dispense with insti-
tutions, i. 107.

Imagination born under and fostered by
feudalism, i. 81 ; the influential part it
plays in the life of man, iii. 14;

Immateriality of the soul, question of,
discussed in the Narbonaise, between
Faustus, bishop of Riez, and Mamer-
tius Claudienus, i. 3fJ0 ; doctrine of
the, dispute concerning, 3U6.

Immobility, spirit of, in castes, i. 94.

Imperial court, table of the organization
of, ii. 407.

ludependcnco, sentiment of individual, a
leading trait in the barbaric charac-
ter, i. 40.

Independents, system of the, i. S23.

Individuality, a leading characteristic of
the middle ages, iii. Ifi.

Industry of the ancient burghers differed
from that of the burghers of the
middle ages, iii. 327.

India, the tlieocratic principle the base
of the civilization of, i. 22.

Indian civilization, tlie unity of its prin-
ciple the cause of it.s stationary con-
dition, i. 23.

literature, all its monuments ex-
pressions of the same idea, i. 24.

Inquisition, commencement of the Spa-
nish, i. 201.

Institutions, their confusion and insta-
bility in the barbarous eiH)cli, three
kinds co-existed, i.:i\ -. tlireejrreat sys-
tems of. which, after tlie fall of tlie
Roman empire, contested for KuroiH',
420.

Insurrection of the towns against the
feudiil lords, i. 1:13.

Intelleot, mixUrn, contrasted with Creek
and Eastern, i. 115.

I Intellectual progress, revival of, at the
' end of the 8th century, ii. 230 ; diffi-
culty of characterizing their move-
ments, ib.
Italian literature, period of the brilliancy
of, i. 217.

republics, causes of their splen-

dour, i. 185; apparently contradictory
facts concerning, 186, 187; republics
compared and contrasted with the
Greek repubhcs, 188.

towns, their analogy with the

ancient Roman cities, iii. 335 ; dis-
tinction between them and the French
borough-towns, ib.

Italy, the lead she has taken at particu-
lar periods in the arts, i. 3 ; probable
reason of its never having become a
nation, 187 ; centralization of power
in, in the 15th century, 202.

Invasion, predominant characteristic of
the period succeedmg the, as regards
the relative positions of civil and reli-
gious society, ii, 34.

James II., accession of, i. 245.

Jerome, St., commotion against him at
Bethlehem, i. 385 ; his strictures on
the monastic life, ii. 66 — 68.

Jesuits, decided failure of the, in all
their undertakings, i. 227.

Joan of Arc, i. 197.'

John, king of England, characterized,
iii. 228; the acquisitions made from him,
by I'hihp Augustus, ib. ; his murder of
prince Arthur, 229; cited to ai)pear
before I'hilip Augustus for that crime,
ib.\ liis refusal, ib.; account of the af-
fair by JIatthew Paris, ih.

.Judgment by peers, impracticability of,
under the feudal system, iii. 277.

Judicial onier, use of the, iii. 277 ; cha-
racter of its history, 2!<0.

.Judicial combat more frequently men-
tioned in the Ripuarian than the Salic
law, i. 4 71!; first and true source of,
477 ; a chief feature in fe\idal society,
iii. isi; regulations of, 1S2.

.lugeurs, their office, iii. 277.

.Turi.sconsults, character of their minds,
iii. 2 7.1.

Justinian HI., decree of, in 426, ex-
pre^sly invested with the force of law.
i. 2 1'".

Justitia, a ?er\ice due f ro n vassals to
their suzerains, iii. 162.

iS8

INPET

Ktncs, their position with respect to the
great minds around them, ii. 254.

Land-tax should be fixed, iii. 130.

Landed properties, how distinguished in
the barbarous epoch, their confused
condition, i. 51 ; instability of, during
the barbarous epoch, ib. ; changes in
the division of, iii. 73.

Laypatronage, rise and progress of, ii. 38.

Laon, charter granted it by Louis le
Gros, iii. 317.

Laws, Roman, its constituent parts, i.
29 ; of nearly all the barbarous nations
written between the 6th and 8th cen-
turies ; defeat of this attempt at civi-
lization, 57 ; barbarian, which ruled
over the nations established in Gaul,
471 ; neither the Roman nor the
written barbaric were truly adapted
for the state of society at the fall of
the empire, ii. 16.

Lawyers, rise of the class of, iii. 277 ; the
aid lent by them to royalty againat the
feudal aristocracy and clergy, 278 ;
their public service in this respect, ib. ;
on the other hand, they have ever
been the lively instruments of tyranny,
ib.

Lazare, suppression of the monks of, iii.
472.

Legislation, nistory of, from the death
of Charlemagne, to the accession of
Hugh Capet, ii. 293; absence of,
under the first Capetians, iii. 233 ;
progress of, under Philip Augustus,
234 ; extent of, under that monarch,
ib.

Legitimacy, political, claimed by all
kinds of governments, i. 46 ; investi-
gation of the idea of, ib. ; true foun-
dation of, 48 ; not the banner of ab-
solute power, 49.

■ of religious government, con-
ditions of the, i. 92.

Leibnitz, contrast between the ideas of,
the studies of his disciples, and the
German universities in the 17 th cen-
tury, and the memoirs which paint
the court of the elector of Branden-
burg or Bavaria, i. 276.

Leidrade, archbishop of Lyons, account
of, ii. 255 ; letter from him to Charle-
magne, 256.

Leo III., letter ol' to the emperor, >.
337

Leo IV., letter from, to the emperor

Lothaire, in 853, ii. 320.
Letters, their share in the civilization of

nations, i. 6.
Lex Roman, ii. 8.
Library of Constantinople, details con.

ceming, i. 351.
of the imperial palace at Treves,

i. 351.
Liberty too often regarded by religion

as an obstacle, not as a means, i.

116.

the fundamental idea of, in

modem Europe, came to it from iti
conquerors, i. 432.

Literature ceased to be literature in be-
coming ecclesiastical, ii. 102 ; common
mistakes arising from this fact cor-
rected, 103; situation from the 4th to
the 8th century described, 104.

English, commencement of, i.

217.

' French, commencement of, i. 2 1 7.
of the middle ages, general cha-

racter of, 391.
National German, characterized.

n. 404.

ancient, comparison between,

and modem, i. 391.
profane, disappearance of, after

the fourth century, ii. 99 ; from tha

6th to the 8th century described, 138.
Logic falsifies history, i. 96, 97.
Lorris, charter granted by Louis le Gros

to this town, iii. 311.
Lothaire, king of Lorraine, marriage of,

with Teutberge, ii. 341 ; expelled the

kingdom, iii. 205.
Louis le Debonnaire, in 823, capitulary

of, ii. 323 ; iii. 63.
Louis le Jeune, charter granted by, to

Beauvais, iii. 404 ; another relating to

Beauvais, 411.
Louis III. dispute between him and the

council of Ximes, :: 355.
Louis le Gros, character of, by Suger,

iii. 211 ; illustrations of his energy in

checking the seigneurs, 212, et seg.;

character of his government, 216;

letter of, concerning the exaction of

Eudcs, castellan of Beauvais, 396

charter granting certain privileges to

Beauvais, 402; death of, 403.
Louis le Begue, table of the Capitularie*

of, ii. 300.
Louis VII., his ordinance granting cer-

489

tain customs to Orleans, iii. 368 ;
abandoning the right of mort-main at
Orleans, 369.

Louis VIII., the entrance of, into Paris,
described, iii. 271 ; ordinance of, abo-
lishing certain customs at Orleans,
371; another enfranchising the serfs
at Orleans, 372 ; charter granted by,
to Etampes, 379; another, 381; an-
other, abolishing an abuse at Etampes,
883 ; general regulation of, for the
government of Etampes, ib. ; con-
firms a charter relating to Etampes,
3SS.

I.<ouis, Saint, Letter of his to Suger,
iii. 221; character of, 243: state of
royalty under, ib. ; influence of the
personal character of, 244; extract
relating to, from Guillaume de Nan-
gis, ib. ; treaty with Henry III. of
England, ib. ; extract relating to him
from Joinville, 246 ; countries which
he annexed to his kingdom, 245, 247 ;
what he did for royalty, 247 ; different
opinions regarding his relation with
feudalism, 247, 248; extracts from
his ordinances, 249; proof of his re-
spect for feudal principles, 250 ; at-
tacks private wars and Judicial com-
bats, 251 ; his ordinance relating to
private wars, 252 ; that relating to
judicial duels, 253 ; great change
worked to the advantage of the crown
by these attack.*, 255 ; other points
achieved by him, 256 ; table of the
ordinances of, 257 ; progress of ec-
clesiastical affairs under his reign,
25s ; his onlinance called la Prag-
tnatiffne, ib. ; anecdote, related by
Joinville, of his government, 259 ;
hi.-t ordinances for the reform of the
internal administration, 259 ; ana-
lysed, ■-•60, Ji,\ ; his re-establishment
of the tnitsi dominici, 261 ; details of
Joinville regarding his administra-
tion of the provostship of I'liris, 261,
262 ; summary of his administration,
263.

Lctiis le Ilutin, his ordinance cnfran-

cliisiiig fprf's, iii. 149 ; onlinance of

his. in favour of the aristocracy, 2<8.

Louis XI., rhaiipe in the style of French

poveninH lit by, i. 200.
Louis XI II., reign of, in France, i.

216.

Louis XIV., the pur- numarchy of, its

endearours to become an uniyereal
monarchy, i. 245 ; league made in
Europe between various political par-
ties in order to resist this attempt, ib. ;
general struggle in Europe between,
and the prince of Orange, 246 ; go-
vernment of, 254 ; character of the
wars of, 256; wars of, 255; his rela-
tions with foreign states, 256 ; legisla-
tion of, 260 ; government of, the first
which applied itself solely to the con-
duct of affairs, as a power at once de-
finitive and progressive, 261.
Luther formally separates himself from
the Roman church, i. 216.

Magna Chahta from time to time re-
called, and again confirmed by most
of the kings who succeeded king John,
i. 233.

Mamertius Claudienus, his treatise On
the Sature of the Soul, i. 393.

Man, instinctively endeavours to rise
above the barbarous condition, i. 55.

Minorial property, causes of the rapid
division of, iii. 33 ; usurpation of ib. ;
measures taken by Charlemagne %vith
regard to, I'A. ; advice of the bishops
to Charles le Chauve on the subject,
34 ; conversion of freeholds into bene-
fices, I'A. ; the practice allied with
ancient German manners. 35 ; law of
the Visigoths on the subject, t'A. ; ca-
pitularies of I'epin and Charlemagne,
36 ; ill success Of their efforts, ib. ;
generalization of feudalism. 37.

Mdnrut eccletiiL'ticiit, prante<l by Charle-
magne to each church, ii. .S26.

Marcellin, Life of Saint, quoted, II.
121.

Martin, Saint, of Tours, Life of, by Saint
Sulpicius Sevenis, i. 354.

Material changes in the condition of
society have not receive<l due atten-
tion, i. 67.

Mayor of the palace, institution of the,
ii. 170; acquisition of pniperty by,
and con.sequent formation of an aris-
toomcy, lA.

Maximus the Confe.«sor, commentariei
of, in 622. ii. 3sn.

Sleiner's Hiitnry of the Female Sex, i
416.

Meyer, M., his observations on the com
niunal system of the Middle Ages, iii
o ■.-.', it leq.

490

INDEX.

Middle ages, importance of tha study
of, iii. 8 ; general popularity of that
study in the present day, ib. ; hostility
to, in particular quarters, ib. ; they are
the cradle of modem societies and
manners, 9 ; particular character of,
with regard to chivalry, 1 ] 4.

ifilet, origin and history of the word.
iii. 106.

Military service, mistaken origin of,
according to M. de Boulainvilliers, iii.
161.

Milton, pamphlet of, " A ready and easy j
way to establish a free commonwealth,"
i. 242.

Mind, condition of, in the feudal period,
iii. 7.

Missi Doininici, the, of Charlemagne, ii.
192 ; referred to, 255 ; distribution of
the, by Charles le Chauve, 309.

Monarchical institutions, their origin,
iii. 60.

Monastery of Saint Faustin at !Jsime6,
foundation of, i. 354.

Monasteries, the two first, founded by
Saint Martin, i. 352 ; Gaulish, primi-
tive character of the, entirely different
to the monasteries of the East, 355 ;
the first, not founded by any indivi-
dual, ii. 83 ; their relations with the
clergy, S3, 84 ; the attention of the
bishops attracted by them, 84; pas-
sages from acts of the councils of
Chalcedonia and Orleans concerning,
ib. ; protected against the oppression
of bishops by royalty, 96 ; how the
royal protection was often eluded by
the bishops ; protected, afterwards,
by the papacy, 97.

Monastic institutions, introduction of re-
gularity into, by St. Benedict, ii. 63;
progress of the, in the west, peculiar
characteristics it then assumed, 65, 66;
summary of the chapges tlirough
which the, passed from the 4th to the
8th century, 98.

order, development of the, in the

West, i. 120.

orders, ancient, lose almost all

their political power, and are replaced
by the Jesuits, i. 217

Mongol emperors, relations between the,
and the Christian kings, i. 155.

Monk, Geiaeral, undertakes the conduct
of the restoration, i. 242.

Monks, erroneous notions concerning the

condition of, confuted ; their true po-
sition, ii. 61,63; extravagances of the,
63, 69, 70 ; opposed and persecuted
by Paganism, 64, 65; the number
of, greatly increased by the misery
of the time, 68, 69 ; become ambi-
tious of incorporation ■with the ec-
clesiastical society, 88 ; independent
and privileged existence claimed
by the, 86 ; consequent loss of in-
dependence, 8 7 ; eagerness with
which they aspired to entering the
priesthood, 89^ Athanasius encou-
raged the ambition of the, to enter
holy orders, 90 ; the episcopacy in ge-
neral discouraged it, 91; final satis-
faction of their ambition, ib.; conse-
quences, 92 ; resistance of the, to the
oppression of the bishops, compared
with the resistance of the boroughs to
feudal tyranny, 93 ; reformation, new,
of, accomplished by St. Benedict
d'Aniane, 315.

Monteil, M. de, his Histoire des Franfait
characterized, iii. 86 ; his account of
the improvement in the condition of
the Coloni, 148.

Montesquieu, his account of benefices,
iii. 14.

Montsorier, M. de, his opinion of the
state of the feudal village, iii. 122.

Moral change, the desire it produces in
its possessor to realize it externally,
i. 14.

development, promises made by

its advocates in relation to the ame-
lioration of the social state, i. 13.

Morality leads inevitably to religion, i.
87 ; the object of legislation in certain
stages of civilization, ii. 222; prac-
tical, great progress of, iii. 15.

Morigny, iii. 378 ; privileges granted by,
to whoever inhabits the March6
Js'euf at Etampes, ib.

Mort-main abolished at Orleans, iii. 310.

Municipal system, condition of the, at
the fall of the Roman emisire, i. 141 ;
changes in, at the fall of the empire,
ii. 9, 10 ; it became more deraocra-
tical, 10.

Municipalities, acts relating to, iii. 234;
disappearance of, 297.

Napoleon, his career characterized, ii.
ls4; compared with tliat of Charle-
magne, 185.

INDEX.

49\

Nation, what truly constitutes one, iii.
i.

Nationality, absence of true, prior to
tlie 12th century, i. U7.

Nations, the moral and European unity
of, developed by the crusades, i. 149.

Nesle, Siinonde, his missive, denouncing
the crimes of the people of Beauvais,
iii. 445 ; pastoral letter issued by,
449.

Nicholas I. pope in 858, ii. 341; letter
fi"om, to Adventius, bishop of Metz,
in 863, 843 ; discourse of, to the
council held in 805, 344 ; letter from,
addressed to Charles le Chauve, be-
tween 865 and 867, 3sS.

Ninth century, philosophical spirit of,
ii. 869.

Nobility, resistance of the, to the pre-
tensions of royalty in 1314, iii. 283;
ordinance in their favour of Louis le
Hutin, ib.

Notitia Imperii Homani, a great original
document, i. 293.

Oaths of fidelity desired by Charlemagne
from every freeman, iii. VI.

Offices given in fief, iii. 99 ; disputes
arising from this custom, 100.

Oil painting, art of, di.scovcred, i. 211.

Opinion, power of public, in the 17th
and 18th centuric?, i. 107.

Otange, council of, decree of the, ii. 39.

Oratorii'8, or private chapels, institution
and influence of, decrees of the coun-
cils of Agdc, Orleans, and Chalons,
concerning, ii. 40, 41.

Orderic Vital, his Eccltsiattical History of
Snriiiandi/, ii. 144.

Ordination and tonsure, separation of,
ii. .37. I

Orleans, sketch of its municipal history, I
iii. 309; ordinances relating tt), 367
— 374.

Organization, attempt at a theocratical, |
i. 180 : ohstiirles ti) its success, ISO — I
1S.1; nttenipts at nii.ved, l!in — lii.T; !
successful in Kiigland, l!iJ; genenilly
nnsiicc<!sst'iil ; wliy^ l.'rt; of tlie tribes i
in Uernuinv, their oripin. iii. 43. !

1

Paoamsm, struggle against, the predo-
minant fact of the first century, i.
377.

Papacy .iilv.incod by tlie alliance of the
church and tlie civil sovereign, by the

empire of Charlemagne, and by its
fall, i. 120; ascendancy gained by, in
the West ; limited character of its
power in times immediately succeed-
ing the invasion, ii 167; alliance of
this power and of th« mayors of the
palace, and the new direction imposed
by them upon civilization, ISO ; his-
tory of, 329 ; less powerful in Italy,
in the Lombard church, 330.

Papiani ItetpoTuum, the, not, as by some
supposed, an abstract of the Breviarium
of Alaric, ii. 13; substituted by the
Breriarium Alaricum, ib.

Pares, or peers, meaning of, iii. 169.

I'aris, Slattliew, his account of the cita-
tion of John of England by Philip
Augustus, iii. 229.

Parish priests, institution of, ii. 45.

Parliament, condition of the British, in
the 14th century, i. 192.

Past, the history of, its pleasures and its
advantages, iii. 14.

Patriarchs of national churches, institn-
tion of, in the East ; failure of attempts
at their institution in the West, ii.
47.

Patronage, military, characterized; its
origin, i. 41.

Paul, St., sojourn of, at Athens, ii. 378.

Paulin, St., bishop of Nola, i. 358.

Peers, judgment by, texts relating to,
172 — 175; became impracticable, iii.
198.

Pelagian controversy, history of the, i.
379.

Pelagians protected by John, bishop of
Jerusalem, i. 382.

Pelagius, hcre.sy of, concerning free-will
and grace, refuted by Saint Augustin,
i. 3.^)1; council respecting him, in 415,
383 ; reinstate!! by pope Zosimus, 384 ;
condemned by pope Innocent, lA. ; his
heresy expires in the year 4 J 7, and
leave.s the serai-Pelagians engaged in
the Rtniggle, 3S5; the great intel-
lectual controversy of the church in
the 5th century, 36H.

Penitential system of the church, its eor-
n'si)ondenco with the viewsof modem
philoso]ihers, i. 1 l.'i.

Penitrntiiilt, or coles of ecclesiastical
punishment, ii. 31 3.

IVviple. kinil of intUiencc exerted by,
U]>on the clergy. Ix'tween the 5th and
li'th centuries, i. 107; the, from th«

492

INDEX.

15th to the 18th century, ill qualified |
to take part in the external rela- I
tions of countries, illustrations, 204,
208.

Pepin-le-Bref needs the assistance of
the pope to make himself king, ii.
179 ; capitulary of, regarding pilgrims,
333 ; his temporal power, notable
accretion of, 334, an edict of his
respecting /)reccrWo, iii. 27.

Persecutions in the church during the
4th, 5tli, andeth centuries, ii. 25; less
prevalent in the West than in the
East, 28.

Peter the Hermit, i. 150.

Petit, Denis le, collection by, ii. 339.

Petty population, their degraded con-
dition under the feudal system, i.
73.

feudal society, its relations to

the general society with which it was
connected, i. 75.

Philip I., account of the coronation of,
iii. 208 ; charter granted by him to
Etampes, 375 ; charter he granted to
the children of Budes, 376.

Philip Augustus, the extent to which he
advanced royalty as a political power,
iii. 227 ; the great aim of his reign
was to reconstruct the kingdom, ih. ;
difficulty of the task, ib. ; character
of, 228 ; his acquisitions from Jolm
of England, ib. ; extent of his ma-
norial possessions, 231 ; his attempts
towards central government, ib. ; his
efforts to emancipate royalty from the
ecclesiastical power, 232 ; throws off
the domination of the foreign and of
the national clergy, 232, 233 ; his
promotion of legislation, 233 ; his
ordinance regulating the kingdom
during his absence in the East, 234 ;
his efforts to raise royalty above the
feudal powers, 237 , his principle
that a king should not do homage to
any one, 238 ; various civil improve-
ments effected by him, 239 ; one of the
principal results of tlie reign of, 242 ;
ordinance of, respecting certain taxes
and exemptions at Orleans, 373 ; abo-
lishes the corporation of Etampes, 386 ;
charter granted by, to the weavers of
Etampes, 387 ; cliarter granted by, to
Beauvais, 413; the latter charter
compared with that of Louis le .leune,
414; orders the oath of fidelity to

be given to the bishop of Beauvai*
416.

Philip le Hardi, ordinance respecting
disputes at Beauvais, iii. 431 ; decree
issued by, relating to tlie rights of the
bishop of Beauvais, 443.

Philip le Bel, table of his ordinances, iii.
268 ; his ordinances analyzed, 268 —
272 ; peculiarity of liis government,
274; he is not the first who called
the third estate to the states-general,
ib. ; asserts the exclusive right of
coining money, 281; his progress in
taxation, ib. ; his contmand to the
bailiff of Senlis, 452 ; his decree con-
cerning the excesses committed at
Beauvais, 454 ; another concerning
the bishop of, 456 ; his decree, explain-
ing the difference between the bishop
and the corporation of Beauvais,
462.

Physical force present at the origina-
tion of all political powers, but denied
by all powers as their foundation, i.
47 ; not tlie foundation of political
legitimacy, 48.

Poetical literature, from the 6th to the
8th century, described, ii. 146.

Political and religious crisis of the 16th
and 17th centuries, i. 275.

sovereignty vested in the heads

of a tribe, iii. 42.

Popular acceptations of words generally
the most accurate, i. 7.

Portuguese, expeditions of the, along the
coast of Africa, i. 211.

Possessors of fiefs under the feudal sys-
tem, iii. 57 ; their condition in the
10th century, 59.

Powers, temporal and spiritual, advan-
tages and .signification of their separa-
tion, i. 38 ; separation of tlie, by the
early church, 100.

Pragmatic Sanction ofCharlcs V.,i. 207-
its failure, ib. ; its ultimate conse-
quences, 208.

Praetorian prefect, list of the principal
officers of a, i. 298.

Precaria, account of the benefices so en-
titled, iii. 26 ; an edict of Pepin re-
specting them, 2 7

Priest, liis position and influence among
tlie petty population of tlie feudal
domains, i. 74.

Priests, resistance offered by the, to the
oppression of the bishops, ii. 55, 56

IM>£X.

4oa

Principle of civilization, whenever any
one predominates it is easily reco-
gnised, i. 49.

of European civilization, the dis-

pute for the early predominance of
each proves their co-existence, i. 50.

I*i:nting, invention of, i. 211.

l*roblem, the double, which religions are
called upon to solve, i. 110.

I*rogre8S, the leading characteristic of
civilization, i. 9.

of European civilization, diffi-
culties experienced in, from its birth
Rt the fall of the Roman empire, to
the present time, i. 18.

Property, particular natureof territorial,
and the amalgamation of, with sove-
reignty, two of the constituent ele-
ments of feudalism, iii. 19.

^— — territorial, increase of taste for,
iii. 98.

Proprietary, chiefs of German tribes,
nature of their sovereignty, iii. 48 ;
their twofold character, ib.

Prosper, St., of Aquitaine, his works on
the Pelagian controversy, i. 860.

Providence, plan of, in the events of the
world, i. 19 C.

Prussia created by the secularising of the
Teutonic order, i. 216.

Pure monarchy, system of, i. 324.

Puritans, how protected by the English
gentry before the Uevolution, ii. 41.

Quakers, system of the, i. 323.
Quaratitaihe du Rot, la, iii. 251.

Kaban, letter from, to Ilincmar, ii. 86.5.

Kaynouard, his Hutoire du Regime Mu-
tiici/jal ilf France, ii. 14.

Reason, individual, more boldlydeveloped
in the church than in any other so-
ciety, i. 9s.

rights of, advocated by John

Erigena, Roacelin, and Abailard, i.
123.

relations of universal and indi-

vidual, described, ii. 22, 23.

fiec'iei! (leu Bollandistri, ix. 122, 123.

Reform, comnienoement and progress of
legal and ercleisiastical, in the 15th
century, i. 2i>i;— l'OiS.

Reforniafioii, cau.fc of. i. 219; character
of the, 221 ; progress of the, in Ger-
many, in I>oiitiiark, in Holland, in
England, and iu France, 223 ; not

accomplished in England in the same
manner as on the Continent, 282 ;
history of the, in France, 280.

Religion, its share in the civilization of
nations, i. 6 ; what truly constitutes,
87, «8 ; a powerful principle of asso-
ciation, ib.

Religious society, like all other societies,
must have a government, i. 88 ; state
of, in the 6th century, 31G.

Remusat, M. Abel, quoted, i. 158.

Republican organization, destinies of, in
different parts of Europe, i. 188.

Republic, the caution with which the
name should be made use of, iii. 326 ;
difference between the Roman re-
public and the republic of the United
States, ti.

Richard Cceur de Lion characterized,
iii. 228.

Richelieu, cardinal, changed the interna)
administration of F'rance, i. 216.

Resistance easy under the feudal sys-
tem, i. 77 ; right of, under feudalism,
80; iii. 187; illustrative text from the
Etablissemens of St. Louis, 188, and
fh)m Magna Charta, 189.

Revolution, the F2nglish, essentially de-
voted to the defence or achievement
of liberty, i. 235 ; successive failure of
the three great parties, 239 ; Euro-
pean, of 16S8, a.spect of the, 246 ; the
French, the latest phase of the popu-
lar hostility to the feudal system, iii.
10.

Rhodez, account of its military condi-
tion, iii. 85.

Rogge, his F.stnti upon the Judicial System
of the Germam, i. 46.').

Roman conquest of the world charac-
terized, i. 28 ; empire, secret of the
success with which it struggled for a
time against its di.^solution, 30 ; the
muiiici])al sytifcm iM'queathed by the,
to nioilem civilization, 3:1, the banie
fact, the predominance of the nniiii-
cipal spirit, di.-H'overalde alike at its
birth and at its fu!l. iVi, ; civilization,
etfecls of, uixin the barbarian.', 56 ;
civilization, attempted revival of,
67; sustained by royalty, 108; ad-
niinijitration. 296 ; functions of the
governor;;, ib. ; their juris<liction, ib. ;
extent of their jiower, »f.; cnurcti,
consistent and systematic government
of the, 2 26 ; table of the organization

494

INDEX

of the x)urt of, at the commencemen c
of the 6th century, ii. 407 ; Roman
language, foundation of, iii. 3 ; Roman
law, opinion of its decease, at the fall
of the empire, not so general as 31. de
Savigny seems to have believed, 6 ;
of the 10th century not that of the
empire, 8 ; legislation, instances in
which it took the feudal village into
consideration, 124; municipal system,
long endurance of, 308 ; internal or-
ganization of the, 321 ; provinces,
state of the, at the moment pre-
ceding that when the empire took
the place of the republic, i. 301 ; state
of society, at the time of the fall of
the empire, 292 ; radical vice of, 314;
taxation, the two leading articles of,
iii. 130 ; completeness of their con-
quests, ii. 15.

Eome, in its origin, a municipality, i. 27;
bishops of, their influence, 329 ; their
superior opportunities of appropriating
the advantages of bishops in general,
ii. 171; city of. peculiar situation of,
329 ; situation of, with regard to the
principal churches of the West, at the
middle of the 8th century, ib. ; court
of, diminution of its political credit,
in the ICth century, 221.

Royalty not fully developed until the
12th or 13th century,i.l46 ; developed
at the termination of the crusades,
ICO; effects of, upon modem society,
162 ; its power of adaptation to dif-
ferent social conditions, 163; causes
of its prevalence, ib. ; it is a distinct
thing from the will of man, 164 ; the
personification of the sovereignty of
right, 106 ; circumstances favourable
to the development of, 168; varieties
of, in Europe, 169 ; barbaric, election
a characteristic of, religious element
of, 169; imperial Roman, character-
ized ; change in, under Constantine,
170; from the 5th to the 12th cen-
tury, 169; early forms of, in France,
Italy, Spain, and England, 172 ; re-
turn of barbaric, under the Carlovin-
gians, 173; under Charlemagne ; un-
der Louis le Dobonnaire ; after the
death of Louis le Debonnaire, ib. ;
feudal, ib. ; under Louis le Gros, 174 ;
modem, first developed in the 12th
century, 175; entirely new character
assumed by, from the 12th century,

»V. ; in England, vicissitudes of the;"
the concentration and energy which
it attained under the Tudors, 231;
diminution of the, 251; development
of, 447 ; its twofold origin among the'
Germans, iii. 66 ; tlie four origins of
modem, 67; ancient German, its re-
ligious character disappeared, 72; state
of, at the end of the 10th century, 201 ; ;
four origins of, 201, 202 ; difierent ,
ideas of, 202 ; under the Carlovingians, !
ib. ; its ruin and disappearance, 2(
204 ; imperial, 204 ; under Saint:
Louis, 247 ; the efforts of Philip Au-'
gustus to free it from the ecclesiasttt
cal power, 232 ; its progress as a
national popular power, 239 ; state
of, from 987 to 1270, or from Hugh
Capet to Saint Louis, 264 — 267 ; great
extension of its sway and its influence
under Philip le Bel, 273; character
of, under that monarch, ib. ; develop-
ment of its judicial power under Phi-
lip le Bel, 276 ; resistance to its pre-
tensions on the part of the nobles, in
1314, 281 ; weakness of, at the com-
mencement of the 14th century, 287;
source of this weakness, ib.

Koyer-CoUard, JI., quoted upon the re-
lation of the individual to the society,
i. 16.

Rusticula, Saint, passages from the life
of, ii. 130, 131 ; resemblance borne by
these passages to passages in the lives
of the Angelique Amaulds, of Port
Royal, 132.

Saints, lives of the, ii. 119; uses of
the, in the early times, 124; pas-
sages from the, 125 ; literature of the,
137.

Sainte-Valaye, M. de, quotation from,
concerning chivalry, iii. 102 ; another,
115.

Salic law, greatly exaggerated impor-
tance attributed to it, i. 451 ; history
of, 452; two texts of this law, ib.;
in the, crimes taken cognizance of,
4C2 ; character of, with regard to pu-
nishments, 4i;3; result of the ex-
amination of tlie, 472.

Salvenius, his works. On avarice, &c., i.
360 ; quoted as to the condition of the
agricultural population in Gaul, iii.
1.35.

Sanctuary in churches, influence of the

INDEX.

495

rig' it of, upon the condition of towns
after the establisiiinent of feudalism,
i. 131.

Savigny, his History of the Roman late in
tt« Middle Agei, characterized, i. 294;
peculiar merits of, its deficiency as
a philosophical history, its lack of
poetical truth, its misrepresentations
of facts, ii. 4 ; its misrrpresentation of
the social state of the Germans before
the invasion, its faults in treating of
the Roman law between the 5th and
12th centuries, 5 ; his dissertation, Sur
le colonal romain, quotations from, iii.
125.

Seine (or Sequanus) St., passage from \
the life of, ii. 134.

Senatorial families, distinct existence of
the, attested by all the monuments of
the period, i. 301. I

Semi-Pelagians have the Pelagian con- j
troversy bequeathed to them, i. 38*).

Serfs, enfranchisement of, Louis le Hu- |
tin's ordinance for the, iii. 14S. I

Sermons of the 6th century compared I
with mo<lem sermons, ii. 108. I

Servitude of the religious to the ecclesi- I
astical society, from the Cth to the
8th century, less complete than it
appeared, ii. 44.

Sidonius \pollinnrius, bi.'shop of Cler-
mont, letters from, i. 331, 343, 3n<;.

Sigbert, letter from king, to Didier,
bishop of Cahors, ii. 31.

Sigismond's collection of laws, ii, 11;
how it came to be called " Papiani
Retponintm" ii. 12.

Simony, prevalence of, in the feudal
church, i. r.'i.

Sismundi, M. <k', liis Ifittnire de» Fratifais
characterized, i. 2S4 ; his account of
the origin of chivalry, iii. 105; proofs
that lie is ini.-itakon, loii.

Scabini, seven of tlie, bound to attend
local as.aeniWie,*, iii. (;4 ; institution of,
by Cliarlemagne, ins.

Schism, the great, of the west, i. 20(1.

•• Scli<X)l of the Palace," the, ii. 23s ; pro-
bable nature >>f tlic studies pur^iued at.
i7). ; I)is/iufiitio between Alcuin mid
Pepin at, 2ri;> — 2 12; decay of, under
Loui.* le Debonnaire, ii. 37 1 ; revival of,
by Charles le Chauve, i6. ; studies
pursued in, 372.

Schools, principal, in Roman Gaiil. i. 3 10 ;
decay of the civil, in the .')th century.

852 ; nature of the studies pursued
at the early ecclesiastical, ii. 101 ; list
of the most flourishing episcopal, from
the 6th to the middle of the 8th cen-
tury, ib. i institution of ecclesiastical,
which superseded civil in the 6th cen-
tury, 100; labours of Alcuin to re-
establish, 236; ordinance of Charle-
magne concerning, 237; results, it.j
decrees respecting, issued by Valen-
tinian, Honorius, and Theodosius, i,
851: entire absence of liberty in,
361.

Slavery, condition of, in the United States
of America, iii. 830.

Science, its share in the civilization of
nations, i. 6.

Scott, Walter, his preface to Old Mortality
quoted, ii. 120.

Smaragde, abbot of Saint Mihiel, his
treatise of morality for kings, ii. 265.

Social order, its aim and perfection, i. 80.

organization, principles of, after

the settlement of the Germans in Gaul,
iii. 60.

progress, objections usually made

to it, also answers which have been
made to those objections, i. 13.

state of the middle ages, insup-
portable character of, iii. 9.

Society, three distinct, discoverable at
the fall of the Roman empire, i. 42 ;
some share of reason, truth, and justice
necessary to the duration of any, 48 ;
impossible without principles and sen-
timents in common, 54 ; comlitions of
the formation of a durable and regular,
64 ; no general, for the population
under the feudal system, 7.') ; entire
transforniati-jn of, between the 12th
and isth centuries, 14rt; at the end of
tiie crusades, contrasted with society at
tlielx'ginning, 15;>; n)o<ieni, essential
characteri.-itics of, 177; a common
conviction is the basis of, ii. 20 , two
sy.>'tcni3 according to which religious,
may l>e constituted, 3.') ; two facts of
which it is the totality, iii. 1!>3, 194;
arcount of what truly constitutes it,
I!'4, l!i.1.

Sovereignty, of right, remarks ui)on the,
i. \i\U : ix>r.soi!i(ication of the, under
the image of royalty, how far admis-
siMe, ;/..

pasrage of, from tlie people to

an individual, i. 170.

496

Sovereifrnty and property, amalgamation
of, iii. 38 ; effects of the fusion of,
57.

Spain, formation of the national unity of,
in the fifteenth century, i. 201.

Spain and Italy less active than Gaul
at the 5th century, i. 392.

Spiritual power, claims of the, in the
12th and 13th centuries, i. 319.

Spiritual society, conditions of the exist-
ence of a, ii. 21; or church, many
centuries necessary to develope its
principle, 22 ; the nature of, is better
understood now than it has ever
been, ib.

States, confusion and instability of,
during the barbarous epoch, i. 51.

States-general of France, character of,
described, i. 192; greater frequency of
their assembling under Philip le Bel,
iii. 275; account of their meeting at
Tours, in 1308, ib.

State trials, account of the principal,
from Saint Louis to Philip de Valois,
iii. 279.

Stephen IV. election of, in 816, ii. 337.

Stuart, James, accession of, to the throne
of England ; the commencement of
the great quarrels between royalty and
the English people, i. 216.

Succession, royal, disputes respecting, iii.
288.

Suger, entrusted with the entire govern-
ment of France, iii. 216; an illustra-
tive letter to him, 217; other letters
to and from him, ib. et seg.; a letter of
his to the king, 220 ; letter of, to the
bishop of Beauvais, 40C.

Sulpicius, St., passage from the life of,
ii l'J9.

Suzerains, first cause which tended to
keep their trains around them, iii. 99 ;
second Cause, the custom of bringing
up sons of vassals at their court, 101 ;
the nghts due to, from vassals, 163
— 165 ; relation between, and their
vassal*, 166. I

Sweden reinstated by Gustavus Vasa in

1523, i. 216.
Synod, decline of the provincial, ii. 49.

Tacitus, his Summary the most impor-
tant document we possess concerning
the early Germans, i. 414; extract
from, to prove that the same fluctua-
tion reigned in the interior of Ger-

many as on the frontiers, 417; quoted
iii. 97, 103.

Templars, origin of, iii. 120.

Temporal power, condition ot, in the
1 0th century, favourable to its occupa-
tion by the church, i. 101.

Teutberge condemned by three council*
held in Aix-la-Chapelle, ii. 341.

Theodosian code, a most important ori-
ginal monument, i. 2 43.

Theodosius and Justinian, codes of, which
indicate the remission of municipal
affairs to the clergy, i. 36.

Theocracy, failure of, in Italy, i. 185.

Theocratical pretensions to the original
possession of European society, i. 46.

Theodulf, bishop of Orleans, his measures
for the instruction of the people, i. 259 ;
his poem, Parenesis ad Indicei, ii.
260.

Theology of the middle age, birth of, in
the 10th century, ii. 390; Christian,
more and more a stranger to ancient
philosophy, ib.

Theorie des Lois Politiques de la Honarchie
I Frangaite, characterized, i. 294.
I Thierry, his " History of the Conquest of
I England by the Normans," eulogized,
i. 40 ; his Lettres sur FHistoire dt
France, quoted, ii. 285.
I Thirty years war, the, at the commence
, ment of the 17th century, i. 316.

Third estate, not first called to the
I States General by Philip le Bel, iii
274; their influence in that body at
this time, 275 ; importance of, 289 ,
a new fact, 290; shown not to e.xist
in any of the great Asiatic nations,
291 ; or in ancient Europe, ib. ; proof
of the false comparison of its struggle
with that of the plebeians and patri-
cians of Rome, 292; peculiar interest
of, for French people, I'A. ; nowhere so
completely developed as in France,
if). ; state of, shown at various periods,
290 ; acts relating to, 292 ; inspection
of, 294; sources of the, 305; why im-
portant not to lose sight of the va
rious origins of, 303 ; distinction be-
tween the meaning of the term, and
that of borough, 303, 304 ; importance
of this distinction, ib. ; continual pro-
gress of, despite the decay of boroughs,
352.
Tithes, attempted revival of, in the 6tb
century, ii. 83.

497

Toledo, extract from the canons of the i
councils of, 171; decree of the ninth
council of, ii. 39.

Tours, Saint Martin of, account of the
abbey of, ii. 247.

Towns, condition of, from the 5th to the
10th century, i. 130, 131 ; acquisition
of importance by, after the establish-
ment of feudalism, 131.

— of soutliem France, more early

in imjMjrtance than those of northern
France, iii. 30G ; observations upon
those which obtained charters and
franchises, without becoming corjx)-
rate towns, 316 ; antiquity, origin of
the, 327.

Trent, the council of, secures the defi-
nitive triimiph of the court of Rome
in the ecclesiastical order, i. 217.

Tribes, nature of, iii. 41 ; distinguished
fh)m bands, ib.

Turks, contest in Germany against the,
in the 16th century, i. 21G.

Tyranny of the ancient civilizations
attributable to their unity of principle,
i. 23.

United Provinces, revolution of the,

i. 216.

United States, character of the forma-
tion of tlie great towns, iii. 328.

Unity of principle in ancient civiliza-
tions, absent for the most part only
in anti-historical times, i. 22.

Unity wliich pervades the ancient civili-
zations, i. 22 ; difflculty of establisli-
ing it ttiroughout tl\e Koinan world by
reason of its municipal character, 2!»;
tlie particular act of wliich more es-
specially constitutes a nation, iii. 2 ;
national, continuous existence of the
idea of, in France, 224.

University of I'aris, its scientific labours
dating from tlie i:)tli century; the
lir?t establishment of the kind in F.u-
rope, i. 2s0.

Valkxtiman, edict of, in reference to
the students of the school at Rome, i.
362.

V'akry, .*>t., passage from the life of, ii.

12(1.

VassalaiTi', its obligations, iii. 157.
Vii?salsot"one suzerain, relation between,
iii. 109

Vassals, their theoretical right to pay no
tax, and obey no law not made with
their own consent, iii. 187 ; their righ
to renounce their vassalage to any par
ticular suzerain, 190; illustrative text
from Beaumanoir, 191.
Vigilius, pope, letter from, to Profuturus,

bishop of Paga, ii. 330.
Vigilantius, heresy of, i. 3-53 ; he is re-
futed by St. Jerome, ib.
Villae, supposed derivation of the word,

iii. 79 ; converted into castles, ib.
Visigoths, philosophic character of their
law, i. 58 ; law of, concerning the em-
ployment of oaths, and tlie punishment
of homicide, in free men and slaves,
111; its importance and duration,
486 ; situation of the, at the com-
mencement of the Gth century, the
same as that of the Burgundians and
the Franks, 486 ; Roman law among
the, ii. 6—11.
Voltaire, his want of impartiality, as an
historical critic, towards tlie middle
ages, iii. 11 ; as a poet, he does them
i more justice, ib.

Wandeutng life of the barbarians
brought to a conclusion, i. 61.

Wandregisilus, Saint, pa.ssages from
.tie life of, ii. 12.0, 129.

Warriors, agglomeration of, did not cease
iniiiiediately after the territorial estab-
lishment, iii. 97.

War of tlie towns against the feudal
lords, in the Uth century, character-
istic of, i. 131, 13.',; private, the legal
state of feud.ll society, iii. 179; ob-
servations ujion their nature, ib. ;
feudal regulation of, ISO.

Wars of the roses, results, i. 202.

Wars, characteristics of the earlier, in
Europe, iii. 5 ; change in their nature,
•7).

Westphalia, treaty of, in 1608, i. 215.

Wenilon. archbishop of Sens, accusation

brought against him in S,5!», l)efore

the council of Toul, by Charles le

Chauve, ii. 326.

Wiarda, his llistnire et explication de la

liii Saliipie, i. 4.'.6.
William III. passes into England, L

24f;.
William, prince of Orange, as the pro-

1 testant republic of Holland, under*

VOL. III.

498

takes to resist the pure monarchy of
Louis XIV., i. 246.
Words, progress of the formation of their
ordinary meaning, 1. 7 ; scientific defi-
nitions of, less accurate than the ordi-
nary common sense acceptations, ib. ;
liability to inaccuracy in the employ-
ment of; i. 130.

Women, their importance developed by
the feudal system, i. 72.

York, school of, in the time of Alcuin.
ii. 232.

Yves, bishop of Chartres, letter of, con-
cerning the conduct of the bishop of
Beauvais, iii. 392 ; writes to the inha-
bitants of Beauvais, 401.

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