Part 1207

In practice, without doubt, these salutary principles were often disregarded; but it is still much that they were professed, and this fact alone constitutes an enormous difference between the middle ages and the later centuries. The royal power, besides, had not yet a material force sufficiently great to dominate everywhere as absolute master. Under the two first lines, it was exercised in the same degree over all points of the territory; from the accession of the third, on the contrary, it was only a power of two degrees, having a very unequal action according to the territory and the locality. A part of France composed the royal domain; it was the patrimony of the Capetian house, increased by conquest or successive acquisitions. There, the king exercised an authority almost without limit; he was on his own ground. All the rest formed duchies, counties, or seigneuries of different sorts, possessed hereditarily by great vassals, more or less independent originally. Here the king was only the suzerain; he had scarcely any rights excepting to homage, to military service, to pecuniary assistance in certain stated cases, and to some privileges called royal, as that of coining money. The entire royal policy, from Philip Augustus to Louis XI., consisted in skilfully increasing the first of these parts by absorbing little by little the second. … The kingdom of France, in the time of Saint Louis, was still very nearly as the treaty of Verdun had established it. On the north and east, it was bounded by the Empire of Germany. The frontier line passed a little beyond the cities of Ghent, Audenarde, Tournai, Douai, Guise, Mézières, Grandpré, Vitry, Joinville, Fay, Mirabeau; then it followed the course of the Saône and the Rhône, from which it diverged only in two places in order to attribute to the Empire the, at least, nominal possession of part of Lyonnais and Vivarais. On the south, the Pyrenees formed, as originally, the natural limit; but from the treaty of Corbeil (1258) Roussillon remained with the king of Aragon, in exchange for his right over the county of Foix, the territory of Sault, Fenouilhedès and Narbonnais. On the other hand, the vast duchy of Guienne, comprising Bearn and the county of Bigorre, came … under the suzerainty of the king of France only by virtue of the treaty of Paris (1259). On the west the kingdom was bounded only by the ocean, Brittany also having rendered homage to the crown from the time of Philip Augustus. Thus Saint Louis and his son left it, on the whole, more extensive than it was before them, and if it was more limited than the France of the present, on the east, it reached, on the contrary, farther to the north. The royal domain embraced in 1226 only the half of this immense perimeter. It was composed of the primitive nucleus of the Capetian possessions: that is, of the Isle of France and of Orleannais; then of French Vexin. Gâtinais and the viscounty of Bourges, brought by Philip I.; of the county of Corbeil and the seigneury of Monthléry, acquired by Louis VI.; of Artois, Vermandois (with the county of Amiens), Valois, Norman Vexin, of the counties of Evreux, Meulan, Alençon, Perché, Beaumont sur Oise, acquired by Philip Augustus and Louis VIII.; finally the territory obtained by the former from John Lackland by war or by confiscation, that is, all Normandy, Touraine, Perigord, Limousin, and the viscounty of Turenne. Anjou, Maine, Poitou, Auvergne, Angoumois, included in the same conquest, had since been detached from the crown to form princely appanages. The profitable domain of Perigord of Limousin and of the viscounty of Turenne, was reconveyed, in 1259, to the king of England, … in order to bring all the region of the southwest within the pale of the royal suzerainty. But Saint Louis compensated for this diminution by acquiring successively the two great seneschalates of Nîmes and of Carcassonne, the counties of Clermont, of Mortain, of Macon, and Philip the Bold did more than redeem it, by realizing the annexation, so skilfully prepared by Blanche of Castile, of the last domains of the count of Toulouse, which had become those of Alphonse of Poitiers, that is, of nearly all Languedoc. The possessions of the crown thus formed two or three separate groups, cut up in the most fantastic fashion, and connected only as the result of long effort. All the rest of the kingdom was composed of great fiefs escaping the direct action of royalty, and themselves subdivided into lesser fiefs, which complicated infinitely the hierarchy of persons and lands. The principal were the counties of Flanders, Boulogne, Saint Pol, Ponthieu, Aumale, Eu, Soissons, Dreux, Montford-l'Amaury; the bishoprics of Tournai, Beauvais, Noyon, Laon, Lisieux, Reims, Langres, Chalons, the titularies of which were at the same time counts or seigneurs; the vast county of Champagne, uniting those of Réthel, Grandpré, Roucy, Brienne, Joigny and the county Porcien; the duchy of Burgundy, so powerful and so extensive; the counties of Nevers, Tonnerre, Auxerre, Beaujeu, Forez, Auvergne; the seigneury of Bourbon; the counties of Blois and of Chartres; the county or duchy of Brittany; Guienne, and, before 1271, the county of Toulouse; the bishoprics of Albi, Cahors, Mende, Lodève, Agde, Maguelonne, belonging temporally as well as spiritually to their respective bishops; finally the seigneury of Montpellier, holding of the last of these bishoprics. To which must yet be added the appanages given by Louis VIII. to his younger sons, that is, the counties of Artois, Anjou, Poitiers, with their dependencies. … So when the government of the kingdom at this epoch is spoken of, it must be understood to mean that of only the least considerable part of the territory,—that is, of the part which was directly submitted to the authority of the king. In this part the sovereign himself exercised the power, assisted, as ordained by the theories examined above, by auxiliaries taken from the nation. There were neither ministers nor a deliberative corps, properly speaking; however there was very nearly the equivalent. On one side, the great officers of the crown and the royal council, on the other the parliament and the chamber of accounts (exchequer), or at least their primitive nucleus, constituted the principal machinery of the central government, and had, each, its special powers. The great officers, of whom there had at first been five, were only four from the reign of Philip Augustus, who had suppressed the seneschal owing to the possibility of his becoming dangerous by reason of the progressive extension of his jurisdiction; they were the bouteiller, who had become the administrator of the royal expenditure; the chambrier, elevated to the care of the treasury; the connétable, a kind of military superintendent; and the chancelier, who had the disposition of the royal seal. {3752} These four personages represented in a certain degree, secretaries of state. The two latter had a preponderant influence, one in time of peace, the other in time of war. To the chancellor belonged the drawing up and the proper execution (legalization) of the royal diplomas; this power alone made him the arbiter of the interests of all private individuals. As to the constable he had the chief direction of the army, and all those who composed it, barons, knights, paid troops, owed him obedience. The king, in person, had the supreme command; but he frequently allowed the constable to exercise it, and, in order not to impose too heavy a burden upon him, or rather to prevent his taking a too exclusive authority, he had appointed as coadjutors two 'maréchaux de France' who were second in command. … The king's council had not yet a very fixed form. Saint Louis submitted important questions to the persons about him, clerics, knights or men of the people; but he chose these advisers according to the nature of the questions, having temporary counsellors rather than a permanent council. Among these counsellors some were more especially occupied with justice, others with finance, others with political affairs. These three categories are the germ of the parliament, of the exchequer, and of the council of state; but they then formed an indistinct ensemble, called simply the king's court. They were not completely separated so as to form independent institutions until the time of Philippe le Bel. The first, that which later constituted the parliament, belongs especially to the judicial department. … The second, while not yet elevated into a distinct and permanent body, is already delegated to special duties, being charged with examining the accounts of the baillis and seneschals. The 'gentlemen of the accounts' ('gentes quae ad nostros computos deputantur') began under Saint Louis to meet periodically in the Temple, at Paris, and to exercise a regular control over the public finances; so that this new creation, which was, later, to render services so important, was an outcome of the scrupulous probity with which the royal conscience was filled. … The superior jurisdiction is represented by the parliament. The organization of this famous body was begun in the lifetime of Philip Augustus. Under the reign of this prince [Saint Louis] and notably as a result of his absence, the 'cour du roi' had begun to render more and more frequent decisions. The section which was occupied with judicial affairs, appears to have taken on, in the time of Saint Louis, an individual and independent existence. Instead of following the sovereign and meeting when he thought it expedient, it became sedentary. … The date at which the series of the famous registers of the parliament, known under the name of Olim begins may be considered that of the definitive creation of this great institution. It will be remarked that it coincides with the general reform of the administration of the kingdom undertaken by the good king on his return from Syria. … From its birth the parliament tended to become, in the hands of royalty, a means of domination over the great vassals. Not only were the seigneurs insensibly eliminated from it, to the advantage of the clergy, the lawyers, and the officers of the crown, but by a series of skilful victories, its action was extended little by little over all the fiefs situated outside the royal domain, that is over all France. It is again Saint Louis who caused this great and decisive advance toward the authority of the suzerain. He brought it about especially by the abolition of the judicial duel and by the multiplication of appeals to the parliament. … As for the appeals the interdiction of 'fausser jugement' (refusal to submit to the sentence pronounced) was not the only cause of their multiplication. Many of the great vassals were led to bring their affairs before the king's court, either on account of the confidence inspired by the well known equity of Saint Louis, or by the skill of the royal agents, who neglected no opportunity to cause the acceptance of the arbitration of the crown; and those who did not resign themselves to it were sometimes compelled to do so. The appeals of their subjects naturally took the same route; however they continued to employ the medium of the seneschal's court or that of the bailli, while those of the barons and the princes of the blood went directly to Paris. No general law was promulgated in regard to the matter. Royalty was content to recover little by little, by partial measures, the superior jurisdiction formerly usurped by the feudality. … Above and outside of the parliament justice was rendered by the king in person. … Saint Louis, always thoughtful of the interests of the lowly, had a liking for this expeditious manner of terminating suits. Nearly every morning, he sent two or three members of his council to inquire, at the palace gate, if there were not some private individuals there wishing to discuss their affairs before him; from this came the name 'plaids de la porte' given to this kind of audience. If his counsellors could not bring the parties to an agreement, he called the latter into his own room, examined their case with his scrupulous impartiality, and rendered the final sentence himself on the spot. Joinville, who took part more than once in these summary judgments, thus describes to us their very simple mechanism. 'The king had his work regulated in such a way, that monseigneur de Nesle and the good count de Soissons, and the rest of us who were about him, who had heard our masses, went to hear the 'plaids de la porte,' which are now called 'requêtes' (petitions). And when he returned from the monastery, he sent for us, seated himself at the foot of his bed, made us all sit around him, and asked us if there were any cases to despatch which could not be disposed of without him; and we named them to him, and he sent for the parties and asked them: Why do you not take what our people offer you? And they said: Sire, because they offer us little. Then he said to them: You should take what they are willing to give you. And the saintly man labored in this way, with all his might to set them in a just and reasonable path.' Here the great peace-maker is clearly seen; private individuals as well as princes, he desired to reconcile all, make all agree. These patriarchal audiences often had for theater the garden of the palace or the wood of Vincennes. The legendary oak which sheltered the modern Solomon remains in all memoirs as the symbol of his kindly justice and of his popularity, well acquired."

_A. Lecoy de la Marche, La France sous Saint Louis et sous Philippe le Hardi, liv. 1, chapter 2, and liv. 2, chapters 1 and 3._

_François Guizot, Great Christians of France: Saint Louis and Calvin, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62518._

{3753}

FRANCE: A. D. 1423-1429. The family and circumstances of Jeanne d' Arc.

"What were the worldly circumstances, what was the social position, of the parents of Jeanne d'Arc? Questioned on these points, the people of the country, called to testify at the public inquiry, in the course of the rehabilitation proceedings, all made the same reply; they said that the father and mother of the maid were unassuming husbandmen and possessed with their cottage only a moderate patrimony. According to a memorandum, made out with the assistance of papers and family traditions, a memorandum transmitted by the abbé Mandre, curé of Damvillers (Meuse), who died about 1820, to his nephew Mr. Villiaumé, father of the historian of Jeanne d' Arc and of the Revolution, the real estate belonging to Jacques d'Arc and Isabelle Romée represented about twenty hectares, of which twelve were cultivated, four were meadow and four woodland, and in the latter the 'bois Chesnu'; they had beside their house, their furniture and a reserve of two or three hundred francs which they kept carefully in view of the possibility of a flight before some invasion, such as they had been obliged to take to Neufchâteau. By cultivating, themselves, what they possessed, they could obtain from it an annual revenue equivalent to four or five thousand francs of our money, which permitted them to distribute alms to the poor, notwithstanding their moderate patrimony, and to give hospitality to the mendicant friars as well as to the travelers who often passed through that country. If these valuations are not rigorously exact, they appear to us at least quite reasonable, though we are ignorant of the data upon which they rest. In a parochial register of Domremy, transcribed in 1490, we read that Jacob d'Arc and Ysabellot, his wife, had established an annual income of two gros [gros of Lorraine, coin worth 1/8 oz. of silver] in favor of the curé of Domremy from a 'fauchée' and a half [day and a half's mowing] of field situated in the 'ban' of Domremy, above the bridge, between the heirs Janvrel and the heirs Girardin, on condition of the celebration of two masses each year during the week of the Fontaines for anniversary services for the dead. The property of these honest people constituted, if we may judge by the different replies of the Maid compared with one another, what was called then in the Barrois a 'gagnage' or little farm; now, what distinguished the gagnage from the simple 'conduit,' was that the first always employed for the needs of cultivation a certain number of horses. The usage was at that time, in that region, to attach three or four mares to the plough, and they even had, at least in the great gagnages, a special horse to drag the harrow. Besides this property situated at Domremy, it may be supposed that Jacques d'Arc possessed in right of his wife some pieces of land at Vouthon, for we see by a register of the writs of court of the provostship of Gondrecourt that the eldest of his sons named Jacquemin made his residence from 1425 in this village of the Barrois holding where he cultivated undoubtedly the little patrimony of Isabelle Romée. Jacques d'Arc and Isabelle de Vouthon had three sons, Jacquemin, Jean and Pierre, and two daughters, the elder named Catherine, the younger Jeanne or rather Jeannette, she who was by her heroism to immortalize her line. Two documents … prove with evidence that Jacques d'Arc figured in the first rank of the notables of Domremy. In the first of these, dated Maxey-sur-Meuse, October 7, 1423, he is styled 'doyen' of that village and by this title comes immediately after the mayor and alderman. 'In general,' says M. Edward Bonvalot, speaking of the villages in the region of the Meuse governed by the famous charter of Beaumont in Argonne, 'there is but one doyen or sergeant in each village, who convokes the bourgeois to the electoral assemblies and to the sittings of the court; it is he also who convokes the mayor, aldermen and the men of the commune to their reunions either periodical or special; it is he who cries the municipal resolutions and ordinances; it is he who commands the day and night watch; it is he who has charge of prisoners. Among the privileges which he enjoys must be cited the exemption from the taxes (deniers) of the bourgeoisie. At Linger, he has the same territorial advantages as the clerk of the commune.' It is seen by various documents that the doyens were also charged with the collection of the 'tailles,' 'rentes' and 'redevances,' and that they were appointed to supervise bread, wine and other commodities as well as to test weights and measures. In the second document, drawn up at Vaucouleurs March 31, 1427, Jacques d'Arc appears as the agent of the inhabitants of Domremy in a suit of great importance which they then had to sustain before Robert de Baudricourt, captain of Vaucouleurs. … The situation of Domremy was privileged, and, thanks to this situation, humble peasants who had few needs found even in the soil which they cultivated nearly everything which was necessary for their subsistence. The heights crowned with beeches and venerable oaks, which shut in on the west the valley where the village lies, furnished fire-wood in abundance; the acorns permitted the fattening of droves of hogs; the beautiful vineyard of Greux, exposed to the east and climbing the slopes of these heights since the 14th century, produced that light wine, excessively acid, which is not the less agreeable to the somewhat harsh palate of the children of the Meuse; the fields lying at the foot of these slopes and contiguous to the houses were reserved for the cultivation of the cereals, of wheat, of rye and of oats; finally, between these cultivated fields and the course of the Meuse, over a breadth of more than a kilometer stretched those verdant meadows whose fertility equals their beauty and from which is still taken the best and most renowned hay of all France. The principal wealth of the inhabitants of Domremy was the cattle which they pastured in these meadows, where each, after the hay-harvest, had the right to pasture a number of heads of cattle proportioned to that of the 'fauchées de pré' [days mowings of field] that he possessed. This is what was called the 'ban de Domremy' the care of which was confided, by turns, to a person taken from each 'conduit' or household. It may be seen by certain replies of Jeanne to her judges at Rouen that she had been more than once appointed to this charge, when the turn of her parents came, and her enemies had not failed to seize upon this circumstance to pretend to see in her only a shepherdess by profession. … {3754} Most of the historians of Jeanne d'Arc have made a great mistake when they have imagined Domremy an out-of-the-way corner and isolated, so to speak, from the rest of the world; on the contrary, a road much frequented toward the end of the middle ages crossed this village. This was the old Roman road from Langres to Verdun which passed through Neufchâteau, Domremy, Vaucouleurs, Void, Commercy and Saint-Mihiel; it had acquired yet more importance since the marriage of Philip the Bold and Margaret, daughter of Louis de Male, had brought into the same hand Flanders, Artois and Burgundy. This marriage had had the effect of giving increased activity to the exchanges between the extreme possessions of the Burgundian princes. … It may be seen by what precedes that, like the legendary beech of her native village, the childhood of the virgin of Domremy sprang out of a soil full of vigor and was in the main haunted by beneficent fairies. Born in a fertile and smiling corner of the earth, the issue of an honest family, whose laborious mediocrity was elevated enough to touch nobility when ennobling itself by alms-giving, and humble enough to remain in contact with all the poor; endowed by nature with a robust body, a sound intelligence and an energetic spirit, the little Jeannette d'Arc became under these gentle influences all goodness and all love. Certain facts which are related of her early years show her religiously enamored of country life. She gave some wool from her sheep to the bell-ringer of Domremy to render him more zealous in fulfilling his office, so much did the silvery chiming of his church bell, sounding suddenly in the quiet of the valley, enchant her ear. And the inspiring virtue of the cool shadows, of the 'frigus opacum' of Virgil, who had better felt it than she who replied to her judges at Rouen: 'If I were in the midst of the woods, I should hear my voices better.' … One of the consequences of the treaty of Troyes was the occupation of Champagne by the [English] invaders.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1417-1422 (page 1175).