Although it is often assumed that resurgent royal government eliminated so-called 'private warfare', the French judicial archives reveal nearly one hundred such wars waged in Languedoc and the Auvergne between the mid-thirteenth and the end of the fourteenth century. Royal administrators often intervened in these wars, but not always in order to suppress 'private violence' in favour of 'public justice'. They frequently recognised elites' own power and legitimate prerogatives, and elites were often fully complicit with royal intervention. Much of the engagement between royal officers and local elites came through informal processes of negotiation and settlement, rather than through the imposition of official justice. The expansion of royal authority was due as much to local cooperation as to conflict, a fact that ensured its survival during the fourteenth-century crises. This book thus provides a narrative of the rise of the French state and a fresh perspective on aristocratic violence.
Author(s): Justine Firnhaber-Baker
Series: Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought. Fourth Series, 95
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2014
Language: English
Pages: XIV+218
List of illustrations ix
Acknowledgements x
Abbreviations xii
Map xiv
Introduction. History, historians, and seigneurial war 1
Approaches to seigneurial war 5
Prosecutions and pardons: the sources for seigneurial warfare 12
The definition and quantification of warfare 17
The plan of the book 20
1. War and peace in post-albigensian Languedoc, 1250–1270 24
God’s peace: the ideology of Capetian peace-keeping to 1270 26
An on-going battle: seigneurial wars after the Albigensian Crusade 35
Peace-keeping and the new order: the administration of justice 44
Conclusion 55
2. Philip the Fair’s mission from God, 1270–1314 57
A mission from God: ideological and normative developments 58
A more localized phenomenon: seigneurial war under Philip the Fair 66
Policy, protection, and privilege: the judicial prosecution of warfare 72
Conclusion 81
3. The last Capetians and the Hundred Years War, 1315–1350 83
Legislation: seigneurial reaction and royal retrenchment 85
The fall and rise of seigneurial warfare in the South 91
Justice: a new role for legislation 98
Administration: the evolution of authority in difficulty 104
Conclusion 113
4. The changing experience of violence, 1350–1364 115
Legislation: the valorization of order 118
A rising tide of violence: seigneurial war before and after Poitiers 125
Justice, corruption, and self-help 133
Legitimate violence: the redefinition of authority 142
Conclusion 148
5. Violence and the state, 1365–1400 150
The 'laws of war': social and ideological developments 153
A darkening mirror: seigneurial war, 1365–1400 159
The memory of justice 169
'...ala hobediensa del Rey de Franssa': legitimacy and licence 172
Conclusion 178
Conclusion 180
Appendix A: Royal ordonnances regarding seigneurial war 185
Appendix B: Seigneurial wars in southern France 191
Bibliography 196
Index 216
