The role of the Parlement de Paris in the ratification and registration of royal acts during the reign of Charles VI

The following article corrects the mistaken assumption held by a number of historians that during the reign of Charles VI of France it was necessary for the Parlement de Paris to publish and register all important royal ordinances before they could be executed. Individual cases are discussed to show the nature of the prerogatives of the Parlement and the methods used for the ratification and registration of royal acts.     

英国议会请愿的起源

在13世纪中期,因为地方司法治理不力,英国臣民向王室施加了巨大的政治压力。与此同时,为了扩大管辖范围,罗马教廷和巴黎高等法院也向英国王室发起有力的主权挑战。英国国王爱德华一世被迫开展司法改革,以应对这些压力和挑战,进而加强其统治权威。其中的一项重要举措就是允许臣民向议会呈递请愿。在当时,议会请愿的主要内容是寻求司法公正和祈求王室恩惠。它的推行,一方面加强了王权,另一方面维护了民权,由此受到普遍的欢迎和支持。正是在爱德华一世统治时期,议会请愿获得了初步发展,成为议会制度的重要组成部分。这标志着英国议会请愿制的成形。最后要指出的是:议会请愿的起源,深受英国君臣之间实力对比的影响。     

The Capetian apanages and the nature of the French kingdom

The Capetian apanages have traditionally been studied from the perspective of the developing national monarchy. This approach is anachronistic; its premises are drawn from a later century, and even within the Capetian period it groups together with little differentiation the attitudes and intentions of five generations of kings.The context for the early Capetian apanages is the successional customs of the nobility, which the kings knew well from having seen them practised by their baronial neighbors. The determining concepts behind these measures were not those of the crown and the royal domain, but rather the societal ones by which, through the succession, the individual members of the family were ordered in relation to the family's lands.Only in the last quarter of the thirteenth and the first quarter of the fourteenth centuries did the kings and the Parlement impose the series of rulings which molded Capetian practice into a distinctively royal pattern. For most of the period under consideration, the territorial kingdom was treated as an aggregate of separable holdings, most of which were the private inheritance of the ruling family.     

The Capetian apanages and the nature of the French kingdom

The Capetian apanages have traditionally been studied from the perspective of the developing national monarchy. This approach is anachronistic; its premises are drawn from a later century, and even within the Capetian period it groups together with little differentiation the attitudes and intentions of five generations of kings.The context for the early Capetian apanages is the successional customs of the nobility, which the kings knew well from having seen them practised by their baronial neighbors. The determining concepts behind these measures were not those of the crown and the royal domain, but rather the societal ones by which, through the succession, the individual members of the family were ordered in relation to the family's lands.Only in the last quarter of the thirteenth and the first quarter of the fourteenth centuries did the kings and the Parlement impose the series of rulings which molded Capetian practice into a distinctively royal pattern. For most of the period under consideration, the territorial kingdom was treated as an aggregate of separable holdings, most of which were the private inheritance of the ruling family.     

French jurisdictional supremacy in Gascony: one aspect of the ducal government's response

As a result of the 1259 treaty of Paris, the king of England resumed a feudal relationship with the French monarch, thus holding his duchy of Gascony as a fief. This meant that Capetian officials could exercise their master's jurisdictional authority in the duchy, in part because of the supreme appellate powers of the royal court, the Parlement of Paris. This they did with enthusiasm and skill, causing considerable disruption to English power in the duchy. Accepting the challenge, ducal officials devised a number of tactics to thwart the exercise of French jurisdiction in Gascony. These methods were altogether illegal or even criminal in nature, but the officials felt they were necessitated by the critical threat of Capetian authority to Plantagenet control of Gascony. Unfortunately, such tactics did little to alleviate their jurisdictional problems. Ducal authorities failed to create any consistent and systematic program for ending permanently Gascon judicial appeals to the French court, and they were hamstrung both theoretically and physically in the haphazard efforts they did make. Far from halting the advancement of Capetian jurisdictional authority in the duchy, the unlawful methods merely underscored the precarious nature of the English position there.     

Judicial Politics, War Finance and Absolutism: The Parlement of Besancon and Venality of Office, 1699-1705

During the War of the Spanish Succession, how was Louis XIVable to extract badly needed funds from France’s privilegednoble judges without inciting serious resistance? This articleanswers this question by examining the monarchy’s successfulefforts to expand venal officeholding in the Parlement of Besançon.It argues that Louis XIV’s achievement depended largelyon the skilful management of judicial politics. The Bisontinparlementaires long opposed the expansion of venality. The king’sministers and their local agents were able to overcome theiropposition by fashioning an effective strategy of divide andrule that convinced the majority of the judges to support thecrown’s policies while simultaneously marginalizing thosedetermined to resist. This strategy established a model forthe royal government’s political management of the sovereigncourts. Louis XIV’s successors, however, permitted thismodel to decay at their peril.     

French jurisdictional supremacy in Gascony: one aspect of the ducal government's response

As a result of the 1259 treaty of Paris, the king of England resumed a feudal relationship with the French monarch, thus holding his duchy of Gascony as a fief. This meant that Capetian officials could exercise their master's jurisdictional authority in the duchy, in part because of the supreme appellate powers of the royal court, the Parlement of Paris. This they did with enthusiasm and skill, causing considerable disruption to English power in the duchy. Accepting the challenge, ducal officials devised a number of tactics to thwart the exercise of French jurisdiction in Gascony. These methods were altogether illegal or even criminal in nature, but the officials felt they were necessitated by the critical threat of Capetian authority to Plantagenet control of Gascony. Unfortunately, such tactics did little to alleviate their jurisdictional problems. Ducal authorities failed to create any consistent and systematic program for ending permanently Gascon judicial appeals to the French court, and they were hamstrung both theoretically and physically in the haphazard efforts they did make. Far from halting the advancement of Capetian jurisdictional authority in the duchy, the unlawful methods merely underscored the precarious nature of the English position there.     

Exemplaire parlement…

The archives of the parlement of Paris are not only exceptionally important historically but also exceptionally complex. This article begins by surveying the formation and history of these archives. It treats their cataloguing and the many collections of copies and extracts that have been made, before discussing the ways in which archivists have treated and researchers have utilized the series, as well as the perspectives the series can open to historical research. The archives of the Parlement illustrate the full range of problems posed by conservation, communication to the public, and utilization, They reveal with special clarity the complementarity and interaction (verging on confusion) that necessarily occurs among the approaches taken by historians on the one hand, and archivists on the other. The archives of the Parlement also demonstrate that researchers' knowledge of the history of the archives goes beyond simple archival practice and contributes to the recognition of documentation as a «source» of history.     

略论殷墟王陵制度的形成

无论是传世文献还是甲骨金文,均反映出晚商时期有一个嫡庶观念逐渐加强的过程,而这个过程与殷墟西北岗王陵区不断突出王墓的作法是一致的。两个方面均反映出晚商王权的逐步加强以及父死子继王位传承制度的逐渐巩固与最终确立。西北岗王陵西区是比较纯粹的王陵区,但东区埋葬的人员较为复杂,只能看作是一处高等级王室墓地。西北岗王陵区可能开启于殷墟文化一期偏早阶段,并可能一开始就大致划定兆域界限。武丁在位时期可能对王陵制度作过重大调整,即西区只葬殷王,其他成员只能葬在王陵东区、小屯宫殿宗庙区西南部墓地以及后岗西区墓地等处。殷王陵不奉行夫妻并穴合葬,王与后分处。但王陵东区有异姓陪葬的现象。殷王陵区有象征国家政权的一面,与殷墟其他普通族墓地有较大差异。     

Exercise of royal power in early medieval Europe: the case of Otto the Great 936–73

Current scholarly orthodoxy holds that the German kingdom under the Ottonians ( c. 919–1024) did not possess an administration, much less an administrative system that relied heavily upon the 'written word'. It is the contention of this essay that the exercise of royal power under Otto the Great (936–73) relied intrinsically on a substantial royal administrative system that made very considerable use of documents, particularly for the storage of crucial information about royal resources. The focus of this study is on Otto I's use of this written information to exercise royal power in the context of confiscating and requisitioning property from both laymen and ecclesiastical institutions.     

The impact of royal government in the French Ardennes: the evidence of the 1247 enquête

Louis IX's enquête of 1247 was designed to investigate the misdeeds of loyal royal officials, and the reports of the cases investigated by the enquêteurs reveal the impact of royal government at the village level. The complaints heard in the upland Ardennes voice the protests of a remote region as it found itself increasingly subject to royal control. The local agents of the crown, usually outsiders, were characterised by an arbitrariness of procedure and a disregard for local feeling and custom which suggests that, in this area, royal justice was seen as a violent intruder as much as a preserver of order.     

‘Grace for the rebels’: the role of the royal pardon in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381

This article focuses on the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 as a means of examining some of the late medieval assumptions about the nature of royal mercy. Rather than adding to the weight of scholarship on the causes and characteristics of the Revolt, this article discusses the views on mercy (‘grace for the rebels’)¹ that were reportedly expressed by all parties during the course of the rebellion. The first section analyses the chronicles and their references to discussion of pardon and mercy during the revolt itself. The second section examines the role of the royal pardon in the subsequent judicial proceedings in the Home Counties — who were the first recipients of pardon, and how were they able to secure royal grace? The final section then discusses the formulation of the pardon in the autumn parliament, and the debate surrounding the course of government policy in the wake of revolt on an unprecedented scale. This article seeks to demonstrate that the Crown and commons shared a common language of pardon, and understood that by framing their discussion in terms of royal grace, they were alluding to a particular kind of idealised relationship between the king and his subjects.     

List of figures and acknowledgements

Louis IX's enquête of 1247 was designed to investigate the misdeeds of loyal royal officials, and the reports of the cases investigated by the enquêteurs reveal the impact of royal government at the village level. The complaints heard in the upland Ardennes voice the protests of a remote region as it found itself increasingly subject to royal control. The local agents of the crown, usually outsiders, were characterised by an arbitrariness of procedure and a disregard for local feeling and custom which suggests that, in this area, royal justice was seen as a violent intruder as much as a preserver of order.     

Techniques of seigneurial war in the fourteenth century

Despite the many studies devoted to medieval military history, most work has concentrated on royal wars, neglecting the petty seigneurial wars that made up most of the large-scale, organised violence of the middle ages. This article, based on judicial records for dozens of seigneurial wars waged in fourteenth-century southern France, shows that lords' tactics were not keeping up with those of royal commanders. Although royal wars increasingly involved large numbers of foot soldiers, large siege engines, and artillery, local lords' bureaucratic and financial limitations restricted their adoption of new techniques. As had been the case for centuries, most lords' wars were focused on causing economic damage and affective trauma through raiding. After the first phase of the Hundred Years War, local lords began to employ significant numbers of mercenaries, allowing them to wage war more frequently and perhaps making their wars more violent, a development which partly reflects the economic pressures of the period.     

In the name of a distant king: representing royal authority in the county of Castile,c.900–1038

This article explores the representation of royal power in the tenth‐century county of Castile by contrasting the low degrees of effective royal agency within the county with a dominant charter‐writing tradition that coupled king and count in the synchronisms of the dating clauses. The components of the Castilian charter corpus are broken down and compared to other areas in northern Iberia, in order to suggest that, rather than a mere regional charter‐writing tradition, this practice reflects a widespread political culture that sought to legitimize the counts' unitary leadership of Castile by reference to a prestigious yet distant royal figure.     

Techniques of seigneurial war in the fourteenth century

Despite the many studies devoted to medieval military history, most work has concentrated on royal wars, neglecting the petty seigneurial wars that made up most of the large-scale, organised violence of the middle ages. This article, based on judicial records for dozens of seigneurial wars waged in fourteenth-century southern France, shows that lords' tactics were not keeping up with those of royal commanders. Although royal wars increasingly involved large numbers of foot soldiers, large siege engines, and artillery, local lords' bureaucratic and financial limitations restricted their adoption of new techniques. As had been the case for centuries, most lords' wars were focused on causing economic damage and affective trauma through raiding. After the first phase of the Hundred Years War, local lords began to employ significant numbers of mercenaries, allowing them to wage war more frequently and perhaps making their wars more violent, a development which partly reflects the economic pressures of the period.     

福蒂斯丘与英法封建君主制比较

福蒂斯丘爵士是15世纪英国的法学家和政治理论家,他最早研究了中世纪末英国的君主制类型及其与其他君主制的区别。他的特殊经历使其首次提出英国实行的是"政治且王室的统治",以区别于法国的"王室的统治"。上述两种类型的封建君主制在形成过程和统治方式上大相径庭,统治结果也截然分明,两者的优劣判若两途。福蒂斯丘有关"政治且王室的统治"的理论不仅揭示了中世纪末英国封建君主制的类型,对宪政理论的发展也具有奠基意义。     

福蒂斯丘与英法封建君主制比较

福蒂斯丘爵士是15世纪英国的法学家和政治理论家,他最早研究了中世纪末英国的君主制类型及其与其他君主制的区别。他的特殊经历使其首次提出英国实行的是"政治且王室的统治",以区别于法国的"王室的统治"。上述两种类型的封建君主制在形成过程和统治方式上大相径庭,统治结果也截然分明,两者的优劣判若两途。福蒂斯丘有关"政治且王室的统治"的理论不仅揭示了中世纪末英国封建君主制的类型,对宪政理论的发展也具有奠基意义。     

Royal burial and the cult of kingship in France and England, 1060–1330

In the late-eleventh and early twelfth centuries, French and English royal burials were relatively unceremonial, low-key affairs, a contrast with the obsequies of other contemporary rulers such as the Holy Roman emperors. One reason for that may be the dominance of reforming ecclesiastics in arranging the funeral rites in England and France; another, the importance attached by the monarchs to obtaining personalised intercession from ascetic monks. By the early fourteenth century, however, the French and English sovereigns were commemorated after death in magnificent ceremonies and monuments. In the intervening centuries, those kings and their followers had shown a growing interest in the creation and promotion of royal saint-cults; in the honouring of royal remains; in public and splendid funeral ceremonies and lawish tombs; and in the creation and development of imposing burial-churches at Saint-Denis and Westminster. During this time there was an increasing emphasis upon the image and panoply of monarchy in both kingdoms which was rooted to a large extent in the personal and political rivalry of their rulers. The new splendours of royal burials can be seen as one important part of those developments.