Power, caste, and law: social conflict in fourteenth-century Montpellier 9780910956727

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
Foreword by Joseph R. Strayer (page ix)
Preface (page xvii)
List of Abbreviations (page xxi)
I Early French Taxation and Social Conflict (page 1)
II Popular Resistance to Taxation, 1323-1338 (page 8)
III Personal Privilege and Communal Authority: The Example of Célestin Séguier (page 26)
IV The Consuls and the People: A Conflict among the Propertied (page 38)
V Royal Responses to Popular Resistance: The Officers of the Crown for the Sénéchaussée of Beaucaire and Nîmes (page 50)
VI Royal Responses to Popular Resistance: Enquêteurs-Réformateurs, Fiscal Commissioners, and Agents of Conciliation (page 71)
VII Roman Law and Equity in the Resolution of Social Conflict (page 84)
VIII Community and Privilege: By Way of Conclusion (page 114)
Appendices
I Taxes Raised in the City of Montpellier, 1315-1340 (page 142)
II Notes on the Careers of Selected Individuals (page 146)
III The Law Faculty and Legal Profession in Montpellier (page 162)
IV Representatives of the Populares, 1323-1338 (page 165)
V Royal Officers for the Sénéchaussée of Beaucaire and Nîmes (page 167)
VI Ordinary Judges in the Sénéchaussée of Beaucaire and Nîmes (page 169)
VII Judicial Officials Native to the Sénéchaussée of Beaucaire and Nîmes (page 171)
VIII Commissions of Inquiry, Conciliation, and Arbitration Concerned with the Dispute between the Consuls and the People (page 172)
IX Royal Commissioners and the Investigation of Franc-Fief (page 174)
X Royal Commissioners Dealing with Violations of Fiscal Ordinances or Negotiating Taxes, 1325-1340 (page 176)
XI Taxation and Noble Privilege (page 178)
Bibliography (page 179)
Index of Persons (page 195)
Index of Subjects (page 198)

Citation preview

Medieval Academy Books No. 91

POWER, CASTE, AND LAW

BLANK PAGE

POWER, CASTE, AND LAW Social Conflict in Fourteenth-Century Montpellier

Jan Rogozinski Foreword by Joseph R. Strayer

NOTA

AS NY,

THE MEDIEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA Cambridge, Massachusetts © 1982

The publication of this book was made possible by grants of funds to The Medieval Academy of America from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Copyright © 1982 By The Medieval Academy of America Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 78-70247 ISBN 910956- 72-3

Printed in the United States of America

For Paul Francis Hauch

BLANK PAGE

Contents Foreword by Joseph R. Strayer 1x

Preface xvii List of Abbreviations xxi I Early French Taxation and Social Conflict 1 II Popular Resistance to Taxation, 1323-1338 8 III Personal Privilege and Communal Authority: The Example of Célestin Séguier 26

IV The Consuls and the People: A Conflict among the Propertied 38

V Royal Responses to Popular Resistance: The Officers of the Crown for the Sénéchaussée of Beaucaire and Nimes 50

VI Royal Responses to Popular Resistance: Enquéteurs-Réformateurs, Fiscal Commissioners, and Agents of Conciliation 71

VII Roman Law and Equity in the Resolution of Social Conflict 84 The Penetration of Public and Private Acts by the Roman Law 84 The Role of Compromise and Arbitration in the Maintenance of Social Harmony 95 The Participation of Jurists in the Creation of New Governmental and Social Forms 107

VIII Community and Privilege: By Way of Conclusion 114 The Practical Applicability of Theories of Evident Necessity and Popular Consent 114 The Urban Elite and the Roman Law in the Service of Communal Unity 122 “Taxes Are the Price We Pay for Civilization” 128 Toward a Society of Orders: Popular Resistance and the Juridical Codification of Class Privileges 134

Appendices I Taxes Raised in the City of Montpellier, 1315-1340 142 II Notes on the Careers of Selected Individuals 146 Ill The Law Faculty and Legal Profession in Montpellier 162

vil

Vu Contents IV Representatives of the Populares, 1323-1338 165 V Royal Officers for the Sénéchaussée of Beaucaire and Nimes’ 167 VI Ordinary Judges in the Sénéchaussée of Beaucaire and Nimes 169 VII = Judicial Officials Native to the Sénéchaussée of Beaucaire and Nimes 171 VIII Commissions of Inquiry, Conciliation, and Arbitration Concerned with the Dispute between the Consuls and the People 172 IX Royal Commissioners and the Investigation of Franc-Fief 174 xX Royal Commissioners Dealing with Violations of Fiscal Ordinances or Negotiating Taxes, 1325-1340 176

XI Taxation and Noble Privilege 178 Bibliography 179 Index of Persons 195 Index of Subjects 198

Foreword By Joseph R. Strayer Dr. Jan Rogozinski has written a remarkable book, one that shows how much can be learned from the careful study of the history of a relatively small region. First of all, he has shown that conflicts between the “peo-

ple” and the ruling body of consuls of Montpellier in the fourteenth century were not “class” conflicts in any meaningful sense of the word. The leaders of the “people” were as well born, as wealthy, and as well educated as any of the loosely organized group of consular families. Certainly, in advocating equal assessment of taxes and in trying to restrict the number of inhabitants who could claim exemption from taxation they were protecting the poorer part of the population, but they were also aiding themselves. Since taxation in Montpellier was based on the value of property, or of goods imported, or of grain ground in the communal mill, unfair assessment and a large number of exemptions could hurt the rich man just as much, if not more, than it could the poor man, since the very poor often paid only nominal sums. The men who led the “populares” did not spend vast amounts of money in suing the consuls because they wanted to establish a pure democracy in Montpellier. Like the leaders of the “tax revolt” in our day they were trying to protect their own pocketbooks. If, because of their efforts, some benefits came to the

poor, that was well and good, but it was not their primary objective. They did not want a drastic change in the structure of municipal government; they did not even want a drastic change of office-holders. There are a few overtones of “throw the rascals out,” but in fact the old governing group, or their friends and relatives, retained most of the key positions during two generations of struggle. The unspoken slogan seems to

have been: “If they behave themselves, let them do the hard work of assessing, collecting, and accounting for municipal taxes.” The conflict in Montpellier was unusually pacific — no serious riots, no assassinations, very little violence of any kind. But the basic pattern can be found in many other medieval towns; the opponents of the governing group were not proletarians but a cross section of the possessing classes, ranging from the very rich to humble but by no means povertystricken artisans. A careful study of the town of Périgueux in northern Ix

x Foreword Languedoc would, I think, show many similarities with the history of fourteenth-century Montpellier. From 1307 to about 1320 there was a struggle between the consuls and a group called “the citizens,” “the inhabitants” or “the people.” The opponents of the consuls were wealthy enough and organized enough to carry on lawsuits against the consuls, who were accused of rigging elections and of misuse of public funds. The “citizens” secured the abolition of the consulate, but the town still had a commune, which in 1317 had syndics who could plead in the Parlement. Some compromise must have been reached about that time, because the consuls were reestablished by Philip V and a general faille was collected

from all inhabitants, apparently by common consent, to pay for this favor.!

Professor Rhiman Rotz has found a somewhat similar pattern in fourteenth-century Liibeck and Brunswick.? Jacques Heers’s family clans (notably those of Genoa) represent a variant — rival groupings headed by great nobles but supported by a cross section of the population.? The towns that have been mentioned were commercial towns; the industrial towns, where there was a large and unhappy proletariat, were much more given to violence, which for brief intervals approached the level of a class struggle. But even in towns such as Bruges or Florence the conflicts usually ended, not in the triumph or the subjugation of a class, but in the victory of a faction led by rich or well-born citizens and supported by clients drawn from all levels of society. Montpellier’s political struggles were milder than those of other towns, but they were not different in kind; they were struggles between factions and not between classes.

Dr. Rogozinski, in fact, would object strongly to using the word “class” to describe the political behavior of the inhabitants of Montpellier. He points out, quite rightly, that there was no generally accepted

definition of nobility, that there was endless debate as to who was a cleric, that there was no concept of a “patrician” group, and that the privileged corporations of officials (the “robe,” for example) had not yet been formed. Privilege there was, but it was an individual, not a group 1. Olim, 3:366; Boutaric, Actes du Parlement de Paris, 2, nos. 4547, 4556, 4748, 4897, 4098, 6028, 6487. —

2. Rhiman Rotz, “Urban Uprisings in Germany, Revolutionary or Reformist? The Case of Brunswick, 1374,” Viator 4 (1973), 207-223; “The Uprising of 1374: Source of Brunswick’s Institutions,” Braunschweigisches Jahrbuch 54 (1973), 61-73. 3. Jacques Heer, Le clan familial au Moyen Age (Paris, 1975).

Foreword xi privilege, and there were bitter arguments as to who possessed a privilege (such as exemption from taxation) and whether such a privilege could be inherited. As Dr. Rogozinski says, we are a long way from the “society of orders” of the Ancien Régime.

Montpellier was a long way from the Ancien Régime in another respect; royal officials were not stern, inflexible upholders of royal supremacy. This is not to say that the king’s orders were always put into effect immediately and completely after the reforms of Richelieu and his suc-

cessors, but at least they were seldom ignored or flatly disobeyed. In fourteenth-century Montpellier royal officials felt very free to delay implementing, to interpret after their own fashion, to protest, and at times to fail to carry out the orders they received from Paris. It is only fair to say that the king and the central bureaux of government were often very slow to make decisions, that they sent out contradictory orders, that they frequently did not know whether their orders had been obeyed (usually the injured party had to tell them), and that local officials were seldom

punished for delays, especially if they took care to send in a letter explaining why they could not, or did not want to, enforce the order. These excuses were often perfectly valid. The central government was misinformed on many occasions; the Parlement was not always consistent in its decisions; commissioners nominated by the king might reserve or modify acts of the central government, or a new group of commissioners might reverse their predecessors. Back of all this wobbling and uncertainty was a hard fact; no local official, from the seneschal down, had

enough military power to enforce a really unpopular order. In many cases, the best that could be done was to arbitrate the question, either through a panel of local notables or through a special royal commission. This procedure took time, and the results were not always exactly what the king had at first ordered, but it did produce acceptable and enforceable solutions. There were many causes besides military weakness for the inefficiency and, in some cases, lack of zeal, of the king’s officials. In the first place, both the royal domain and the royal bureaucracy had expanded with ex-

traordinary rapidity during the thirteenth century. As opposed to England, where the area ruled directly by the king had scarcely changed since the time of Edward the Confessor, it was only between 1204 and 1285, with the acquisition of Normandy, Saintonge-Poitou, Languedoc, and Champagne, that the king of France became responsible for the ad-

Xil Foreword ministration of the larger part of the realm. Again, in contrast to England, where the Exchequer had been organized before 1100 and the great royal courts had taken shape by 1200, the Chambre des Comptes and the Parlement were creations of the thirteenth century, and only at the end of that century were they becoming permanent institutions with continuing membership and well-established rules of procedures. The growth of the bureaucracy always lagged behind the increase in the work to be done. As Dr. Rogozinski points out, it was only in the 1290s that a receiver (chief financial officer) was appointed for each administrative district. The royal government could not have kept up with its work, even if it had been utterly ruthless and willing to accept quick solutions at the price of justice. But the government, even the government of Philip the Fair, was ruthless only in matters of urgent necessity. Ordinarily, it honestly tried to follow the example of St. Louis; it sought justice and equity. Unfortunately, an earnest search for just solutions caused endless delay, since basic information had to be collected and ample opportunity had to be given for the parties to a case to present their arguments. Even worse, it was not difficult to make the king, or some of his councillors, unhappy about an administrative or judicial decision and thus to obtain a review or a reversal of what had been ordered. Doubtless family connections,

friendship or clientage, or even outright bribery played some part in these actions, but behind all this was a very real reluctance to change the established order of things. Long possession gave a title that was more binding on conscience than the ruling of a court. Hence, all during the early part of the fourteenth century fiefs that had been confiscated were

returned; communal charters that had been forfeited were restored; ruinous amercements were moderated or even forgiven. If this was the behavior of the king and his Council, it is easy to see that local officials were not going to exhaust themselves in pushing to its limits every possible royal claim to income or rights of government.

This unwillingness to push too hard was especially noticeable in Languedoc. Dr. Rogozinski is surely right in stressing the fact that most

local officials in that region were natives, not just of Languedoc, but often of the very sénéchaussée in which they held office. This was especially true of the sénéchaussée of Beaucaire-Nimes, which included the town of Montpellier and its famous law school. The graduates of that school held almost every judgeship in the district and also had almost a monopoly of practice in the courts. The seneschal was usually a north-

Foreword XU erner, but if his judges, his councillors, his attorneys, and his local administrators (the viguiers) were men of the South, who spoke Occitan instead of French, who had had an education based on Roman, not customary law, and who lived in a society that was more urbanized than that of the North, he was not going to have a very free hand in carrying out his ideas of how royal policy should be enforced. He could not even use the trick of building up a group of loyal supporters by promising promotion to high office in Paris. Most of these men did not want to go to Paris (Guillaume de Nogaret had few successors); most of them did not especially desire even local office. They could make more money in private practice. Yet they had to be used; very few northerners could understand the political situation in a town like Montpellier, or the peculiar and increasingly Romanized law of the South. There was no such problem in any other region. Even Normandy, which was strongly attached to its own customs, could be administered at the local level by men from the Ile-de-France or the Northeast. Norman law was not all that different from the law of neighboring regions, and a prévét from the old domain could be quite successful as a viscount (the equivalent of a southern viguier) in Normandy. This is not to say that the office-holding, university-educated men of Montpellier and its region were trying to weaken the king’s power or to regain the old de facto independence of the South. They had few grievances against the North French; they had not suffered greatly during the Albigensian Crusades nor had the Inquisition done them much harm. Even in western Languedoc, which had suffered, only a few fanatics still dreamed, in the early 1300s, of throwing off French domination. The men of Montpellier had long accepted the fact that, even if their immediate lord was the king of Majorca, they were part of the kingdom of France. They merely wanted to preserve their customs and their local privileges. They did not like to pay taxes to support the king’s war, but neither did the men of any other region. In fact, there was less violent opposition to royal taxation in Montpellier than in many French-speaking

regions.t What Montpellier wanted — and got — was a chance to discuss, to object, to haggle, and then to strike a bargain over the amount to be paid.> This was exactly the technique used in other dis4. J. R. Strayer and C. H. Taylor, Studies in Early French Taxation (Cambridge, Mass., 1939), pp. 49, 75. 5. Ilbid., pp. 52, 55, 68.

xiv Foreword putes, either internal or with the central government. It was certainly helpful to have local officials who understood this process and who could see that it followed its normal course, but bargaining over taxation occurred in all parts of France, whether local officials were natives or not. Or, to turn to another area, it was helpful that the various commissions named to resolve the dispute between the “people” and the consuls of Montpellier were composed, for the most part, of men of the region, who were familiar with local customs and politics and were themselves, in many cases, office-holders. This selection, however, was not inevitable; to be a king’s procurator did not give a man an inherent right to be named to every commission of conciliation. Rather, the central government, for reasons already mentioned, found it impossible to make deci-

sions at a distance. It did not want to impose an unjust ruling on a community about which it knew little; it turned, instead, to experts on local conditions. Naturally enough, the experts who were best known were men wha had worked for the government, but not every commissioner was a career royal official. The basic requirement was understanding of southern society and knowledge of the Romanized southern law. There was no pressure on the commissioners to reach a solution favorable to the king, especially since the king and his Council were clearly not

sure what kind of solution would be favorable. In these circumstances the sensible thing to do was to settle the dispute in a way that would cause the least friction in the community. This is what the commissioners did, and probably what any group of southern lawyers would have done. The final problem raised by Dr. Rogozinski is that of the influence of

Roman law on the institutions and society of Languedoc. There is no doubt that the number of men who had studied Roman law increased tremendously during the period 1250-1350 and that their example affected others who had had no formal university training, especially the notaries.

There is general agreement that Roman law had profound effects on legal procedure. The number of appeals increased and the rules for deter-

mining what was and what was not a valid appeal were made more precise. There was also a clearer definition of the forms that had to be followed in preparing procurations, delegations of power, and other legal documents. The making of enquétes, which were now almost the only way of collecting evidence in a lawsuit, was surrounded by elaborate precautions and formalities. There is less agreement on how far the increase in the number of men who had studied Roman law changed the substance of the law that was

Foreword xv applied in Languedoc. Fortunately, we do not have to deal with most of the aspects of this thorny question. The basic question for many years has been: did the increased study of Roman law lead to an increase in royal power? Earlier scholars saw a direct connection between the two. Now we are not so sure. Certainly Roman law authorized almost any action taken for the common welfare, especially taxation for defense of the community. But it hardly required the advice of men trained in Roman law to persuade fourteenth-century rulers to levy taxes for war. England, certainly much less influenced by Roman law than France, was collecting general taxes almost a century earlier. And if Roman law Justified taxation it could also be read, in quod omnes tangit, as requiring consent to taxation.® As for assertions that the ruler had ultimate ownership of all property in the realm and that he could make laws at his pleasure, these were not taken seriously by anyone. Guillaume de Plaisian, who, as a former professor of law knew his Digest well, is said to have cited these - maxims in the long-drawn-out suit with the bishop of Mende over the

king’s suzerainty over the Gévaudan,’ (an outlying part of the sénechaussée of Beaucaire). This was pure show; in the end, as usual, a compromise was arranged that left the bishop very extensive rights of government. In general, the king was cautious about taking the property of subjects. Even taxes for defense had to be justified by elaborate arguments and made more palatable by negotiations with local groups over the form and amount of taxation. As for law-making, there was a clear, if unstated, distinction between administrative regulations and changes that affected the basic substance of local customs. The king could forbid

the export of certain commodities or regulate exchange rates, but he could not have made the Normans abandon the rule of primogeniture any more than he could have made the Occitanians accept it. I have argued elsewhere,® and Dr. Rogozinski more or less agrees with me, that the immediate effect of increasing knowledge of Roman 6. Gaines Post, “A Romano-Canonical Maxim, Quod omnes tangit,” Traditio 4 (1946), 197-251, reprinted in Studies in Medieval Legal Thought (Princeton, 1964), pp. 163-238. 7. A. Maisonobe, Mémoire relatif au paréage de 1307 (Mende, 1896), p. 521: “. . . omnia que sunt infra fines regni sui sint domini regis . . . etiam quantum ad proprietatem omnium singularum rerum mobilium et immobilium, quas idem dominus rex donare, recipere et consumere potest ex causa publice utilitatis et deffensionis regni sui... . “Item, quod dominus rex sit imperator in regno suo... et omnes populi regni sul ejus regantur imperio, et omnes etiam prelati et clerici quoad temporalia legibus et edictis et constitutionibus suis ligentur. . . .” 8. J. R. Strayer, Les gens de justice du Languedoc, pp. 42-45.

xvi Foreword law was to hamper rather than to encourage the growth of royal power. Proliferation of appeals, not only in cases involving private parties, but also against acts of royal officials, hampered the prompt enforcement of royal orders. If one appeal were denied, another, based on slightly different arguments, could be prepared. Even if there were no appeals the formalities required by Roman law took endless amounts of time (and parchment). Dr. Rogozinski speaks of rolls dealing with individual cases that were many meters long. I have seen some of these rolls and I noticed that they were not only long but also inconclusive. By the time that purely procedural problems had been settled the original judge had had to turn to other problems, a substitute had to be named, and many of the procedural formulas repeated. Then new objections could be raised, and thus a final decision could be put off almost indefinitely. The very desire of Roman law to be fair and just made it an inefficient tool of government. Therefore, in many cases, not only in Montpellier, but elsewhere, serious disputes could be ended only through arbitration and compromise. This was not exactly the way to build up absolutism.

One final remark. It is impossible to make meaningful statements about social conflicts or relations between royal officials and private citizens in the fourteenth century without knowing a great deal about the individuals who were involved in these conflicts and relationships. Titles and labels mean very little. A “knight” in fourteenth-century Montpellier might be a highly educated and prosperous member of the bar, a country gentleman, or an impoverished landlord living off the rents of a miniscule patrimony. A “legum doctor” might be an ardent supporter of royal

authority, or a man who strove to uphold the privileges of a lord or a commune, or simply a professional lawyer who had no interest in politics. A leader of the “populares” could be as well off as some of the con-

suls he opposed, just as in the United States a “Democrat” can be a millionaire. One has to know the family connections, the patrons and clients, the private and public careers of hundreds of men before one can begin to understand the history of any medieval town. This information

is not always available, but in a surprising number of cases it can be found through careful examination of local archives. It is because he made such an arduous search that Dr. Rogozinski was able to write this important book.

Preface This monograph examines social conflict and governmental operations in one large and important city of southern France during the first half of the fourteenth century, analyzing the political, prosopographical, linguistic, and juridical evidence to ascertain the social standing of those involved, the questions at issue, and the means by which conflict might be resolved without overt violence. Because of the lack of serious historical study of urban social conflict in medieval France, historians of France have tended to follow the interpretations of urban unrest advanced by students of the better-known revolts in northern Italy and the Low Countries. They assume that the “popular factions” (populares) represented the lowest classes in the cities, who struggled vainly against the domination of the very rich. They also assume that the royal government supported municipal oligarchs and helped to suppress “the people” in return for the transmission of tax revenues, thereby encouraging an increasingly repressive class structure. This standard interpretation of urban unrest is not supported by the evidence concerning a riot of a thousand people at Montpellier in 1325. That riot was part of a larger conflict that began in 1323. The struggle between the consuls and the populares, described in detail in Chapter II, continued until the consuls paid off a heavy popular debt in 1338. The popular party achieved many of its aims through a formal act of arbitration in 1331, but by that time royal officials had taken advantage of the struggle to advance the novel claim that explicit royal permission was required for each tax levied by the municipal government. The consuls ap-

pealed this claim to the Parlement of Paris. Then, in 1337, their autonomy faced another challenge, as did the legality of their settlement with the populares, when Célestin Séguier, the son of a wealthy law professor, raised the equally novel claim that he was exempt from communal (and thus royal) taxation as a member of the nobility. Séguier dragged the consuls through innumerable courts before being excommunicated and having his property confiscated; his case raised highly significant issues that are analyzed in Chapter III. Prosopographical analysis reveals that the populares, like the consuls, belonged to an urban elite whose social standing was superior to that of perhaps eighty-five percent of the entire population. In their legal arguments the populares appealed not to class interest but to a long-standing xvii

xviil Preface tradition of communal unity that employed the word populus in its classi-

cal sense to mean every member of the community. Most of the royal officials involved in the conflict were natives of the region, and they were drawn from the same elite as the consuls and people. They did not seek to

advance royal power at the expense of local interest, but sought to restore social harmony through conciliation. Their initiatives were, in any case, limited by traditions and institutional habits that had by the 1320s largely taken the forms they would retain until and even beyond the Revolution of 1789.

When these royal officials were unable to end popular agitation through techniques of conciliation, the task fell to royal enquéteursréformateurs sent in from outside the district. Because their commissions of conciliation were carefully distinguished from commissions involving fiscal responsibilities, they succeeded in their task and were generally well received. This distinction between the function of arbitrator and tax collector caused the arbitrators to be welcomed and even solicited by the king’s subjects. The techniques used to resolve the conflict are examined in Chapter VII. By the 1320s Lower Languedoc had already adopted many substantive principles as well as the procedures of the Roman law, which were adapted to prevailing needs by a distinguished law faculty and numerous bar. Since local groups and factions retained the great majority of both faculty members and ordinary practicing lawyers, the reception of the

Roman law tended to weaken the power and authority of the crown rather than strengthen it, as scholars have so often stated. Liberal or Marxist interpretations cannot explain adequately the social conflict at Montpellier, and the final chapter of this book develops a new

paradigm. By forcing the consuls to adhere more scrupulously to Romano-canonical legal principles, popular resistance temporarily enhanced the influence of representative bodies and led to greater reliance on the proportional fai//e than on indirect taxation. But the suc-

cess of the people in avoiding taxation for more than a decade and in winning concessions also encouraged individual claims to immunity: if informal exemption was now more difficult to arrange, the number of individuals seeking legal immunity substantially increased after 1331. In

opposing both organized and individual delinquency, the consuls invoked a legal tradition that emphasized their undivided authority over

the whole community. When this was inadequate, their attorneys developed new definitions of privilege that limited its applicability; in

Preface xix arguing against Célestin Séguier, they thus put forward one of the first statements in law defining both the membership and the privileges of

nobility. The fourteenth century did indeed witness the birth of the society of orders characteristic of the ancien régime, but the rules and boundaries of status were not imposed by the crown. As the Roman law “penetrated” regional custom through the decisions of judges and arbitrators who were themselves members of the urban elite, the consuls managed to keep control over municipal finances and to limit conces-

sions of privilege. Montpellier retained substantial rights of selfgovernment and collected relatively heavier taxes from the privileged in part because of decisions in the first half of the fourteenth century that responded to popular or individual resistance to taxation.

This book was prepared and written under unusual circumstances since archival research in recent years has customarily been carried out by those enjoying membership in university faculties. The constraints under which I have worked occasionally have caused the narrative to be presented in a compressed form. It has sometimes been necessary, for example, to discuss in the notes matters that might well have been treated

in a more leisurely manner in separate monographs. I nevertheless

believe that the reader will find much that will prove helpful in understanding the ways in which societies, including that of late medieval

France, have evolved by incorporating traditional habits and beliefs in new social and governmental forms. I began research in southern France in September 1965S, and I returned to Europe in 1970, 1973, and 1976. I have also taken into account many secondary studies, but it has not been possible to mention any article or book published after October 1977, when the manuscript was submitted to its present publisher. Since the narrative and interpretation are based on the primary sources, I do not believe that consideration of secondary works appearing since 1976 would have substantially affected my understanding of the events. At one time, I had hoped to be able to edit as an appendix to this volume the legal documents (consilia) arising out of this

conflict that have real importance in the history of legal and political thought. This has not been possible, but I trust that my paraphrases of these documents (especially in Chapter III) are adequate to the primary purpose of this study: an honest and sympathetic reliving of what was done and thought by men of another time. During the summer of 1978, Prof. John Bell Henneman helped make some changes in the organization of the text demanded by the editors. I

xXx Preface remain responsible for the substance of the narrative and notes. My first loyalty is expressed through the dedication. It is, perhaps, sufficient to say that without Paul’s constant and generous encouragement and support over sO many years, this book would — quite literally — never have been written. Manhattan January, 1980

Abbreviations

AD Archives départementales

AESC Annales: Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations

AM Archives municipales AN Archives Nationales, Paris

AP Actes du Parlement de Paris. Premiére série, ed. Edgard Boutaric, 2 vols. (Paris, 1863-1867). Deuxiéme série, ed. Henri Furgeot, 3 vols. (Paris, 1920-1975)

Arch. de Montp. Archives de Montpellier: Inventaires et documents, vols. 3-12, various editors (see the Bibliography)

ASV, RS Archivio segreto vaticano, Registra Supplicationum

BEC Bibliotheque de l’Ecole des chartes

BN Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris

C Codex Iustinianus

Cart. Mag. Cartulaire de Maguelonne, ed. Jean Rouquette and André Villemagne, 5 vols. (Montpellier, 1912-1924)

Cart. Univ. Montp. Cartulaire de l’Université de Montpellier, 11811400, ed. Alexandre Germain, 2 vols. (Montpellier, 1890-1912)

D Digesta Iustiniani Féd. historique Fédération historique du Languedoc méditerranéen et du Roussillon

Gallia Regia Gallia Regia ou Etat des officiers royaux des bailliages et des sénéchaussées de 1328 a 1515, ed. Gustave Dupont-Ferrier, 6 vols. (Paris, 1942-1961)

GC Grand Chartrier. Documents in the municipal archives of Montpellier that are catalogued in Archives de la ville de Montpellier, Inventaires et documents, 1: Inventaire du Grand Chartrier, ed. Joseph Berthelé and Ferdinand Castets (Montpellier, 1895-1899); 2: Documents omis dans l’Inventaire du Grand Chartrier, ed. Maurice Oudot de Dainville (Montpellier, 1955)

Gens just. Joseph R. Strayer, Les gens de justice de Languedoc sous Philippe le Bel (Toulouse, 1970) XX!

XXU Abbreviations AL Claude Devic and Jean Vaissete, Histoire générale de Languedoc, ed. Auguste Molinier et al., 16 vols. (Toulouse, 1872-1904)

Inst. Institutiones

Isambert Recueil général des anciennes lois francaises, ed. Francois Isambert et al., 29 vols. (Paris, 18221833)

Mémoires droit écrit Recueil de mémoires et travaux publiés par la société d’histoire du droit et des institutions des anciens pays de droit écrit (Montpellier, 1950- )

Mignon Inventaire des anciens comptes royaux dressé par Robert Mignon, ed. Charles V. Langlois (Paris, 1899)

Olim Les Olim, ou registres des arréts, ed. ArthurAuguste Beugnot, 3 vols. in 4 (Paris, 1839-1848)

Ordonnances Ordonnances des roys de France de la troisieéme race... , ed. Eusébe de Lauriére et al., 22 vols. (Paris, 1723-1849)

PTEC Ecole nationale des chartes. Positions des Theses Reg. Ph. le Bel Registres du trésor des chartes: Regne de Philippe le Bel, ed. Robert Fawtier (Paris, 1958)

Reg. Ph. V Registres du trésor des chartes: Régnes de Louis X le Hutin et de Philippe V le Long, ed. Jean Guerout (Paris, 1966)

RHD Revue historique du droit francais et étranger RTF John Bell Henneman, Royal Taxation in Fourteenth Century France: The Development of War Financing, 1322-1356 (Princeton, 1971)

Soc. politique Raymond Cazelles, La société politique et la crise de la royauté sous Philippe de Valois (Paris, 1958)

Early French ‘Taxation and Social Conflict Mout de contens meuvent es bonnes villes de commune

peur leur tailles, cair il avaient souvent que li riche... queurent tuit li fres seur la communauté des povres.' In early December 1325, many inhabitants of the town of Montpellier gathered in the main square to protest a tax recently imposed to defray a grant to the French crown.? A few days later, one of the town’s consuls charged in a formal appeal to the lieutenant of the seneschal that this demonstration had been the work of Guillaume Cervier, king’s procurator for the sénéchaussée of Beaucaire and Nimes.? 1. Philippe de Beaumanoir, Coutumes de Beauvaisis, chapter 50, ed. Amédée Salmon, 2 vols. (Paris, 1899-1900), 2:270. 2. Prior to 1349, Montpellier was divided for judicial purposes into sections of unequal size. The largest part of the city and the whole of the barony of Montpellier were under the direct lordship of the king of Aragon from 1204 to 1276, passing in the latter year to the kingdom of Majorca, which was created for a cadet branch of the house of Aragon. A smaller section of the city, known as the Rectory after the head of its court, was in 1293 purchased from the bishop of Maguelonne by the French crown. Both sections were effectively governed as a single unit by a college of twelve consuls who jointly exercised executive and legislative powers, aided by an advisory council or councils. The consuls, who were indirectly elected from the more important merchant and craft guilds, appointed the other municipal officials and played a dominant role in the selection of the bayle (bajulus) and judge exercising the ordinary judicial authority of the king of Majorca: see below, Chapter IV; Archibald Lewis, “The Development of Town Government in Twelfth Century Montpellier,” Speculum 22 (1947), 65-67. The king of Majorca was also represented by a lieutenant or governor and a judge of appeals (judex

major curiae palatii). These were usually not citizens of Montpellier: Charles d’Aigrefeuille, Histoire de la ville de Montpellier, ed. M. de la Pijardiere, 4 vols. (Montpellier, 1875-1883), 2:376; Jan Rogozinski, “Ordinary and Major Judges,” Studia Gratiana 15 (1972), 597; cf. Richard Emery, “The Black Death of 1348 in Perpignan,” Speculum 42 (1967), 617-621. Although the bayle technically acted for the king of Majorca, many decisions were in practice appealed from the bayle’s court as

well as from that of the rector to the various royal courts under the seneschal of Beaucaire and Nimes. 3. This sénéchaussée was a large administrative district in southeastern France. Although most of the administrative and fiscal officers were based at Nimes, the royal seneschal’s

military headquarters were at the fortress of Beaucaire, overlooking the Rh6ne (France’s eastern frontier). Some works call the district simply the sénéchaussée of Beaucaire. See below, Chapter V, for a discussion of the royal offices in this district. 1

2 Taxation and Social Conflict Cervier, the consul stated, had come to Montpellier the preceding Monday saying that he was commissioned by the seneschal. Not telling the consuls why he had come, he put three royal sergeants in the clock tower of Our Lady of the Tables, where they sealed the cords of the bell with the royal seal. A tumult resulted since the consuls could not sound the bells in honor of the archbishop of Narbonne, who arrived that day to hold his provincial council. The procurator put men at the entrance to the church, and the doors could not be closed. More than a thousand people of low condition (“populares inferioris conditionis”) gathered, crying out that it would be better to die in Montpellier than in Flanders. The consuls, fearing for their safety and dreading sedition, went to see Cervier, who kept them waiting while he spoke with Humbert Brasfort, the attorney of the people. When they could do so, the consuls asked the procurator who had led him to make such a riot, and they requested that he show them his commission, which he would not do. Then the royal of-

ficials resident in the town arrived and asked the procurator to help restore quiet, and finding that he was instead responsible for the tumult, they protested that he would be liable also for the resultant disorder.‘ Complaints about the inequity of municipal taxes undoubtedly began

with the first urban civilizations, and the inhabitants of late medieval cities were frequently vociferous and often violent in expressing their resentment. The incident in Montpellier stands out and takes on a larger significance because of the charge of active collusion between the rioters

and a provincial official of high rank. Moreover, this was only one episode in a conflict that disturbed the peace of Montpellier for more than fifteen years. The details of the conflict throw light on three topics

of considerable historical importance: first, the structure of power within a southern French commune; second, the relationship between the urban governing classes and the royal government; and third, the place of Roman law within southern French society. Although social unrest in fourteenth-century France has received less

attention than contemporary revolts in Flanders and Italy, there is 4. GC, no. 3512. Cf. Alexandre Germain, Histoire de la commune de Montpellier, 3 vols. (Montpellier, 1851), 1:185-186.

5. Georges Fourquin, Les soulévements populaires au moyen age (Paris, 1972), pp. 193-209; Jean Lestocquoy, Aux origines de la bourgeoisie: Les villes de Flandre et d’Italie (Paris, 1952), pp. 80-81: “. . . la géstation des finances urbaines et ce qui en découle normalement, la question des imp6ts avec les fraudes fiscales qui se multiplient

inévitablement. La récrimination est la méme partout... .”

Taxation and Social Conflict 3 general agreement that the circumstances in France and elsewhere were similar: throughout Western Europe, it is said, the lower classes were reacting to fiscal chicanery and an ever heavier weight of regressive taxation. Echoing Beaumanoir and other aristocratic observers, modern his-

torians have often taken as valid the accusations made by popular factions (populares) purportedly expressing majority opposition to selfperpetuating cliques of the very rich that had allegedly mismanaged communal finances.* Popular uprisings, although supported by the majority of inhabitants, could not obtain much-needed reforms because the royal government supported municipal oligarchies in return for a share in their spoils. A kind of guid pro quo bargain has been described: the ruling elites passed along to the crown part of the funds collected from their inferiors, and royal officials in turn suppressed dissent to either taxes or oligarchy.’ The alliance of crown and bourgeoisie against the lower classes 1s seen as especially close in southern France, where it has been depicted as the principal force in preventing social change.® Provincial officials and commissions of reform might occasionally threaten to look into abuses as a way of putting pressure on town governments. As soon as a larger subsidy was received, however, concern for the majority interest ended, and investigations into the management of communal finances were halted.2 Supposedly, this inevitable bias of royal officials toward their 6. Roland Delachenal, Histoire de Charles V, 5 vols. (Paris, 1909-1931), 5:293, 303-304. Peter Lewis, Later Medieval France: The Polity (New York, 1968), pp. 248-249. Michel

Mollat and Philippe Wolff, Ongles bleus, Jacques et Ciompi: Les révolutions populaires en Europe aux XIV¢ et XV° siécles (Paris, 1970), define the populares as “du petit peuple, c’est-a-dire des paysans et des artisans” (p. 7) and accept the general valid-

ity of their complaints (e.g., pp. 43-48, 229, 282). Thus also Michel Mollat, Genése médiévale de la France moderne (Paris, 1970), pp. 63-66; Bernard Guenée, L’Occident aux XIV? et XV¢ siécles: Les états (Paris, 1971), pp. 269-275 (“Les révoltes des exclus”).

7. Lewis, Later Medieval France, pp. 250-251, 264-275; Charles Petit-Dutaillis, Les communes francaises, rev. ed. (Paris, 1970), pp. 158-160; John Mundy and Peter Riesenberg, The Medieval Town (Princeton, 1967), pp. 78-86. 8. Lewis, Later Medieval France, p. 273, n. 4; Philippe Wolff, “Les luttes sociales dans les villes du Midi francais,” AESC 2 (1947), 452; Paul Dognon, Les institutions politique et administratives de Languedoc du XIIF siécle aux guerres de religion (Toulouse, 1895), pp. 162-179; René Fédou, “Le cycle médiévale des révoltes lyonnaises,” Cahiers d’*histoire 18 (1973), 233-238.

9. RTF, p. 16; John Henneman, “Financing the Hundred Years’ War: Royal Taxation in

France in 1340,” Speculum 42 (1967), 279; John Henneman, ‘“EnquéteursRéformateurs and Fiscal Officers in Fourteenth Century France,” Traditio 24 (1968), 330-336, 341.

4 Taxation and Social Conflict wealthier and more influential opponents caused the populares of Montpellier, like those of other southern cities, to fail to establish a democratic form of municipal government or a system of taxation that was fair to the poor. !° On the face of it, however, the consular complaint of December 1325 presents a case that is difficult to reconcile with present interpretations of urban unrest in the late Middle Ages, even when the distortions of special

pleading are discounted. The royal procurator, a major provincial official without direct ties to any faction in Montpellier,'! apparently made

common cause with the populares to the extent of taking part in a demonstration that threatened to become a riot. The claim that the dissidents primarily opposed war taxes rather than other municipal levies

(“Melius esset quod moriamur hic quam in Flandria’”) is probably a misrepresentation calculated to touch the immediate concerns of the crown and taint those involved with crimes of sedition and /ése majesteé. The number of demonstrators may be exaggerated to make their assem-

bly appear a serious danger to public safety.!? But the necessity of appealing to a higher level of government itself lends credence to the con-

sular charge that the king’s procurator was aiding or supporting the people.

If their influence with at least one provincial official of high rank suggests that the populares were not all of “low condition,” their choice of attorney makes it unlikely that they were uniformly motivated by poverty 10. Dognon, Institutions politiques, pp. 167-168: “C’est ainsi presque toujours que finissaient les différends. Si les mouvements populaires s’étaient produits dans les communautés avant la conquéte royale, ils auraient abouti sans doute a les constituter en démocraties. . . . Mais la plupart datent d’un temps ou le pouvoir du roi pesait sur les communes. . . . Laclasse la plus nombreuse, qui les armes a la main, aurait conquis le pouvoir, était réduite a plaider contre les adversaires qui la surpassaient de beaucoup en richesse et en influence.” Thus also Germain, Commune de Montpellier, 1:184-188; Jacques Ellul, “Note sur les impdts municipaux a Montpellier,” RHD, 4© série, 17

(1938), 376-377; Jean Combes, “Finances municipales et oppositions sociales a Montpellier au commencement du XIV* siécle,” Fédération historique 44 (Montpellier, 1972), 99-120.

11. See Chapter V and notes for the office of major judge and those of procurator and advocatus regis. For Guillaume Cervier, see Appendix II, no. 15. All of the major judges and most of the procurators appointed by Philip V and Philip VI came from northern or western France, a major change from the reign of Philip the Fair, when the highest posts in the provincial administration were actually confided to legists native to the sénéchaussée.

12. The most generous estimate gives Montpellier a maximum population of forty thousand prior to 1348 (below, Chapter IV, note 28).

Taxation and Social Conflict 5 and desperation. Humbert Brasfort belonged by birth to the “knights of the arena,” an aristocracy of fewer than two dozen families who named half the consuls of Nimes, the administrative capital of the district.!3 To inherited privilege, Brasfort added honor and wealth: receiving a doctorate from the law faculty at Montpellier, he enjoyed a profitable practice, served on the seneschal’s advisory council,'* and left his son large

holdings of urban and rural property.!° The populares thus were represented by an eminent legist whose fees were high and whose position

and achievements should have prevented him from working with any group that seriously threatened the established order. While a demonstration against taxation would find mass support, the leaders of the popular faction were men of substance and property who associated easily with /egum professores and provincial administrators. Subsequent events confirm the relatively high status of the populares

and clarify the ends for which they banded together. Alliance with the king’s procurator may not have affected collection of the subsidy for the Flemish campaign;'° it did demonstrate the legality of the popular party, who may well have organized a mass protest primarily to gain acceptance

of their right to act as a group. Although not averse to more direct action, the populares usually relied on covert pressure and the possibilities for delay and harassment offered by a complicated and overlapping 13. Only nine milites castri arenarum are listed in an important arbitration of 1355 (Léon Ménard, Histoire civile, ecclésiastique et littéraire de la ville de Nismes, 7 vols. [Paris, 1750-1758], 2:160, preuve 91). Although their number had perhaps been greater before the Black Death, there was evidently some truth to accusations in 1353 that the group could no longer annually provide four adult males for the consulate (ibid., p. 155, preuve 89). See also André Dupont, “L’évolution sociale du consulat Nimois,” Annales du Midi 72 (1960), 303-305; Robert Michel, “Les chevaliers du chateau des arenes de Nimes,” Revue historique 102 (1909), 56-61. Brasfort took an oath as representative of the knights in 1316; he paid the largest amount among the six nobles of the arena taxed for the knighting of the king’s son in the 1330s: Ménard, Nismes, 2, preuves 13, 45. 14. He is mentioned as counsellor from 1310 to 1329: ibid., 1, preuve 138; 2, preuve 17; Cart. Mag., nos. 1443, 1570; GC, no. 1586; AM Marsillargues, AA 4, fols. 117-122; AA 1, no. 20. See Chapter V, below, for the responsibilities of the council of the sénéchaussée. 15. Philippe Brasfort, jurisperitus, noble of the arena, and consul of Nimes (1351, 1355, 1356): Ménard, Nismes, 2, preuves 91, 92; AM Nimes, BB 2, 00 128. For his urban property, see Marcel Gouron, “Estimation des biens des nobles nimois en 1369-1379,” Memoires droit écrit 2 (1951), 31. Philippe extended his rural holdings by marrying into the family of one of the condomini of Aramon: AD Gard, E 1325, E 1327. 16. Henneman (R7F, pp. 55-57) was unable to locate other references to this subsidy in the normally rich urban archives of Lower Languedoc.

6 Taxation and Social Conflict system of seignorial and royal justice.'” After forming a corporation rec-

ognized by those courts, they found or borrowed the funds needed to take the consuls through a long series of lawsuits that ultimately reached the crown; no fewer than seven commissions of inquiry were sent to look into allegations of peculation and malfeasance in office.

In their appeals to the crown the populares continued to enjoy the assistance of provincial officials, who exploited internal divisions in Montpellier by advancing the argument that taxes of any kind were not valid without their license. This claim represented a direct attack on com-

munal autonomy, since its acceptance by the Parlement would have given the provincial government control over town finances and encour-

aged interference in municipal affairs. After five years of litigation, perceiving royal intervention as a greater threat to their authority, the consuls came to a compromise with the people. Through a formal act of arbitration by the town’s lords, they bound themselves to tax property in direct proportion to the value declared under public oath; they agreed, moreover, that the populares had acted for the common good and should be reimbursed for their legal expenses up to a total of 5,200 gold florins. The appearance of unity achieved by this costly compromise allowed the consuls to portray their powers of taxation as a prerogative accepted by all citizens and sanctioned by ancient custom and the principles of the

Roman law. By limiting their flexibility in setting rates, the consuls preserved the essential right to tax without first gaining the sanction of royal officials in Nimes or in Paris. If popular resistance had reflected merely the spasms of simple folk blindly reacting to oppression, it would not have so strongly influenced decisions touching the nature of taxation and the power of the crown. The leaders of the populares were intelligent men who took themselves

seriously: they had the patience to sustain long and devious legal maneuvers and the courage to undertake civil disobedience. The game 17. The prolonged residence of Célestin Séguier (below, Chapter III) shows how individuals with sufficient patience and funds might also take advantage of a judicial

system that allowed a dispute to be brought before several courts under different pretexts. See also Bernard Guenée, 7ribunaux et gens de justice de le bailliage de Senlis

(Paris, 1963), pp. 101-133. Since all judges possessed a delegated authority, unfavorable verdicts by lower courts might then be avoided, especially by the higher nobility, through interminable appeals to the crown: Gens just., p. 13; Rogozinski, “Ordinary and Major Judges,” p. 607; Joseph Strayer, “La noblesse du Gévaudan et le paréage de 1307,” Revue de Gévaudan 13 (1967), 66-72.

Taxation and Social Conflict 7 was important, and it was played for high stakes. The inhabitants of Montpellier were not heavily taxed in the 1320s by modern standards or even those of a generation later,'® but permanent general taxation was in itself new and deeply resented. Since royal taxes were normally collected in the form of lump-sum payments raised through municipal or regional levies,'9 exemption of wealthy citizens through custom or secret arrangements substantially increased the burden of their neighbors. When the popular party forced an end to such favoritism, many notable families began to seek written exemption because of their social status, education, or office. Acting in the name of communal unity, the municipal govern-

ment resisted those suits, and judges and arbitrators had to weigh the privileges of rank against the obligations of citizenship. Although the populares never won control of town government, their actions significantly modified the direction in which political and social forms were evolving during the later Middle Ages, and the ways in which popular demands were met had a lasting effect on the governance of this province

and the privileges enjoyed by different groups among the clergy, nobility, and bourgeoisie.

18. John Henneman, “The French Ransom Aids and Two Legal Traditions,” Studia Gratiana 15 (1972), 622; “The Black Death and Royal Taxation in France, 1347-1351,” Speculum 43 (1968), 405-415.

19. Jan Rogozinski, “The First French Archives,” French Historical Studies 7 (1971), 114-115; R7F, p. 310; Petit-Dutaillis, Communes francaises, pp. 159-160.

Popular Resistance to Taxation, 1323-1338 The long series of legal arguments that was to last twenty years and bring into issue the legitimacy of municipal taxation for both communal and royal needs began in August 1323, when the consuls levied a proportional taille on movable property in order to raise monies promised to the

lords of the town. A large number of inhabitants refused to state their wealth under oath. They did not yet challenge the authority of the consuls to levy taxes throughout the two lordships comprising the town, but

they argued through their spokesman Pierre de Ribe, procurator omnium popularium, that the new tax was unnecessary, sufficient funds for this purpose being available from earlier levies.! Three months of futile

bargaining ensued, since the popular faction would not admit that the consuls were in debt and the consuls would not open their accounts to public examination. To break through this impasse, the royal seneschal Guy Chevrier presented himself as arbitrator, in a private rather than an official capacity, together with the major judge, the lieutenant of the king of Majorca, and Pierre de Chalon, the head of the French customs service then present in the province. These representatives of the town’s lords could claim neutrality, and they were familiar with southern law and municipal finance.? Guy Chevrier, an experienced administrator, was later entrusted with delicate 1. GC, nos. 1491, 3506-3508. Although no precise estimate of their strength is possible, the populares must have been sufficiently numerous to prevent the consuls from using the kind of physical constraint normally employed against tax evaders (for instance, see below, Chapter III at n. 12). The name “De Ribe” is taken from Rippere, following Mediae latinitatis lexicon minus, ed. Jan Frederik Niermeyer (Leiden, 1954-1976), p. 920 (see also below, Chapter IV, n. 8). The tax is called taille or cueillete by which is almost surely meant a fixed-rate levy on land or revenues or both, judging by the more detailed evidence from 1326 (see below, Chapter IV, n. 26). Taille in this usage was

generally synonymous with fouage, both designating a direct tax that municipal Officials apportioned in some way among those who were liable: Gustave DupontFerrier, Etudes sur les institutions financiéres de la France, 2 vols. (Paris, 1930-1932), 2:11-19; cf. RTF, pp. 4-6. 2. None of the four was a citizen of the province. See Appendix II, no. 17 for Chevrier, and no. 19 for Enguerrand de Fieffes, the major judge. Bérenger de Pierre Petruse, the 8

Resistance to Taxation 9 diplomatic and military negotiations by Philip VI, and Pierre de Chalon had one of the “longest and most remarkable careers in the history of the early French bureaucracy.” Head of the customs service and “guardian of ports and passages in Languedoc,” he handled large sums of money for forty years without scandal and exercised virtually unlimited viceregal authority without recorded complaint from the king’s subjects. Although at first considered an expert on taxation and fiscal problems in the Lyonnais and later in Carcassonne, he was familiar with the area around Montpellier, and he had been sent to Barcelona in 1317 with a former seneschal to discuss Aragonese claims to suzerainty over the town and barony.? In this case, however, Chevrier and Chalon could not effect a lasting reconciliation between the two factions. The seneschal suggested that three members of each party be added to the “fourteen of the chapel” selected yearly by the consuls to assess, levy, and account for many communal taxes, but the populares apparently held fast for an independent audit by twenty from among their own number. After two more months of discussion, the consuls agreed in January 1324 to show their records to the twenty auditors proposed by the seneschal and to appoint a separate commission of twelve men, half to be selected by the people, that would estimate taxable wealth for this occasion only; with this safeguard against partisan evaluation, both sides asked the seneschal and lieutenant of Majorca to enforce payment.‘ In agreeing to this compromise, the consuls were either less than honest with the arbitrators or lieutenant of the king of Majorca, had held his office since at least 1316: AM Montpellier, Hopital, B 541. 3. The quoted words are Joseph Strayer’s. For this work and an account of Pierre de Chalon’s eventful career, see Appendix II, no. 16. Regarding Chalon’s mission to the court of Aragon in 1317, Richard Lecoy de la Marche, Les relations politiques de la France avec le royaume de Majorque, 2 vols. (Paris, 1892), 1:374-375, suggested that the trip was largely ceremonial, since the mandate to the ambassadors severely restricted their powers. The letter of commission (Reg. Ph. V, no. 1469; HL, 10:570; Mignon, p. 362), however, was directed not only to Chalon but also to Jean d’Arrabloy

and Pierre de Beaujeu (Appendix II, nos. 2, 5) who were well informed about conditions in Montpellier.

4. GC, nos. 3507 (20 November 1323), 3506, 3508 (8 January 1324). The arbitrators proposed that they would themselves select five men, and the consuls would add a fifteenth of their choice to the Quatorze de la chapelle. Three of those suggested came

from families frequently honored with consular rank; one of the three had himself earlier been consul, and a second was chosen as bayle in 1328. Following the town charter of 1204 (article 94), a commission of fourteen to supervise property assessments was to be chosen each year, two members being named from each of the seven échelles

into which the guilds were traditionally placed: Layettes du trésor des chartes, ed.

10 Resistance to Taxation subsequently had reservations about sharing control of the town’s fiscal

, institutions — eight months later, after the tax at issue was safely collected, they obtained a royal letter forbidding popular audit as a derogation of custom.°®

Appeal to the crown gained a temporary reprieve at high cost, for it led the populares to form a permanent organization and brought the dispute

under the jurisdiction of royal officials who no longer acted as arbitrators but as enquéteurs empowered to look into every aspect of municipal finance. Since the consuls would not live up to the terms of an act sworn under oath, their opponents formed themselves into a syndicate in late 1324 or early 1325 and elected procurators with full powers to act in

any court. Through this action they announced their virtual secession from the municipality by creating an accepted alternative to consular government.® Recognition of these syndics by the crown, which ordered an examination of the disputed accounts, threatened the authority of the consuls by tacitly conceding the right of the people to form a corporation representing the whole community.’ Alexandre Teulet et al., 5 vols. (Paris, 1863-1909), 1:263. (See below, Chapter IV, n. 3, for these échelles. All subsequent references to the charters of 1204 and 1205 will cite the edition of Teulet, which numbers the paragraphs of the text in the sarne order as Charles Giraud, Essai sur l'histoire du droit francais au moyen @ge, 2 vols. [Paris, 1846], 1:40-79. The paragraphs are assigned slightly different numbers in the edition of the Thalamus parvus: Le petit thalamus de Montpellier, ed. Ferdinand Pegat, Eugene Thomas, et al. [Montpellier, 1840], pp. 2-70. A literal translation of the latter edition is provided by Germain, Commune de Montpellier, 1:54-127.) The merchant guilds had a disproportionate voice in the selection of consuls and probably also in elections to the

committee of fourteen; see below Chapter IV, n. 3, and, for this body, Germain, Commune, 1:179-180; Jean Baumel, Histoire d’une seigneurie du Midi, 3 vols. (Montpellier, 1969-1973), 2:60. 5. GC, no. 3509 (November 1324).

6. Many communities in southern France, particularly in upper Languedoc, were administered by syndics who had come to possess a continuing authority and powers nearly equal to those of consuls in towns possessing formal charters of emancipation: Robert Saint-Jean, “Les origines du consulat en Vivarais méridional,” Annales du Midi 77 (1965), 353-372; Pierre-Clément Timbal, “Les villes de consultat dans le Midi de la France: Histoire de leur institutions administratives et judiciares,” Recueils de la société Jean Bodin 6 (1954), 343-344; Gérard Sautel, “Les villes du Midi méditerranéen au moyen age: Aspects économiques et sociaux (IX°-XIII® siécles),” ibid. 7 (1955), 330. Thus also in the neighboring city of Beaucaire, which had lost the right to consular government as a consequence of the Albigensian Crusade: André Dupont, “L’évolution des institutions municipales de Beaucaire,” Annales du Midi 77 (1965), 257-274. On the

syndicus or actor as procurator of a corporate body, see Gaines Post, Studies in

Medieval Legal Thought (Princeton, 1964), pp. 40-42; Elizabeth Brown, “Representation and Agency Law in the Later Middle Ages,” Viator 3 (1972), 329-364. 7. GC, no. 3510 (March 1325); cf. Post, Studies, pp. 29, 39-50. The court may not have

Resistance to Taxation Il The decisions of this first royal commission of inquiry strengthened the legal standing of the populares. Pierre de Chalon was now joined by Pierre Malbosc, royal judge for Beaucaire, and Bertrand Guiraud, judge of Nimes and himself a citizen of Montpellier. Nothing was done during the summer of 1325 because Chalon was busy raising a war subsidy in Carcassonne and Toulouse. During a brief visit to Montpellier in June, he accepted a grant of fifteen hundred pounds and promised royal support in raising the same amount for the town’s own use, but this agreement, through which the consuls seemingly admitted that municipal levies required royal license, was voided by the cancellation of the royal war subsidy.’ When Chalon was still preoccupied with other matters in

the fall, the seneschal ordered Guillaume Cervier to join Bertrand Guiraud in Montpellier. There followed, in December 1325, the popular demonstration already described. The seneschal commissioned Cervier to look into the episode, while the consuls claimed that he was implicated in it.1! This charge that the king’s procurator sought to foment violence

intended to acknowledge the popular syndicate as a permanent body; regional groupings of villages, lords, or prelates in southern France were frequently allowed to exercise corporate powers for a time when formed by the major et sanior pars: Fredric Cheyette, “Procurations by Large-Scale Communities in Fourteenth-Century France,” Speculum 37 (1962), 22-31; Thomas Bisson, “Consultative Functions in the King’s Parlements (1250-1314),” Speculum 44 (1969), 365-366; John Mundy, Europe in the High Middle Ages, 1150-1309 (New York, 1974), p. 418 (citing a case from 1320). 8. GC, no. 3510 (March 1325). Malbosc was a citizen of Beaucaire (Reg. Ph. V, no. 3212), where he had been judge since at least 1314, after holding that office at Lunel (1298) and Alés (1302): Gens just., pp. 68, 73, 76; Alexandre Eyssette, Histoire administrative de Beaucaire, 2 vols. (Beaucaire, 1884-1889), 2, preuve 12 (1314). At his death Malbosc left property valued at more than ten thousand pounds: AP, ed. Furgeot, no. 3415. Bertrand Guiraud represented Montpellier at the assembly of 1308 in Tours and acted as lieutenant of the rector in 1320; he remained judge of Nimes through 1326 and was judge of Alés in 1329: Charles Taylor, “The Assembly of 1312 at Lyons-Vienne,” Etudes d’histoire dédiées a la mémoire de Henri Pirenne (Brussels, 1937), preuve 4, p. 349; Cart. Mag., no. 1450; AM Nimes, SS 22; AM Uzes, FF 1. 9. See Appendix II, no. 16. 10. HL, 10:647, no. 236 (GC, no. 3866): “Et habitis tunc prius autoritate et licentia a domino nostro Rege . . . quod pro solvendis dictis mille et quingentis libris et solvendis

aliis debitis dicti consulatus usque ad summam aliarum mille et quingentarum librarum, possint tallias, indictiones vel collectam vel quamcumque aliam talliam facere vel imponere omnibus quibus consuetum est imponi. . .” See also HL, 10, no. 240. For the negotiation of this subsidy, see RTF, pp. 48-49; Elizabeth Brown, “Representation and Agency Law,” pp. 359-360; “Taxation and Morality in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries,” French Historical Studies 8 (1973), 20-21. 11. See above, Chapter I; GC, nos. 3511-3512 (12 and 13 December); commission mentioned, nos. 3513-3515.

12 Resistance to Taxation and treason is certainly exaggerated. But his refusal to allow the consuls access to the bell in the main church, while granting it to the syndics, was

not the act of an impartial enquéteur, since it suggested that the latter represented, and were acting for, the entire community of Montpellier. Possession of a bell tower was, throughout France, a prerogative granted only to a valid government,!? and the bell in Montpellier had long been

an important symbol of consular authority, ringing daily to sound the curfew and calling together the assembly of citizens that gave a semblance of general assent to municipal ordinances.'? Like the acceptance of their appeals, control of the tower strongly implied that the popular syndics had the recognition of the crown. Proof of financial irregularities might only embarrass a few, while permanent establishment of the people’s syndicate would directly threaten the consuls’ control of the municipal government. Consequently, the latter now tried to secure abolition of the syndicate; they offered in return the audit promised two years earlier, but without success. When the major judge and the lieutenant of the seneschal refused to disavow Giraud

and Cervier,'+ the consuls approached the court of the bayle (bajulus)

12. Petit-Dutaillis, Communes francaises, p. 170, cites the consuls of Saint-Maxient in Gascony, condemned to punishment in 1352 for sounding a bell and taking arms to repel an attack when it did not form “corps et communauté.” The suppression of communal autonomy in Rouen, by the same token, was graphically manifested in 1382 by the razing of the town’s bell tower: Georges Le Carpentier, “La Harelle, revolte rouennaise de 1382,” Le Moyen Age 16 (1903), 91; cf. Mundy, High Middle Ages, p. 424. In the same way, the duke of Anjou threatened to demolish the bell tower in Montpellier following mass demonstrations and violence against royal officials in 1380: HAL, 9:875 (see below, Chapter VIII).

13. GC, no. 938 (1292); Germain, Commune, 1:189. See below, Chapter VIII, for the popular assembly. 14. Plea to the communal court (GC, no. 3513, 16 December); appeal from the decisions of Cervier and Guiraud (nos. 3516-3518); appeal to the crown from those of the major judge and Bernard de Languissel, lieutenant of the seneschal (nos. 3519-3521). Like

Humbert Brasfort, the attorney for the populares (Chapter I), Languissel was a wealthy noble of Nimes, where two of his family served as bishop: Jan Rogozinski, “The Counsellors of the Seneschal of Beaucaire and Nimes, 1250-1350,” Speculum 44 (1969), 435-436. Jean de Parede was major judge from April 1325 to November 1328: Cart. Mag., nos. 1549, 1554, 1582; BN Collection Languedoc (Bénédictins) 83, fol. 196; AM Montpellier, Hépital, B 137; GC, nos. 3299, 3519. Guillaume Cervier was accused (GC, no. 3516) of collaborating with the populares, receiving from them a high salary, living in Nimes and elsewhere in the same house as their agents, eating and drinking at the same table, and assisting them so lavishly with his advice and skill that whatever the people did was through his inspiration. Cervier replied that he was merely

Resistance to Taxation 13 and that of the bishop of Maguelonne, whose family was influential at the courts of Paris and Avignon.'> According to the Roman law, they argued, use of the bell and representation through syndics were reserved

to an authorized corporation (universitas), and the latter could be created only by the crown and not by officials commissioned for another purpose; if the syndicate were struck down, the consuls would themselves employ procurators nominated by the people and would grant them full powers to act against anyone who had misused municipal funds.'!* The rejection of this appeal by the bishop’s legal advisors, five members of the law faculty who had each served as communal judge,'’ made it in-

evitable that any commission of audit would be accountable to the populares, their judgment, agreeing with that of the provincial officials, both confirmed the legitimacy of popular union and gave credibility to

allegations of misgovernment and corruption on the part of the consuls.!8 carrying out the orders he had received and had not in fact been reimbursed for his expenses. See Appendix II, no. 3, for the payment of enquéteurs. 15. The most useful study of the Frédol, a noble family from the Ales region that virtually monopolized the bishoprics of Maguelonne and Béziers during these years, is still that of Paul Viollet, “Bérenger Frédol, canoniste,” Histoire littéraire de la France, 34 (Paris, 1914), 62-68. For their zeal in promoting clients, see Charles V. Langlois, “Pons d’Aumelas,” BEC 52 (1891), 260; Jan Rogozinski, “Ennoblement by the Crown and Social Stratification in France,” Order and Innovation in the Middle Ages, ed. William Jordan et al. (Princeton, 1976), p. 281, n. 68. 16. GC, no. 3515: “secundum dicta jura communia expresse dicentia nulli permiserit createre syndicum seu syndicos nisi quibus concessum est coronis habere colegia seu universitates. .. . Palam et publice, et in presentia popularium et diversorum popull Montispessulani in dicta curia congregatorum, dixerunt quod ipsi domini consules sunt parati incontinenter . . . duos vel tres quatuor vel sex de dictis dicentibus se populares quos magis voluerint et elegerint de se ipsis facere et creare in procuratores seu actores eo modo et forma quibus melius valere poterit, et eisdem dare plenariam potestatem

agendi....” 17. GC, no. 3515. In ruling against the consuls, the episcopal advisors apparently followed

the ordinary gloss to D 3.4.1. Present were Pierre Séguier, Jean de Montarnaud, Etienne Sabatier, Thomas de Sauteyrargues, and Bernard Sabors. All were highly © regarded by the town government and the lords of the town, but the most distinguished

jurist of the five seems to have been Bernard Sabors, to whom are attributed many extant glosses and commentaries, one of which had been printed by Odile Fabre, “Quaestiones Doctorum Montispessulani,” Mémoires droit ecrit 5 (1968), 35-40; see also Edouard M. Meijers, Etudes d’histoire du droit, 4 vols. (Leiden, 1956-1966), 3:168, 206-208. See Appendix II for Sabors (no. 31), Montarnaud (no. 22), Sabatier (no. 30), Sauteyrargues (no. 34), and Séguier (no. 37). 18. The consular appeal was rejected by a royal letter of 8 July 1327, cited the following December before the court of the major judge (GC, no. 3525).

14 Resistance to Taxation With the legality of the popular syndicate generally conceded by the spring of 1326, the consuls could no longer prevent inspection of their records, and the courts again focused on the question at issue three years earlier: how might a body of examiners acceptable to both parties be chosen? Guillaume Cervier asserted that he and the procurator for Majorca had the authority as deputies of the town’s lords to carry out an inquiry, but Cervier was now totally suspect to the consuls, who elicited from Parlement a ruling that auditors must be specifically delegated for this purpose and sufficient in number to complete their mission without long delay.!9 Members of the chambre des enquétes were sent to supervise the work,”° and the king of Majorca, seeing in this decision a precedent injurious to his rights, also named representatives with full powers

of investigation. In the end, a board of inquiry commissioned by Alphonse of Spain, the king’s lieutenant in Languedoc,?! was chosen 19. GC, no. 3522 (19 April 1326).

20. GC, no. 3529 (23 May 1327), states that the crown had commissioned Jean de Mandevilain and Jean de Chatéle. The latter was soon replaced by Kaymund Saquet, who seems to have taken charge of the case and been most active in the Midi. A letter of | September 1329 (below, note 44) was commanded “ad relationem dominorum Johannis Mandeville et Raimundi Saqueti, quibus per dominum Regem commissum fuerat negocium suprascriptum.” The same letter also speaks of actions taken by Saquet with Raoul de Préaux, and another of the same date ordered Saquet to return to the affair with an associate of his own choice not suspect to either side. All of those mentioned were of southern origin except Raoul de Préaux, a protégé of Pope John XXII and ambassador to the Avignonese court. For Préaux, see Rogozinski, “Ennoblement,”

p. 280; Franklin Pegues, The Lawyers of the Last Capetians (Princeton, 1962), pp. 234-242. For Mandevilain and Chatele, see Appendix II, no. 20; for Saquet, Appendix II, no. 33. 21. The family of Alphonse of Spain was held in high esteem by the Capetians because of its descent from a daughter of Saint Louis who had married the eldest son of Alfonso X of Castile. Under Philip V, Alphonse was dean of the cathedral chapter of Paris and a clerical member of Parlement: Soc. politique, p. 235; Reg. Ph. V, no. 3589. At the request of Charles IV, whose personal favorite he was, he left the church, married Mahaut of Narbonne, and took up the office of lieutenant by 1325. Although royal

lieutanants had previously served as military leaders for a particular campaign, Alphonse of Spain may well have been intended as the king’s permanent representative in Languedoc since he received the barony of Lunel in 1323 and several lordships in Navarre: see Dognon, /nstitutions politiques, p. 345 bis, for the earlier lieutenants; AD Gard, E-Supplément, no. 535 (1323), for Alphonse’s lordship in Lunel. He did take a leading role in the campaign in Gascony, where he fell ill with the sickness that caused his untimely death in April 1327: Soc. politique, p. 235; Mignon, nos. 2419, 2427, and p. 371. But he also acted as a general enquéteur-réformateur, investigating complaints against royal officials and trying to end conflicts between the great lords of the South or, as in Montpellier, between the parties within communities: HL, 10, no. 247; AP,

Resistance to Taxation 15 through negotiations between the seignorial officials, the seneschal and major judge, and the representatives of the consuls and populares; it included several former consuls as well as the lieutenant of Majorca and two inhabitants of Montpellier long associated with the royal government.?? The interests of all those involved were thus protected, and it is clear that the auditors were meant to act not only as neutral fiscal experts but also as arbitrators empowered to resolve a conflict not governed by

written custom.?3 :

The lengthy process of verifying the evidence from the preceding twenty-three years began in October 1326; although it was still being carried on the following year,?* several municipal officials had already been

fined for peculation and others had been forced to repay monies borrowed from town funds.?> The first months of 1327 thus saw the populares close to achieving the purposes for which they had joined together as a party. Their syndicate was thought to express the lawful concerns of the inhabitants of Montpellier; through their appeals to the crown, they had brought about an inquest into the consular administration, and men guilty of chicanery had been punished. The leaders of the people were now to be counted among those exercising an effective influence in com-

ed. Furgeot, nos. 325, 4155. As indicated below in Chapter VI, there was as yet no clear

distinction between the offices of reformer and lieutenant, and some men were indifferently referred to by both titles: see in this regard HL, 10, no. 337; Dognon, /oc. cit.

22. GC, no. 3523 (25 June 1326). The king of Majorca was represented by his lieutenant, Hugues de Stacion, and Antoine de Galiana, /egum doctor, neither of whom was native to the city. Present for the consuls was their procurator, Bernard Pertot, as well as Pons Alamandin (Appendix II, no. 1), Bernard de Montinac, Jean Garnier, Bérenger Bernard de Trois-Loups, Pierre Imbert campsor, and Pierre Imbert sédier. For these see the consular lists, Germaine, Commune, 1, preuve 25. Perhaps the Imbert family was represented twice because its members very frequently served as consuls and were thus directly threatened if evidence of chicanery turned up. The two royal agents, Hugues de la Porte (see Appendix II, no. 24) and Rostang de Béziers (Appendix II, no. 8), were themselves citizens but unaffiliated with either faction. 23. See below, Chapter VII. 24. The death of Alphonse of Spain notwithstanding, the auditors were to proceed with diligence and to send their records to Parlement for its consideration: GC, nos. 3526, 3529 (May 1327).

25. See GC, no. 3546, a document of October 1331 embodying an arbitrator’s sentence reducing one fine to forty pounds. The document describing the initial work of the commission of audit (GC, no. 3523) has a list of alleged errors and over-generous gifts by the consuls, most of which involve relatively minor sums. See Combes, “Finances municipales,” pp. 109-115.

16 Resistance to Taxation munal affairs. Even if the syndicate did not become a permanent institu-

tion of government,” fear of popular challenge might impose greater scrupulousness on future consuls. Yet the populares agreed within five years to a new act of arbitration annulling these sentences and disbanding their organization so that the middle of the fourteenth century and the outbreak of the Hundred Years’ War found consular control over taxation and finance again undisputed within the town walls. Substantial concessions and the payment of large indemnities facilitated popular acquiesence, but victory for the consuls was largely due to a break in the tacit alliance between the people and the representatives of the crown. Examination of the town accounts had been secured through

the royal courts, and these now began to withdraw their support. The populares maintained that lower taxes would result from a more efficient administration of municipal resources. While the terms of the audit were being negotiated in June 1326, however, the town was also dealing with a request for subsidy. In return for a lump-sum payment of 2,000 pounds,

the royal lieutenant bound himself to enforce collection of municipal taxes from all inhabitants customarily obliged, and the consuls assessed a taille on income and capital.?”? Although the syndics charged that this would bring in 8,000 rather than 2,000 pounds, the crown was no longer _ sympathetic to popular resistance and overruled all opposition.2® A re-

cent study has argued that such acceptance of a cash grant financed by municipal taxes typically sacrificed popular interests to immediate financlal exigencies, and that royal investigation of popular complaints was often merely a ploy through which the crown could win larger conces26. The participation of the people is contemporaneous with the representation of guilds in

- the administration of certain Flemish and Imperial cities discussed by Mollat and Wolff, Ongles bleus, pp. 52-75; Mundy and Riesenberg, The Medieval Town, pp. 72-74; Petit-Dutaillis, Communes francaises, p. 136. But the popular leaders allegedly acted on behalf of the entire citizenry and not for a few economic or artisanal groups (below, Chapter IV). 27. GC, nos. 2355, 3524. The rate was fixed at six pence for each carteirade of farm land or vineyard, five shillings two and one-half pence for every hundred pounds of movable property, and six pence per pound on revenues from urban property. The tax thus fell least heavily on merchants, but it is always extremely difficult to touch finance capital. These sources do not mention the sales tax on wine levied at this time according to RTF, p. 62. For this subsidy, designated for the Gascon war, see also HL, 9:440-441; BN Collection Languedoc (Bénédictins) 83, fols. 198-198v (a letter of Alphonse of Spain, lieutenant in Languedoc, 26 June 1326). 28. GC, no. 3524, for the popular protest. The consuls were still trying to collect this tax two years later: nos. 3410 (August 1327), 3298, 3300 (March and April 1328).

Resistance to Taxation 17 sions from municipal oligarchies.29 Whatever may have been the case elsewhere, this view is overly cynical when applied to the circumstances at

Montpellier. Receipt of the consular subsidy of 2,000 pounds did not lead the king’s lieutenant to cancel his commission to the board of auditors, and reform of municipal accounting may well have been encouraged precisely because it might increase the revenues available for royal needs. But the motives of their sometime allies would be irrelevant to the populares, who saw their efforts rewarded with higher taxes. If the people could no longer depend on a favorable response to their

appeals, the consuls found that they had not regained a free hand in return for a grant to the crown. Inspired perhaps by their role in enforcing this tax and in arranging an audit, the provincial officials advanced in 1327 the claim that communal elections and taxation were illicit without their supervision, that taxation was in itself a royal prerogative that must be specially delegated to the town. This thesis was not introduced by the populares, who did not ask for continuing regulation of municipal affairs but demanded only that new taxes be clearly necessary and that they

be spent for the specific purpose for which they had been raised. Although the provincial officials sometimes associated their cause with

that of the popular syndics, they often acted during the decade after 1327 as if they were a third party to the dispute over communal finances. The legality of municipal taxation came under question in April 1327 following a general meeting of the town council at which the populares challenged a recent decision to raise the charge for grinding grain from two and one-half to ten pence.*° When the communal court of the bayle would not strike down the increase as contrary to approved custom,?! the syndic of the people joined in the appeal of Guillaume Cervier, who had ~ recently asked that the annual elections of March 1327 be annulled, alleg29. RTF, p. 16. 30. There are three copies of the official minutes of the meeting of 23 April: GC, no. 1968; GC, no. 768, item 1; Archives de Montpellier, 6:69, no. 128. The document has been published (following the copy in Arch. de Montp. 6) in the Cart. Univ. Montp., 1, no. 45. Jean de Fraissé and Brémond Grimaud represented the populares, and Bernard Sabors spoke for the consuls as their assessor; among those present was Thomas de Sauteyrargues. For Sabors and Sauteyrargues, see Appendix II, nos. 31, 34. The charge mentioned was levied for every five setiers (approximately two and one-third liters). 31. The increase was challenged on 24 April, apparently by the procurator of the king of Majorca, who vowed to appeal from the bayle’s decision to that lord’s lieutenant in Montpellier: GC, nos. 1966-67 and 768, items 3-4. A monopoly over the milling of grain had been granted to the consuls by the 1290s: nos. 1964, 4234, 4252-53.

18 Resistance to Taxation ing that discord in the town arose from its domination by a few lineages.52 By merging the suit concerning the milling tax with that opposing the elections, the king’s procurator presented a stronger case to the crown, which responded at the end of May by ordering an inquiry into electoral irregularities and consular authority over taxation.*? In an apparent attempt to appear impartial, the seneschal commissioned Jean Ricard, recently named first criminal judge for the sénéchaussée. Ricard was a citizen of Montpellier, where he had served as a royal judge for more than ten years without arousing the animosity of either faction.*4 He avoided the issues in this case by remanding it to the bayle’s court in

May 1328, in obedience to another royal letter affirming the king of Majorca’s possession of high justice in the lordship of Montpellier.*° This ruling was allowed to stand throughout the summer of 1328 while the seneschal arranged a subsidy for the Flemish campaign that began the reign of Philip VI. The consuls would not promise the commissioners sent to Montpellier more than 1,500 pounds, and they agreed to match the 2,000 pounds granted in 1326 only after several conferences with the

seneschal’s council.3° It is possible that an unrecorded bargain was reached in Nimes by which royal help in raising municipal taxes was traded for payment of the customary sum; the populares certainly suspected something of this sort, for they repeated in bitter terms the usual charge that the new faille would bring in more than 5,000 pounds rather 32. GC, no. 3525 (22 May 1327). The lieutenant of the rector, Pierre Ricard (see Appendix

II, no. 28), had revoked the election but was overruled by the seneschal. The government of the town had perhaps acknowledged that the royal government had some sort of authority over communal elections by soliciting in 1310 a royal charter that confirmed the right of the inhabitants to name the consuls (HL, 10, no. 515), and

the king’s procurator was arguing that the inhabitants of the town had been fraudulently denied this right. 33. GC, no. 3525, 3529, 766 (22-23 May and 20 June 1327). The seneschal was again ordered to investigate the new milling charges on the fifth of August (nos. 1969, 2570). 34. GC, no. 1969 (20 May 1328). On Jean Ricard, see Appendix II, no. 27. 35. GC, nos. 1969, 2570 (20 May 1328), and 768, item 2 (22 May). The date of the letter of the king of Majorca is not given; it was issued after that of 5 August 1327 (note 33) ordering the investigation. 36. GC, no. 3569 (AL, 10, no. 252; 20 August 1328); no. 3530 mentions acceptance of a smaller sum by the tax commissioner, Pierre de Beaujeu (see Appendix II, no. 5). Half the subsidy was due immediately and the remainder by All Saints Day (no. 3870, 28 August), but the final payment was not made until 13 March 1329 (no. 3871), after the seneschal had intervened to enforce collection of municipal taxes. For the raising of this war subsidy, see RTF, pp. 70-71; Brown, “Representation and Agency Law,” pp. 360-361; BN MS lat. 9174, fols. 77-80.

Resistance to Taxation 19 than the 2,000 promised the king, and they added that it grossly favored the rich.?’” Taking advantage of the circumstances, the consuls tied their

needs to those of the crown and replied that their duty to act for the utility and necessity of the community, the traditional principle justifying subsidy, obliged payment of communal debts as well as contributions to the defense of the realm. The crown at first ignored this premise and directed the seneschal to look into complaints that the levy

was unfairly distributed. Before an investigation could be made, however, the crown capitulated and ordered collection to proceed as scheduled despite the “frivolous appeals” of the people.*® If the consuls had thought to buy recognition of their authority in mat-

ters of taxation, any overt or tacit bargain was forgotten, as it had been two years earlier, once the promised funds had been passed along. Both the milling tax and the audit of town finances were thus before Parlement throughout 1329 and 1330. In the name of the town government, the consuls appealed the seneschal’s rejection of his deputy’s sentence remanding the question of the milling tax to the seignorial courts,39 while several of those fined since October 1326 sought relief because they had

been denied an opportunity to appear in their own defense.*? Neither matter could be quickly disposed of, and Raymund Saquet, who had already acted as enquéteur during the audit, was authorized in September 1329 to review the sentences and other aspects of communal finance.*! Financial pressures and the intransigent attitude of the seneschal began to suggest the desirability of reconciliation. The factions in Montpellier had seen their dispute through the seignorial and royal courts for over

37. GC, no. 3530 (9 September 1328); cf. nos. 3299 (November 1328), 3531. 38. GC, nos. 3531 (5 October), 3233 (10 November). The major judge responded to the first letter by citing the syndics to appear before his court on 14 November: no. 3299 (4 November).

39. GC, no. 1970 (8 March 1329). Following this ruling by the seneschal, the king’s procurator reentered the case and appealed to the lieutenant of Majorca the bayle’s sentence of 23 April (n. 31 above) exonerating the consuls (no. 1010, 27 June). 40. GC, no. 3532 (24 February 1329). The Parlement had rejected in 1328 an earlier appeal on this ground (AZ, 10:697, no. 263).

41. The royal commission is printed HL, 10, no. 263 (26 and 27 September 1329), following BN MS lat. 9192, fol. 96v. Other copies: GC, nos. 3538, 3548; AN K 188, no. 85. No specific mention is made of the appeal by the king’s procurator in 1327 alleging the illegality of consular elections in the absence of royal officers (nos. 3525, 3529; see

n. 32 above), which may have been subsumed in the general charge to look into municipal accounts and town governance.

20 Resistance to Taxation seven years, and protracted litigation at this level was very costly.*? The consuls had experienced difficulty meeting their obligations to the royal government.*? The populares, who had no share in the town’s revenues

and borrowed against their hopes of vindication,** found themselves bankrupt in 1329 when several Florentine associations brought suit in Paris and Montpellier for repayment of loans going back to 1326 and amounting to 4,000 gold florins.** The consuls probably also wished to preserve the independence of the municipal government in local matters,

for officials in Nimes, who had entered the case in 1323 as impartial arbitrators, now seemed anxious to impose their own decisions even when the crown ruled for the consuls. Despite a second royal letter in January 1331, again reserving jurisdiction over the milling tax to the seignorial courts,*® the seneschal refused to revoke his commission to Jean Ricard or accept the decision of the bayle’s court vindicating the consuls. These letters he rejected as surreptitiously obtained and again referred the matter to the Parlement.*’ Although their compromise did not end the litigation arising from subsequent appeals by royal officials, the consuls and the leaders of the 42. Guenée, Tribunaux, p. 255, gives 500 pounds as the average cost of a suit before Parlement by the inhabitants of Senlis. The expense must have been greater in this case simply because of the greater distance from Montpellier to Paris; the consuls of Nimes

paid an attorney ten pounds and costs in February 1328 merely to obtain a charter granting an undisputed privilege (AM Nimes AA 1). Because of the complexity of the issues involved, moreover, an unusually large number of documents was submitted to the court; see, for example, the list of evidence taken to Paris by the consuls’ proctor when the case was reopened in 1338 (GC, no. 768; below, Chapter III, n. 19). The fee for copying such records was set at eight pence a page in 1347 (Ménard, Mismes, 2,

preuves, p. 132); it was probably not much less in the 1320s. 43. The consuls fell into arrears in forwarding the subsidies granted to the crown in 1326 and 1328 (above, nn. 28, 36); a loan raised in 1326 was still outstanding a year later (GC, no. 3410), and another loan to cover the grant of 1328 was not completely paid until 1332 (no. 4061). The seneschal seized municipal property in February 1331 to recover disputed court fees (no. 3539). 44. Following the stipulations of the Roman law (D 5.1.79: C 7.51.4), the losing party paid all court costs after 1325: Ordonnances, 1:784-785; Guenée, Tribunaux, ~. 252. 45. GC, no. 3535 (28 October) has several lists of these debts. One list, dated January 1329, mentions several hundred men not associated with the populares in any of the court records. See Combes, “Finances,” p. 119. See also AP, ed. Furgeot, no. 396 (May 1330)

for a suit before the prévét of Paris by one group of bankers, the company of the Angoissoles, who were awarded 600 florins and costs in 1334 (ibid., nos. 875, 1071). With interest charges added, the popular debt was said to have risen to 5,200 florins by 1333 (GC, nos. 3554-55; below, note 56). 46. GC, no. 768, item 6. 47. GC, nos. 1971 (28 February 1331), 2567 (8 March).

Resistance to Taxation al people forgot eight years of mutual recrimination in October 1331 and came to an agreement in the original controversy over the necessity of in-

creased taxation and the accuracy of municipal financial records. Notwithstanding their circumstances —the populares facing insolvency, the consuls a seneschal who ignored royal orders — reconciliation required long months of delicate bargaining concealed both from the mass of the people and from the provincial administration.*® Acrimony was avoided

and the strain of negotiations eased by the presence of Hugues Fabreforte and Arnaud de Balsenq, who may have enjoyed greater success than previous royal commissioners because the dispute over the methods to be used in raising new taxes was treated separately from the sentences imposed for past misdeeds during the audit of 1326. Although called

clerici regis and paid as parlementary enquéteurs, Fabreforte and Balseng held no formal office. Both were lawyers from the neighboring sénéchaussée of the Rouergue and members of the guild of advocates

qualified to practice before the high court.*9 Their role was that of mediators empowered to bring the parties together in equitable settlement, and two judges in the chambres des enquétes were appointed simultaneously to study the juridical issues stemming from the appeals still before the Parlement.*°

48. The oath of secrecy exacted from those involved was so strict that the consuls asked permission from the bishop of Maguelonne to pass along to their successors a full description of the arrangements made with the people (GC, no. 3551, 6 May 1332); it is thus probable that the formal act of compromise in the town archives was completed by oral stipulations that were never written down. 49. Fabreforte and Balseng (see Appendix II, nos. 18 and 3) were commanded to complete the review of consular finances and send their findings to the court if the parties could

not be brought to terms. After arriving, they asked the rector to guarantee the appearance in September of any consuls who had not yet rendered their accounts (GC,

no. 3541). In accordance with their mandate, they halted their inquiry after the settlement was reached. While Balseng remained and was involved in the enforcement

of the accord, Fabreforte returned to attend the next session of Parlement and empowered Pierre Calvel to act as his successor. See GC, nos. 3544-45, of 6 and 7 October. For Calvel, see Appendix II, no. 12. 50. GC, no. 3542 (25 July), names Jean de Chalencon and Pierre Dreu. A rapporteur in the chambre des enquétes from 1322, Dreu was still a member of Parlement in 1341; the crown granted him a prebend in Tours in 1340: Les journaux du trésor de Charles IV le Bel, ed. Jules Viard (Paris, 1917), no. 222; AP, ed. Furgeot, nos. 3092, 3768, 4094. Chalencon, who joined the enquétes in 1328, was the brother of Hugues de Chalencon, who was often sent to southern France while a member of the Grand’ Chambre (from 1316) and master in the requétes de I’hdtel: André Guillois, Recherches sur les maitres des requétes de l’hdtel (Paris, 1909), pp. 215-216, 273.

22 Resistance to Taxation The terms of their reconciliation were hammered out over a period of months by the consuls and the syndics with the counsel of Fabreforte and Balsenq, but enforcement was facilitated by presenting it in the guise of a formal act of arbitration by the lords of the community.*! Since the impartiality of the seneschal was in doubt, the consuls named the lieutenant of Majorca as their representative, while the populares chose the bishop of Maguelonne.>? As compensation for their pains during the intervening years, the leaders of the people came closer to gaining their demands with the treaty announced by these dignitaries than they had with the abortive compact of 1324. In the earlier act the consuls did not obligate themselves to permanent changes in methods of taxation but responded to accusations of dishonesty by opening their acccounts to inspection and appointing members of the popular party to an ad hoc committee temporarily responsible for judging property values. They now pledged that any new faille should be levied equally on the value of all property stated publicly and under oath, and they promised that every receipt and expense would be clearly and specifically described; as soon as communal 51. An arbitrator’s powers were derived solely from the act of compromise accepted by the

parties, and the customs of some regions followed the Roman law in specifically prohibiting arbitration by the ordinary judge of a locality. See below, Chapter VII; A. Amanieu, “Arbitrage,” Dictionnaire de droit canonique, | (Paris, 1935), 873-880; J. Fourgous, L’arbitrage dans le droit francais aux XIII et XIV siécles (Paris, 1906), pp. 92-93. From the late thirteenth century, however, the lords of communities in this region or their judges sometimes imposed themselves as arbitrators or were associated

with the sentence; see, for example, the series of acts concerning governmental institutions in Aimargues discussed by Rogozinski, “Ordinary and Major,” p. 603, and Brown, “Representation and Agency Law,” pp. 346-347. There were long-standing precedents for the seneschal’s presenting himself in this capacity in 1323; one of his predecessors had joined with the lord of Alés in regulating the town’s constitution in 1294 and another had intervened in 1296 between competing heirs to the seigniory of Lunel: AM Alés 1S-1, no. 18; Achille Bardon, Histoire de la ville d’Alais de /250 a 1340 (Nimes, 1894), pp. 16-28; AN J302, no. 2. These and other cases perhaps contributed to the confounding of arbitration with judicial sentences after 1250 that is emphasized by Fredric Cheyette, “Suum cuique tribuere,” French Historical Studies 6 (1970), 295. Cf. Guenée, Tribunaux, pp. 119-120; Yvonne Bongert, Recherches sur les cours laiques du X® au XIII siecle (Paris, 1949), pp. 181-182. 52. These dignitaries presumably had little to do with the actual negotiations; they were formally named as arbitrators the day before the announcement of the treaty (GC, no. 3543). By binding themselves not to appeal from this decision, the two factions may have tried to limit subsequent interference by the royal courts: Amanieu, “Arbitrage,” p. 886; Fourgous, Arbitrage, pp. 82-83, 171-176; Guenée, Tribunaux, pp. 118-120. It is

not impossible that the bishop was thought to favor the populares because of the consilium by his legal advisors recognizing the legality of their syndicate; as in many other towns, moreover, the church had its own quarrel with the consuls over clerical exemption from taxation (see below, Chapter III).

Resistance to Taxation 23 debts were paid, the new milling charges were to be abolished. Although the sentences imposed in 1326 were annulled, any consul who had mis-

used public funds was bound to restitution, and the community as a whole would pay the legal expenses of the populares, who had through-

out acted for the common good. Offsetting this implicit admission of guilt and the limitations placed on future demands was the recognition that the consuls had complete and independent authority in matters of taxation as well as the guarantee that those in arrears should pay their full share of earlier levies, however assessed.°? Despite the concessions made by the consuls, and their payment of all costs, the compromise of 1331 has been read as a popular defeat because of a final clause abolishing the syndicate that had allowed united action

both in and out of court.5* The people, however, did not disband their organization with undue haste; they continued to meet secretly and act as a party for seven more years until they were sure that the other articles of the treaty were likely to be fulfilled.*> They would not, for example,

contribute as members of the urban corporation to the faille that was levied to pay their debts; they did so after the consuls raised their cash offer to 5,200 florins, but then they paid as a group instead of following the agreed procedure of public evaluation.** The necessary funds could not

be assembled before 1334, and then the payment encountered a new delay. The royal government in 1331 had ordered the seizure of all debts owed to Italian moneylenders. The city of Montpellier was among the debtors, and the crown questioned the amount that the consuls were to

53. GC, no. 3547 (5 October 1331); Cart. Mag., no. 1639. 54. See above, Chapter I, note 10. 55. The consuls complained of their clandestine activities in September 1332 (GC, no. 3552); Brémond Grimaud, named as syndic in 1325, was still using that title as late as July 1338 (no. 3556). 56. GC, nos. 3554-55 (9 March), 3560 (29 May 1333); the increase from 4,000 florins was again presented as a sentence by the arbitrators. As the worth of monies of exchange in gold and silver fluctuated greatly during the fourteenth century, it is not possible to express with certainty the value of 5,200 gold florins in terms of the pound tournois (the fictitious money of account). In 1348, a girl’s father thus complained regarding a dowry of two hundred florins: “Quand je te promis ces florins, la piéce ne valait que

vingt sols [one pound fournois] et elle en vaut maintenant trente-deux”; cited by Raymond Cazelles, “Quelques reflexions 4 propos des mutations de la monnaie royale

francaise,” Le Moyen Age 72 (1966), 262. John Henneman, Royal Taxation in Fourteenth-Century France: The Captivity and Ransom of John II, 1356-1370 (Philadelphia, 1976), suggests in an appendix (p. 315) that the florin in the 1350s equalled about sixteen shillings (sols) tournois.

24 Resistance to Taxation pay.>” Not until May 1338 did they reach a final agreement with the royal treasury, and only then would the syndics return the communal accounts seized in 1326 or permit an audit of their own disbursements.*°

The consuls went to such great lengths to avoid difficulties with the popular faction because they needed peace at home while Parlement and the provincial courts considered the legality of the milling charges mandated by the town council in 1327. Royal approval of the compromise with the populares left unaffected the suits brought by the king’s procurator, and the Parlement responded to the latter in July 1332 by forbidding an increase without royal permission*? and ordering the consuls to defend their action at its next session. The seneschal’s efforts to enforce this decree led to a general discussion of the circumstances under which a city might legitimately tax its inhabitants.®° The king’s procurator argued that any charges not used to maintain the mill were a form of taxation needing royal approval as well as popular acceptance.®! According to the attorneys for the consuls, however, the Roman law and local custom required no license for taxes uniformly affecting all citizens when these had received general assent;°? any irregularities in collection were to

be punished by their direct lord, the king of Majorca, and not by the 57. GC, nos. 3561 (1334) and 3564 (1336). On the seizure of debts owed to Italians, see RTF, pp. 82-83, and especially John Henneman, “Taxation of Italians by the French Crown, 1311-1363,” Mediaeval Studies 31 (1969), 31. Although Henneman thought it likely that the pursuit of debtors came to an end in 1333 or 1334, it was actually renewed at Montpellier in the latter year: GC, nos. 1219-21, 3564. Ten years later, certain moneylenders were still claiming in court that the populares owed them money: AP, ed. Furgeot, nos. 5215, 5989. 58. GC, no. 3566 (7 July); cf. nos. 3565, 3567 (April and May 1338). In November of the same year (HL, 10, no. 317), the crown acknowledged receipt of 3,950 florins owed toa group of Lombards doing business in Avignon. 59. “Sine nostra aut gentium nostrarum licencia”: GC, no. 760 (10 July); other copies, nos. 767, 769. 60. The seneschal cited the consuls to appear before his court on 20 January 1333 (GC, no. 760); in preparation for the hearing, they acquired from the bayle and the rector letters confirming their election the preceding March (GC, nos. 761-762). 61. GC, nos. 760, 769 (25 January 1333). The allegation that “impositio ipsa facta fuit et sit contra populi voluntatem” may have alluded to earlier objections by the populares or to the ongoing dispute over their fiscal obligations, but populus was also used in law as

a generic term denoting the entire body of the citizenry (see below, Chapter IV). Understanding the word in the latter sense, the attorneys for the consuls thus replied that consular actions had the formal assent of the majority. 62. “Congregato populo ad sonum compane de consensu totius populi”: GC, nos. 764, 769 (6 February). See also nos. 772-773, undated consilia by members of the law faculty of Montpellier. No. 773 is signed by Bertrand de Baume decretorum doctor, perhaps a relative of the Armand de Baume who was royal judge of Montpellier in the early 1320s (Appendix II, no. 4).

Resistance to Taxation 25 French royal courts. The Parlement could not quickly resolve the issues raised by the appeal of the consuls, since no precedents were readily available dealing with the limits of municipal fiscal authority or the precise nature of taxation and common consent.® A tacit accommodation was reached while the case was pending: the royal government could not put a stop to local taxes while it depended (in the absence of any national levy) on the lump-sum payments granted by the towns; the consuls, meanwhile, took care to avoid internal dissidence and to associate their immediate lord rather than the crown with the general f¢aille on property enjoined by the compromise of 1331.% 63. There has been little study of the legal tradition reserving to the crown a monopoly over

taxation, and its origins and development are obscure. At the end of the thirteenth century, royal courts and officials occasionally tried to stop seignorial levies competing with those of the crown: Olim, 2:118, 297; Ferdinand Lot and Robert Fawtier, Histoire des institutions francaises au moyen @ge, 3 vols. (Paris, 1952-1963), 2:265; Brown, “Taxation and Morality,” p. 16. Procurators for the crown proposed to the Parlement

in 1385 and to the cour des aides in 1412 that all taxes needed royal authorization: Quaestiones Johannes Galli, ed. Marguerite Boulet (Paris, 1944), p. 80; DupontFerrier, Institutions financiéres, 2:42. The principle first seems to have been raised into

law at the assembly of Chinon in 1428 and by the general ordinance of Orléans in November 1439; it could not be enforced against the territorial princes before the sixteenth century: HL, 10, no. 847; Ordonnances, 13:313; Isambert, 8:749, 10:70; Lewis, Later Medieval France, pp. 102, 224. The crown apparently concerned itself mainly with seignorial levies, and those by towns came under attack less frequently. See, however, Isambert, 5:372 (1372) and the evidence from Bordeaux (1309) in Elizabeth Brown, “Cessante Causa and the Taxes of the Last Capetians,” Studia Gratiana 15 (1972), 575; Histoire de Lille, ed. Louis Trenard and Guy Fourquin (Lille, 1970), p. 188 (1297); Edouard Maugis, Essai sur le régime financier de la ville d’Amiens (Amiens, 1898), p. 247 (1401).

64. The chambre des enquétes was still considering the case in 1334 when the king’s

procurator asked leave to enter the records of the royal commissions that had investigated municipal finances (GC, no. 763); the consuls were commanded to respond at the next meeting of the court (no. 765, 20 May). 65. A proportional taille was levied to pay popular debts in March 1332 (GC, no. 3554), and another in August 1335 (no. 3562) covered communal loans. Municipal taxes were relatively light in the 1330s as the consuls strongly resisted royal demands for subsidy. They objected to an aide for the knighting of the king’s son in 1333, and with great reluctance gave only 1,000 pounds in 1335 for a military campaign in the Dauphine: nos. 3301, 3115-28, 3873-74; RTF, pp. 99, 109. A large grant was made in 1336 to refurbish the port at Aigues-Mortes, whose dilapidated condition directly concerned the province (see below, Chapter III), but the municipal government denied any obligation to contribute toward national defense, offering instead “loans” raised through a taille or fouage (the two terms were often synonomous in this period): GC, nos. 319, 1017; BN MS lat. 9192, fols. 22-31; RTF, pp. 130, 141-142. Presumably because it affected noncitizens (below, Chapter III, n. 50), the consuls did solicit royal authorization for a barrage to maintain roads and bridges, but they refused in 1335 to account for their disbursement of these funds: GC, no. 3240; cf. nos. 1012-14.

Personal Privilege and Communal Authority —62o—

The Example of Célestin Séguier A\fter another decade of litigation at a cost of more than three thousand pounds, the consuls did gain confirmation of their right to tax the inhabitants of the city without soliciting royal permission for each levy. A decision, which might have been delayed for many more years, was forced in this case by Célestin Séguier, a citizen of Montpellier who presented the

purported illegality of the milling charges as an excuse for his own refusal to contribute to the faille. Proportional taxation “a sol et a livre,” demanded throughout France by the middling classes,! had been used occasionally in Montpellier since the 1260s,? and it was a tax of this type that aroused popular ire in 1323 against abuses in property evaluation.? Following the compromise of 1331, however, the consuls were more likely to levy a taille than to increase sales taxes or tolls, and property values were established by public declaration subject to challenge.* Because it was now more difficult to undervalue their holdings, many landowners and members of the learned professions began to resist this “indiction”® of their possessions, demanding exemption because they were of noble or clerical status, held royal or seignorial office, or exercised the profession of physician, notary, or advocate.® 1. Petit-Dutaillis, Communes francaises, pp. 201-203; Wolff, “Luttes sociales,” p. 446. 2. Thus GC, no. 648 (1267). 3. This is confirmed by a royal letter permitting collection in the section of the city under the direct lordship of the crown (GC, no. 1491): “Dederunt et attribuerunt licentiam dictis dominis consulibus seu deputatis ab eisdem juramenta recipiendi. .. .” 4. See Chapter VIII below. 5. Town records usually give taille as the general rubric for this type of tax; in contrast to classical usage, indictio is used more narrowly and precisely to refer only to the written list of property values or to the process of registration; see below, n. 11. Cf. Arnold H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1964), 1:449-45S. 6. Most of those professing a legal right to exemption found their claims disallowed at this time by the French crown and by the king of Majorca; the latter ordered his officers to , 26

Personal Privilege and Communal Authority 27 Among those claiming special privileges, the misnamed Celestin Séguier stands out through his ingenuity in manipulating justifications for exemption, his tenacity in exhausting every remedy available to a defendant in the courts of later medieval France, and his irascibility in the face of opposition. These traits he shared with his father, to whom they had brought great wealth as well as notoriety. The son of an apothecary, Guillaume Séguier had received a doctorate from the prestigious law faculty of Bologna,’ but his appointment to the newly formed school at Montpellier in 1268 had been forced through by the lord of the town only with the help of pressure from the papal court. Many years later, he had again drawn upon the favor of the town’s lord after jeopardizing the wealth and high rank he had come to enjoy by instigating the

murder of a silk merchant during a quarrel. After a trial marked by favoritism, he escaped in 1312 with a fine of 2,000 silver marks and a brief period of exile to Catalonia.*® The heavy fine, if indeed it was collected, did not impoverish his family, for his son Célestin had a substanpay their allotted share in 1336 (GC, nos. 15, 3245). Nobles not owing military service . were constrained by royal letters of the same year together with all other nobles and clerks customarily assessed: nos. 3241, 3246-47; cf. nos. 3234, 3236, 3238 (1333-1334). The petitions of clerici regis were also denied (no. 3303), as were those of advocates and

notaries: nos. 3243-44, 3250-51 (1339). See also nos. 3302 (1334), 3304, and 3251 (1341), directed against nobles, advocates, and notaries pretending privilege although part of the universitas. Even those working at the royal mint were ordered to contribute during these years (nos. 1472-80), despite the traditional immunity described by Robert Lopez, “An Aristocracy of Money,” Speculum 28 (1953), 1-43. The clergy had, of

course, long tried to avoid all taxation in the face of consular efforts to enforce payment from those practicing a lucrative trade or profession or inheriting property customarily included; the town was placed under interdict for seven months in the early 1290s during a particularly acrimonious dispute that may well have encouraged the bishop of Maguelonne to transfer to the crown his governmental rights in Montpellier: GC, nos. 3189-91; Rogozinski, “Ordinary and Major,” pp. 601-602; Lecoy de la Marche, Relations politiques, 1:313-315. The liability of clerics in such cases had been reaffirmed by the crown in connection with the war subsidy of 1325: GC, nos. 3230, 3296 (16 March; also BN MS lat. 9174, fol. 46); 3231, 3295 (11 April); 3278 (29 May; also BN MS lat. 9174, fol. 48); 3232, 3297 (6 September; also BN MS lat. 9174, fol. 57). It was again confirmed by Philip VI: nos. 3288-89 (1328), 3234 (1331; also BN MS Lat. 9174, fol. 108), 3290-91 (1334, 1338).

7. GC, nos. 3688-89; for the importance of Bologna prior to the establishment of a faculty at Montpellier in the 1280s, see André Gouron, “The Training of Southern French Lawyers,” Studia Gratiana 15 (1972), 220-222. 8. For the career of Guillaume Séguier, with appropriate documentation, see Appendix II, no. 36. For the criminal proceedings against him, see GC, nos. 1124 (published in

part by Louise Guiraud, Les foundations du pape Urbain V a Montpellier [Montpellier, 1889-1891], 2:xv-xvili), 3687, 3689; AP, ed. Boutaric, nos. 4206, 4278, 4325, 4332, 4781.

28 Personal Privilege and Communal Authority tial income even though he apparently never practiced the profession of law for which he too had studied.? Lacking other affairs, Célestin Séguier could devote his time to a quarrel with the consuls, but he chose a singularly unpropitious occasion to advance his claim to exemption from taxes. The populares had benefited from dissension between the consuls and certain provincial officers of the crown, but the royal and municipal governments were in complete

agreement in 1336 over the desirability of renovating the seaport at Aigues-Mortes, which was rapidly silting up. Because of the threat of war with England and its plans for a crusade, the crown was anxious to

have the full use of the only French port on the Mediterranean, and representatives of Montpellier promised to advance almost a third of the 10,000 pounds requested from the estates of the sénéchaussée, this unwonted generosity reflecting their fear that development of an alternative site might severely damage the town’s economy.!® Séguier should not have expected to prevail easily when he refused to state his holdings and

declared himself immune from contributing because he was noble, clericus regis, and under the protection of a royal safeguard.!! 9. As shown in Appendix II, no. 36, Guillaume Séguier was back in Montpellier by 1316, and this fact raises some doubt as to whether he actually had to pay the fine. It was a very large sum: the tables in RTF, p. 339, suggest that 2,000 silver marks at this time amounted to between 7,000 and 8,000 pounds tournois. The wealth of his son, Célestin

Séguier, in 1342 is suggested by the sum of 2,000 florins awarded to the consuls following his excommunication in 1339 (AM Montpellier BB 3, no. 704). He had divided his father’s holdings with one sister according to GC, no. 3689. Célestin received the bachelor’s degree in civil law from Montpellier and attended lectures in canon law at the University of Paris. The documents describe him as married and the father of children (nos. 3688-89) but do not indicate his age. Since the marriage of his father (Appendix II, no. 36) took place by 1293, he may have been over forty in 1337. Use of the title clericus regis here implies only the receipt (perhaps as a student) of some

ecclesiastical benefice granted at royal request: see Soc. politique, p. 319. It is not possible to provide precise citations to these sources containing the arguments presented to the Parlement between 1342 and 1345 (GC, nos. 3688-98). The documents

are not paginated, and they are not described or even differentiated in Louvet’s seventeenth-century inventory of the town archives, which mixes them together under

meaningless rubrics such as “Il y’a encore autre six rouleaux, sans dates, des dicts corrigés et plaidoyés, de part et d’autre, audit procés” (Arch. de Montp., 1:327). 10. GC, nos. 3755, 3823-24, 3828-29, 3831; Ménard, Nismes, 2, preuve 46; RTF, pp. 109-111. Montpellier rarely granted the crown more than 2,000 pounds before 1350, and the consuls successfully avoided most requests for subsidy between 1337 and 1340. 11. GC, nos. 3690-95; the instrumentum indictionis tallie reparationis 1s included among the documents submitted to parlementary enquéteurs in November 1343. The consuls had agreed to pay 500 pounds by 22 July 1336 (no. 3831). Séguier apparently claimed to

Personal Privilege and Communal Authority 29 Because the safeguard and the competence of the provincial courts were in question, Séguier’s case was brought before the Parlement rather rapidly. The consuls carefully gathered royal letters denying any claims

to exemption and waited until late 1337 before ordering the doors of Séguier’s house carried to the town hall, the customary way of forcing payment by tax evaders.'? Séguier nevertheless demanded that the royal judge in Montpellier punish this act as a violation of safeguard, and the consuls, who held themselves in this matter justiciable only before the seneschal or his immediate lieutenant,!? were fined the amount of one hundred silver marks for contumacy.'* The king’s proctor appealed the case to Parlement since the criminal judge for the sénéchaussée lacked authority in matters touching the royal interest and worth more than fifty marks, and the high court had it under consideration toward the middle of 1338. Séguier, who went to Paris to watch over his interests, now committed a series of tactical blunders that ultimately brought about his defeat. He reminded the court that it had not made a definite judgment regarding the milling charges,'® and he also appealed for relief to the conservator of enjoy royal safeguard because he was clericus regis; see Gustave Dupont-Ferrier, Les officiers royaux des bailliages et sénéchaussées et les institutions monarchiques locales (Paris, 1902), pp. 435-436. 12. GC, nos. 3690-95. Pierre Sabors (below, Chapter V, n. 44) also suffered this penalty in 1337 (nos. 305-306); perhaps it was a symbolic act showing that the defendant no longer merited the right of a citizen to protection by the courts. The consuls defended their action as a customary prerogative permitted under the Roman law when necessary “ad utilitatem consulum et universitatis predicte” (GC, no. 3689), but imperial law actually imposed upon delinquent taxpayers the harsher punishment of confiscation: D 39.4.16. 1-6; C 10.22.1. 13. GC, no. 3689. They were probably referring to a privilege granted by Philip III in 1283 (no. 2161; AN J 598, no. 6; BN Collection Languedoc [Bénédictins] 81, fol. 103) and frequently confirmed; see GC, no. 3033 (read 1285, not 1385); HL, 10:190, no. 40; Reg. Ph. V, no. 518 (1317); GC, no. 228 (1322): “si dictus Rex [Majoricarum] per se vel allocatos seu curiales suos caperet aliqua de bonis hominum vel subditorum nostrorum seu in gardia nostra existentium vel aliorum. .. .” 14. GC, nos. 768, items 12-13 (31 January 1338); 3700-01 (23 February). 15. GC, nos. 3690-95; list of evidence submitted by the consuls, items marked “G” and “L”. We have no other information concerning this limitation on the competence of the

criminal judge, which perhaps was dropped as the office was extended to other sénéchaussées. The case involved the crown as a violation of royal safeguard: Felix Aubert, Histoire du Parlement de Paris de l’origine a Francois I, 2 vols. (Paris, 1894), 1:265; Dupont-Ferrier, Officiers royaux, pp. 382-383. 16. GC, nos. 3690-95; in his summary of nos. 3688-3722 (Arch. de Montp., 1:326) Louvet, perhaps relying on a document now lost, has Séguier suggesting the enormous sum of

30 Personal Privilege and Communal Authority apostolic privileges, alleging that the consuls had violated his rights as a student at the University of Paris. The consequences of the second step were immediately unfortunate. When the consuls were able to show that he was no longer a student and had been expelled as a perjuror from the

University of Montpellier, Séguier was banned from the faculties at Paris, condemned in a public sermon as an abuser of their privileges,?’ and excommunicated in October 1339 for failing to ask absolution from the papal court.'® Séguier’s subsequent attempts to impose action through the provincial administration were equally unsuccessful. Directed to enforce the royal safeguard despite the fifty-mark limitation, the royal judge in Ales instead reversed his colleague in Montpellier and freed the consuls from the fine imposed on them a year earlier.'!9 The seneschal, meanwhile, would not personally take charge and grant expeditious justice while the case was before the Parlement.”° A kind of stalemate was reached at the end of 1339, following a royal letter authorizing the viguier of Nimes and the castellan of Sommieéres to demand consular assistance in lifting the

50,000 pounds as a suitable penalty. He must have raised the issue of the milling tax toward the end of 1338 or in the spring of 1339, when the consuls had the relevant materials duplicated. Among the copies (now nos. 760-765) is a list bearing the date March 1338/9; under the rubric “hec sunt scripta que portaverunt in Franciam domini bernardus de Ruppefixa legum doctor et Arnaudus Sabbaterii . . . ,” it brings together ten items arising out of the challenges to the milling tax between 1327 and 1334 and six dealing with the violation of Séguier’s safeguard. Bernard de Roquefixe may have been associated with the law faculty at Montpellier (Meijers, Etudes d’histoire du droit, 3:208); he acted as the consul’s proctor and attorney from 1336 to 1358, receiving a yearly pension of forty pounds in 1341: AM Montpellier BB-3, nos. 604, 610-11, 62829, 644; GC, nos. 268, 1500, 1960, 3114, 3331. 17. GC, nos. 3706 (11 April 1339), 3696, 3702-05; Pearl Kibre, Scholarly Privileges in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, Mass., 1962), p. 145. 18. Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, ed. Heinrich Denifle and Emile Chatelain, 4 vols. (Paris, 1889-1897), 2, no. 1027. Cart. Univ. Montp., 1, no. 71, has Séguier cited before the papal camerarius in May 1339, but one of the documents compiled for the consuls in March 1339 (GC, no. 768, item 16) speaks of him as already having been arrested at the request of the procurator for the bishop of Maguelonne. 19. GC, no. 768, items 11 (8 March 1339), 14, 15; nos. 3690-95, consular list of evidence I through K. There can be no logical explanation for addressing the court at Ales other than Séguier’s desire to bring his case before a judge unfamiliar with earlier decisions in Montpellier and Nimes; see Rogozinski, “Ordinary and Major,” pp. 604-605 and map

at p. 592. Perhaps the royal chancery, which had no maps of the Midi, was simply

unfamiliar with southern geography; see Bernard Guenée, “La géographie administrative,” Le Moyen Age 67 (1961), 294-295, 316-323. 20. GC, no. 3708 (royal letter of 22 May).

Personal Privilege and Communal Authority 3] sentence of excommunication.?! Since it appeared that the castellan, who was Séguier’s cousin,?? might rule against them, the consuls had the case returned to the seneschal’s court,23 but the crown also restored Séguier’s

property and forbade the use of force against him until sentence was given.?+

Séguier’s attempts to manipulate the courts through royal letters on his

behalf had rebounded to his discomfiture, but he had not yet paid his share of a tax collected three years earlier. Having seen their cause before courts in Montpellier, Nimes, Alés, and Paris without prevailing on the

fundamental issue, the consuls apparently decided that it might be quicker and less expensive to come to terms directly with the chambre des comptes, which had recently been made responsible for all questions of privilege.2> For a grant of 2,000 pounds,?* the crown reconfirmed during the summer of 1340 the compromise of 1331, specifically including the milling tax in its approbation, forgave the hundred-mark fine inflicted by

the judge of Montpellier in 1339, and placed the municipal officials under its protection. Letters announcing these privileges were sent to the treasury and the Parlement,?’ and the seneschal was forbidden to harass

the consuls and commanded to defend them against future injury or attack.?8 21. GC, no. 3710 (9 December). 22. Séguier later denied (GC, no. 3688) that he had approached the castellan, Bremond de Mer, for this reason. For the latter, see Gallia Regia, 1:363. 23. GC, nos. 3710, 3712 (12 April 1340). The earlier letter to the castellan is described as surreptitiously obtained: ibid., nos. 3709, 3711. 24. AD Herault A 4, fols. 98v-99v, 104v-106 (11 April and 20 May). On suspending sentence while an appeal was pending, see D 49.7.1; C 7.62.13.

25. On 15 June, the king wrote to the chambre des comptes and asked it to arrange a compromise regarding certain requests made by the consuls (GC, no. 96). See Soc. politique, p. 125, for the powers delegated to this body. The consuls’ legal expenses are

said to have exceeded three thousand pounds; they paid 164 florins merely to be represented at the papal court during May and June 1340: Arch. de Montp., 1:327; Cart. Univ. Montp., 1, no. 71. 26. AP, ed. Furgeot, no. 3018. This sum, expressed in pounds parisis, was equal to 2,500 pounds tournois. See Henneman, “Financing,” p. 279. 27. GC, nos. 1972 (21 July), 3714 (16 August); AP, ed. Furgeot, nos. 3018 (29 July; registered by Parlement 29 September, GC, no. 3715), no. 3075. Cf. AN JJ 68, nos. 97-98; JJ 72, nos. 327-328. 28. GC, nos. 2916-17 (vidimus of July 1346). Cf. RTF, p. 142, and especially Henneman, “Financing,” p. 279, where the author describes this transaction as a typical example of quasi-legal pressure used to extort municipal grants disguised as (or in lieu of) fines: “The threat that royal ‘reform’ commissioners might pursue their investigation of some local abuse was used as a bargaining point by the crown when it negotiated for money.”

32 Personal Privilege and Communal Authority The consuls of Montpellier shared in a widespread desire to limit in-

terference in local affairs by royal officials; their dealings with the populares and with individual delinquents show that they were especially intent on enforcing their autonomous authority to tax every resident of the community. The king’s letters of July and August 1341, while they pardoned violations of the royal safeguard, did not touch on the substantive issue of noble exemption, and the consuls spared no effort to obtain a favorable judgment even after they were granted property seized when Séguier remained excommunicate.?9 The royal government had itself requested a subsidy to restore the port at Aigues-Mortes and raised no ob-

jections to the ¢aille for this purpose. The consuls were mindful, however, of earlier statements declaring that the milling charges and other town taxes needed a royal license.*° Their attorneys, in a /ibellus brought before the Parlement late in 1343 or in 1344,*! thus played down the effect of royal privileges to the town or to individuals and argued that

consular powers were derived from universal principles of jurispru-

Whatever the merits of this thesis, the example of this case was poorly chosen, and Henneman evidently was unaware of Séguier’s long legal challenge to the consuls. The

close concurrence in date between the letter to the seneschal and those sent to the Parlement and treasurers in Paris shows that all three had to do with Séguier’s allegations regarding the milling tax and safeguard, rather than any of the admittedly acrimonious negotiations in 1340 between the consuls and the crown’s provincial officers. Although Henneman cites documents that mention Séguier (RT, p. 142, n. 192), he gives the misleading impression that it was the consuls who were resisting royal taxation. 29. The sentence of excommunication was confirmed and extended to anyone dealing with Séguier (fall of 1340, GC, no. 3176). Although the case was still before the papal court in Avignon in September 1343 (no. 3722), he was fined in November 1340 and his possessions were seized by the rector, who distributed them to the consuls and his other creditors in March 1343: nos. 3718-20; AM Montpellier BB 3, nos. 704-705. Séguier argued that the suit before the Parlement required him to remain in Paris (GC, no. 3688). The crown ordered his property returned in July 1343 (AP, ed. Furgeot, no. 5415), but there is no evidence that this mandate was carried out. 30. See above, Chapter II, at nn. 60 and 62. 31. As the inventory of the town archives indicates, the legal proceedings in this case are mostly undated (above, n. 9); among them, however, is a schedule of evidence that ends with a royal letter of 24 October 1342 and another prepared for a hearing on 19 November 1343. There is no record of the final disposition of Séguier’s suit before the Parlement. In July 1344 the court presumably commissioned Jean Privat, who had been king’s procurator at the end of the 1320s, as enquéfeur into the charges against the consuls: AP, ed. Furgeot, no. 6020 (cf. no. 5145, July 1343); below, Chapter V, n. 39, for Privat. The case is last mentioned in 1346 when the consuls complained of Privat’s slowness in settling the matter: GC, nos. 3722-28. Perhaps Séguier died or dropped the case for lack of funds when his property was confiscated.

Personal Privilege and Communal Authority 33 dence;*? in the process, they presented an unusually strong defense of municipal autonomy as well as one of the first attempts to define and limit in law noble rank and its privileges .?3 Since the courts had acknowledged the liability of married clerics prac-

ticing a profession or trade,** the consuls saw no harm in allowing Séguier clerical status, but they denied that he was noble. His family had never been accepted as such, had worked at inherently ignoble crafts,

and had contributed with the other members of the plebs to the communal faille.*° In knighting his father, the king of Majorca had not conferred hereditary nobility, which could be granted within the kingdom of France only by the crown itself,?* and Guillaume Séguier had subsequently been exiled and stripped of his honors for the crime of homicide.?’ Even if Célestin were noble, this status did not carry with it an inherent right to exemption, and the particular tax in question was justified by the principles of evident necessity and long usage. Montpellier formed one

| community over which the consuls had full powers of government and

administration for the utility and defense of the common good (respublica), and they thus had the authority to draw up an indiction and 32. The following paragraphs paraphrase the most complete summary of the consular position (GC, no. 3689), which contains sixty-two numbered propositions, six dealing with Séguier’s right to nobility (items 34-39). The royal letters calling for the rehabilitation of the port are mentioned (items 8-12) to prove the necessity of the tax and not to justify municipal taxes; municipal autonomy in matters of taxation is presented throughout as a customary prerogative under the Roman law, and royal charters confirming this autonomy are cited in only one article (item 52) at the end of the presentation. 33. Remarkably little is known about the emergence of the fiscal privileges of the French nobility. For a bibliographical note on the state of this historical problem, see Appendix XI. 34. GC, no. 3689, item 15; above, n. 6. 35. GC, no. 3689, items 34-35: “innobiles officia meccanicorum exercentes et in talliis communis dicti ville cum aliis plebeis contribuentes.” This is a very early statement of the principle that certain occupations (in this case, that of apothecary) are legally

incompatible with nobility. On the late development of the legal concept of dérogeance, see Etienne Dravasa, “ ‘Vivre noblement’: Recherches sur la dérogeance,” Revue juridique et économique du Sud-Ouest, série juridique 16 (1965), 142; Gaston Zeller, “Un notion de caractére historio-social,” La politique francais sous l’Ancien Régime (Paris, 1964), pp. 336-345. 36. Again a very early expression of this restriction, the statement is factually inaccurate, since nobles and prelates in this sénéchaussée and in Provence had long granted to burgenses the insignia and privileges of knighthood: HL, 8:1747 (1298); Dravasa,

“Vivre noblement,” p. 142. See again Appendix XI, especially the discussion of Seguier’s response to this charge. 37. GC, no. 3689, items 37-39.

34 Personal Privilege and Communal Authority to tax the real and personal property of those enjoying the freedom and rights of citizens.** Rehabilitation of the port at Aigues-Mortes was clearly mandated by the necessity of the province and city where Séguier and his family had many noble and non-noble holdings and took part in the common liberties;3? following nature and right reason as well as the Roman law governing southern France, he was, hence, bound to take part in sustaining the honor and meeting the expenses of the town.*? The consuls had, moreover, quietly and pacifically exercised this power of taxation for sufficient years to establish legal possession and seisin; all inhabitants were obliged except doctors of law and masters of medicine, and nobles of the same condition as Séguier had been forced to contribute.*! If one or two great barons had been exempted, they were ex- | cused because they had no domicile in Montpellier and did not enjoy the immunities of citizens such as the right to be judged only by the communal courts or to be taxed only as part of the community;*? on the contrary, as possessors of noble fiefs they were required to join with the royal army or to pay an individual subsidy in lieu of service.* 38. Items 1-3: “qui gaudent seu gaudere possint libertationes, franchesias, et immunitates ipsius ville.” 39. Items 9-12, 14-15, 18, 40; cf. no. 22: “refectio dicti portus propter quam dicta tallia erat valde necessaria toti patrie et omnibus habitatoribus.” 40. Items 16, 22, 25. 41. Items 3-7, 26-32, 40, 46-48, 50; nos. 30, 44-45 for the immunity of legum doctores. Like those at the University of Paris, scholars associated with the Montpellier faculties were exempt from many charges: BN Collection Languedoc (Bénédictins), 81, fol. 72; Arch. de Montp., 6:69-70. Cf. Kibre, Scholarly Privileges, pp. 129-135, 148-153, 168. But the extension of this immunity to those with lucrative careers as judges and attorneys is difficult to understand; it perhaps reflected provisions of the Roman law favoring doctors and teachers and freeing from the annual senatorial tax (the collatio glebalis follis) imperial physicians and barristers before the higher courts: C 10.53.6.10-11; 12.5.2. The immunity of doctors of medicine was challenged by the consuls of Nimes in 1329: Ménard, Nismes, 2, preuve 34; AM Nimes, NN-1, SS-10. 42. GC, no. 3689, items 50, 57. This may well refer to the seneschal’s unsuccessful attempts in 1338, 1339, and 1340 to claim subsidies in lieu of military service; the town would

grant only “loans” that would not set a precedent, and the crown ruled that the , inhabitants of Montpellier directly subject to the king of Majorca did not owe individual service: HL, 10, no. 333; Ménard, Nismes, 2, preuves 61, 63. See Germain, Commune, 2:146-147; RTF, pp. 130-140; Henneman, “Financing,” pp. 277-278. 43. GC, no. 3689, items 50-54; item 56: “feuda nobilia per quibus facere consuerunt aliqui servitium vel subsidium in guera domini regis.” Thus they were freed not because of

their personal status but to avoid a double obligation: the municipal taille “fell on persons for their goods” (item 24) just as royal taxes during these years were levied on the value of a fief whether it was held by a noble or a non-noble: Philippe Contamine, Guerre, état et société (Paris, 1972), pp. 38-45. According to Vaissete (HL, 9:1172), the

crown confirmed as early as 1307 for Roquemaure, another community in this

Personal Privilege and Communal Authority 35 In appealing to the principles of “evident necessity” and customary right, lawyers for the consuls drew on the traditional justifications for royal taxation.** Both lines of argument were factually somewhat naive; if carried to their logical conclusions, they would support a declaration of civic autonomy without precedent in the written law or southern tradition. The head of any corporation had the undisputed right to demand contributions from its members to meet common needs,*‘> but the consuls also seem to be claiming virtually sovereign powers because Montpellier

formed a respublica with its own public law. Although medieval commentators on the Roman law provided this definition of urban government, they generally subordinated municipal and provincial law to that of the prince, and they specifically held that new taxes require the con-

sent of the ruler.*®° Charters granted in the thirteenth century did guarantee fiscal independence to cities in this province,*”? and southern French towns solicited royal permission less frequently than those in the

sénéchaussée, the principle that the taille obligated those possessing land in the town even when they were exempt from taxes on individuals. For other early examples of this principle, similar to that of the taille réele, see Dognon, Institutions, pp. 306-308; P. C. Timbal et al., La guerre de cent ans vue a travers les régistres du Parlement, 1337-1369

(Paris, 1961), p. 24 (1353); GC, nos. 16 (1390), 2588 (1372), and 3248 (1338); Ordonnances, 13:493-495 (a letter of Philip VI, confirmed 1447); BN MS lat. 9178, fols. 100-107, 117-118 (1455-57). 44. See RTF, p. 22; Henneman, “French Ransom Aids,” p. 663. The concept of “evident necessity,” however, has been studied only as a justification for royal taxation, and the

attorneys for the consuls may well have drawn upon a separate legal tradition concerning municipal taxes that had grown up independently. 45. See the ordinary gloss to D 3.4.1; Mundy, High Middle Ages, pp. 418-419; Post, Studies, pp. 29-30; Emile Coornaert, Les corporations en France avant 1789 (Paris, 1968), pp. 181-217. 46. Recent studies cite in this regard the glosses to C 4.62.1-4; thus Post, Studies, p. 275; Brown, “Taxation and Morality,” p. 3. But these laws deal with vectagalia, which were import duties (D 39.4.16.7; Vocabularius utriusque juris [Hagenau, 1513], s.v.). More relevant to a taille on property are the imperial edicts forbidding the imposition of extraordinary indictions by city councils or provincial governors; see at C 11.48.1; 10.18.1; 10.48.8. If the attorney for the consuls meant to endow Montpellier with the attributes of a sovereign state, he must be given credit with Bartolus and Marsilius of Padua for this “revolutionary” contribution to political thought; see Lauro Martines, Lawyers and Statecraft in Renaissance Florence (Princeton, 1968), p. 413; Marsilius of

Padua, Defensor pacis, trans. Alan Gewirth, 2 vols. (New York, 1951-1956), 1:256-258.

47. Robert Michel, L’administration royale dans la sénéchaussée de Beaucaire (Paris, 1910), pp. 255-264; HF, 24:479 (1246); Layettes du trésor des chartes, 2:619 (1246); V. Bourilly, Essai sur histoire politique de la commune de Marseille (Aix-en-Provence, 1925), pp. 226-227 (1257).

36 Personal Privilege and Communal Authority north.*? After purchasing direct lordship over part of the city from the bishop of Maguelonne in 1296, moreover, the crown had expressly recog-

nized that customary usage in Montpellier required payment of communal failles by the inhabitants of both sections.*® Perhaps because charges such as sales taxes touched casual visitors not under consular jurisdiction,®*° the consuls had nevertheless associated one or both of the town’s lords with many municipal taxes, and the latter might well have claimed a prescriptive right of approval.*! Whatever its juridical or historical merits, the appeal was vindicated, and the decision in this case could serve as a precedent. By the beginning of the Hundred Years’ War the government of Montpellier had successfully affirmed its powers of taxation and kept to a minimum interference

by either dissident citizens or the royal officials in the province. Insistence on their prerogatives at this early stage allowed the consuls to take a stronger stand at the end of the century against the overweening ambitions of the princes who exercised viceregal powers as lieutenants for Languedoc. The crown had to admit, when it reserved the ¢aille to its own needs in 1428, that the consuls enjoyed through long possession the right to levy this tax whenever necessity was truly evident.5? Consular in-

transigence over personal exemption also had lasting results. Noble residents were taxed on at least some of their urban property throughout

48. The sources cited in RTF, p. 7, applied almost exclusively to northern France; thus also Reg. Ph. V, nos. 665, 676, 727, 795, 830, 833, 949, 953, 958, 1013, 1725, 2261, 2629. Cf. Guillois, Maitres des requétes, pp. 80-81. 49. The residents of the royal quarter were ordered to contribute to ¢ailles imposed by the consuls by GC, no. 3226 (1299); renewed by nos. 3227 (1307), 3228 (1317), 3229 (1321), 3256 (1350), 876 (1351). The customary obligation of all inhabitants was also sustained in 1320 following an inquiry by the seneschal, who had been ordered by the crown to follow local usage in enforcing payment: “Inventaire de la maison consulaire,” Arch. de Montp., 6:67-68. 50. See in this regard William Bowsky, “A New Consilium of Cino of Pistoia,” Speculum 42 (1967), 434; Eyssette, Histoire administrative de Beaucaire, 2:271-272. A sales tax was also at issue in the cases mentioned Guerre de cent ans, ed. Timbal, p. 217. The consuls may thus have believed that royal authorization was not needed for the milling charges that fell primarily on residents. Dupont-Ferrier, Communes frangaises, pp. 159-160, suggests that royal approval became customary after Saint Louis ordered a

yearly audit of town accounts, but this ordinance was not enforced after 1281 and never applied to Languedoc: Léon Borrelli de Serres, Recherches sur divers services publics, 3 vols. (Paris, 1895-1905), 1:94-107. 51. See below, Appendix I; Ellul, “Imp6ts municipaux,” pp. 372-373. 52. GC, no. 1232 (October 1428); the privilege was granted as an exception to the general ordinance promulgated at the assembly of estates held at that time in Chinon.

Personal Privilege and Communal Authority 37 the later Middle Ages, and this liability was confirmed through the device of the taille réele. Partially because of decisions responding to popular or

individual tax resistance during the first half of the fourteenth century,

Montpellier retained substantial rights of self-government, and the privileged made a greater contribution to communal charges than many of their northern peers. *?

53. There is no certain consensus among historians of the ancien régime as to the effective

tax liability of the nobility in the various provinces. See Colin Lucas, “Nobles, Bourgeois and the Origins of the French Revolution,” Past and Present, no. 60 (1973), 88-96; and the articles under the title “Nobles, Privileges, and Taxes in France” by G. J. Cavanaugh and Betty Behrens in French Historical Studies 8 (1974), 681-692, and 9 (1976), 521-531.

IV

The Consuls and the People —.o-o—

A Conflict among the Propertied By correcting the misleading testimony of literary sources and selfserving and exaggerated accusations, the wealth of evidence remaining from the lawsuits that arose out of the dispute in Montpellier can yield new insights into the nature of social unrest during the later Middle Ages. Internal discord in fourteenth-century Montpellier was not caused by a

conflict between classes. The leaders of the people and individual dissidents like Célestin Séguier could cope with a costly and wearisome

weight of litigation, and their indictment of the consuls appealed by design to the interests of those with substantial fiscal obligations. If the populares were not men of low condition, there is also little truth to the denunciation of the consuls as a hereditary caste dominated by a few of the richest families. While the wealth and social standing of the people were perhaps less than that of their opponents, the differences between the two groups were small in comparison with the distance separating the lowest and highest levels of late medieval society.! Popular resistance in Montpellier involved educated men of property and warrants close study precisely because it reflected dissension within the upper ranks of the citizenry. Other cities may have been dominated by small cliques, but the consuls

of Montpellier were drawn from a relatively large number of families representing a wide segment of the middling classes. The political constitution, essentially unchanged from the middle of the thirteenth century, restricted full rights of citizenship to members of the merchant and craft

guilds. Physicians, lawyers, and notaries had a voice in elections, but 1. The “isomorphy” of these disturbances is thus low within the terms of the theoretical framework sketched by Charles Tilly and James Rule, Measuring Political Upheaval (Princeton, 1965), pp. 59-60; Natalie Davis, “Religious Riots in Sixteenth-Century France,” Past and Present, no. 59 (1973), 75-88. 38

The Consuls and the People 39 they were specifically excluded from the consulate. While the rules bar-

ring them were not always rigidly enforced, nobles and rentiers (burgenses) had no place in the governance of the city —a marked contrast to neighboring communities which guaranteed them a fixed number of seats.2 Through a complicated series of elections and lotteries initiated by the heads of the guilds, four of the twelve consuls were chosen from among the money changers and wholesale cloth merchants, seven from

among those belonging to the major guilds of retail merchants and craftsmen, and one from the upper ranks of the peasantry (/auradors or laborers).? 2. The exclusion from office of members of the professions dates back to the thirteenth

century and was lifted by the royal courts in 1613: Arch. de Montp., 6:34; Louis Thomas, Montpellier, ville marchande (Montpellier, n.d. [1936]), p. 31. At some point prior to 1353 (but almost certainly later than the 1320s), the borjeges de plassa were grouped into a guild and effectively took from the drapiers vermeille the right to the third place among the consuls: Jean Combes, “Quelques remarques sur les bourgeois de Montpellier au moyen age,” Mémoires droit écrit 7 (1972), 101-102. Even before being formally permitted to do so, nobles and burgenses did in fact serve as consuls or

bayle (sometimes through fictitious enrollment in a guild) when their advice or allegiance was desired: thus “mossen Jac. de San Johan, cavalier” (1296) and “P. Aymeric, senhor de la Pahada” (1327) and the regular appearance of the Lambert and

Atbrand families, wealthy landowners and prominent seignorial and communal officials since the early eleventh century: Archibald Lewis, “Town Government,” pp. 56-63; “Seigneurial Administration in Twelfth Century Montpellier,” Speculum 22

(1947), 569-573. For the Atbrand, see below, n. 5; Liber instrumentorum memoralium: Cartulaire des Guillems de Montpellier, ed. Camille Chabaneau and Alexandre Germain (Montpellier, 1884-1886), pp. 280, 300-302, 310, 413, for fiefs held by the Lamberts. The terms burgenses or bourgeois meant those citizens who exercised no profession and lived off their income from urban or rural property: “qui propriis suis vivunt redditibus, nullum infrascriptorum officiorum in aliquo exercentes” (Dupont, “Evolution sociale,” p. 306). Cf. Isambert, 6:774; HL, 10:688-689; Ménard, Nismes, 3,

preuves, p. 197. See in general Mundy, High Middle Ages, pp. 237, 248-250, 416; Lewis, Later Medievai France, p. 246; Charles Du Cange, Glossarium mediae et infimae Latinitatis, new ed. in 7 vols. (Paris, 1840-1850), 2:812; Pierre Goubert, “Remarques sur le vocabulaire sociale,” Ordres et classes, ed. D. Roche and E. Labrousse (Paris, 1972), pp. 137-138. The rubric bourgeois thus replaces the earlier placiers (platerii) discussed by Paul Dognon, “De quelques mots employés au moyenage dans le midi,” Annales du Midi 11 (1899), 348-358. Unlike those in Nimes and Alés (Dupont, /oc. cit.), the burgenses of Montpellier were not exclusively rentiers. Some did engage in trade for short periods, often as money-changers; since they had no fixed

places of business, they had to invest in commerce through a merchant: Combes, “Bourgeois de Montpellier,” pp. 98-103. For the formal representation of nobles and burgenses in Alés, Beaucaire, Lodéve, Narbonne, and Nimes, see Dognon, “De quelques mots,” and the studies of André Dupont and Robert Michel. 3. Consular ordinances of 1246 and 1252 provided for two levels of electors: Germain, Commune, 1, preuve 16; Thalamus parvus, ed. Pegat and Thomas, pp. 98-100. The heads of the guilds named five men from each of the seven ranks (échelles) into which

40 The Consuls and the People By combining guild representation, cooption, and chance, the electoral process ensured that a majority of the consuls would be prosperous tradesmen, yet prevented the development of a hereditary oligarchy. If surnames alone are considered, the consuls in office between 1270 and 1329 fall into three groups. Approximately a third of the 720 terms under

consideration went to 153 men who were the only members of their families to hold consular rank, and another third was taken by men from some fifty families that contributed two of their number to the consulate. The remaining terms were held by men from thirty-five families that were represented by three or more from their lineage. The consuls from this

last group formed a coherent bloc present throughout the sixty years preceding the compromise of 1331, and their influence was enhanced by greater continuity in office. While the consuls from the first and second groups averaged less than two terms each, those from notable families were often reelected to a third or fourth term, and they were also more crafts were traditionally placed, the candidates being taken from among those not eligible for election to the consulate. These thirty-five were reduced by lot to seven who joined with the twelve existing consuls in nominating five candidates for each post from

among the members of the favored guilds; the consuls were selected from this last group of sixty through a second lottery. The guilds of changeurs and drapiers each had

a ninety percent chance of gaining two seats out of twelve: André Gouron, La réglementation des métiers en Languedoc (Geneva-Paris, 1958), p. 57. Among the other eligible guilds, the largest share was given to those involved in construction

(fustiers, macons, fabres) or dealing in cloth and furs (peaussiers or pélissiers, canabassiers, coyratiers, blanquiers, sabotiers) or food stuffs (orgiers, mazeliers): Gouron, Réglementation, pp. 57, 386-388; Thomas, Ville marchande, pp. 47-64. For industrial techniques and organization, see also Philippe Wolff, Cormsmerces et marchands de Toulouse (Paris, 1954), p. 673 and passim. Laboureurs in this region, in contrast to the brassiers (braseres, or “hired hands”), often owned land and possibly a horse and plow. Like many medieval cities, Montpellier allowed citizenship to these rural workers, who might in exceptional cases be as wealthy as the lowest ranks among the burgenses; unlike the latter, however, they contributed labor as well as capital to the exploitation of their property. See Ménard, Nismes, 3, preuve 163; the description of the constitution of 1475 in F. de la Farelle, Etudes historiques sur le consulat et les institutions municipales de Nismes (Nimes, 1841); Achille Bardon, Histoire de la ville d’Alais de 1341 a 1461 (Nimes, 1896), p. 85; Goubert, “Vocabulaire sociale,” pp. 135-137; Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Les paysans de Languedoc, 2 vols. (Paris, 1966), 1:152-153. In much of France, brassier and laboureur had something like this meaning into the nineteenth century: Fourquin, Soulevements populaires, pp. 80-81; Marcel David, “Les /aboratores du renouveau économique du XII* siecle a la fin du XIV‘,” Revue historique de droit francais et étranger 37 (1959), 187-188, 295-297, 305; Marc Bloch, Les caractéres originaux de Vhistoire rurale francaise, new ed. in 2 vols. (Paris,

1961-1964), 1:197-200; Albert Saboul, “The French Rural Community in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” Past and Present, no. 10 (1956), 79.

The Consuls and the Peaple 4] likely to hold other communal offices.* An analysis of surnames that ignores the mechanisms of clientage and alliances through marriage can provide only a rough approximation of familial power.’ Even if kinsmen associated with unwonted harmony in fourteenth-century Montpellier,

however, an elite group or “patriciate” of some thirty-five clans — perhaps 500 individuals — was not easily controlled or manipulated in the

interests of a few. The presence of 380 different surnames on the consular lists of a city with no more than 9,000 hearths indicates, moreover, that the responsibilities and rewards of office were open to citizens of more modest status. Men of their rank were regularly present among the 4. This analysis relies on the list of consuls from 1204 to 1426 in the Petit thalamus and printed as preuve 25 of Germain, Commune de Montpellier, 1; although the work was largely intended as a kind of consular annals, the modern edition of the Petit thalamus (by Pegat and Thomas) leaves out these names. The sixty years prior to the compromise of October 1331 should include at least three generations of municipal officials; given the electoral procedure described, it is unlikely that anyone held office until after reaching the age of forty. A full history of social stratification in Montpellier is beyond

the scope of this book; for the evidence concerning many elite families, see the prosopography appended to my “The Lawyers of Lower Languedoc” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Princeton, 1967). 5. It is wrong to consider only the direct lineage or to assign a family to any one guild or profession; hereditary caste never existed in the Middle Ages. Great weight was placed both economically and psychologically on ties through marriage and on inheritance through the female line. Familial groupings that took in married children and shared the ownership and profits of property rights were not unusual in the towns and villages of southern France: Jean Gaudemet, Les communautés familiales (Paris, 1963), pp. 90-95. Through marriage, moreover, the members of mercantile families often became involved in several different enterprises, and individuals easily transferred from one guild to another to meet changing circumstances or to inherit the property of a parent: Combes, “Bourgeois de Montpellier,” p. 103. Since traditions and property were passed along through the female as well as the male line, the extinction of a surname did not necessarily end a family’s influence: John Bartier, Légistes et gens de finances au X Ve siécle: Les conseilliers des ducs de Bourgogne Philippe le Bon et Charles le Téméraire (Brussels, 1955), p. 89; Guy de Valous, Le patriciat lyonnais (Paris, 1973), p. 77; cf. Anthony Wagner, English Genealogy (Oxford, 1960), pp. 140-141. Although the Atbrand family thus disappears from the consular lists after 1297, its traditional role in communal government (Lewis, “Town Government,” pp. 58-63) was not forgotten, and much of its wealth was transmitted to Jean de Coliac, husband of Marie Atbrand (GC, no. 1176; AM Montpellier BB 2, no. 536). Jean de Coliac was himself a knight and /legum doctor (AM Marsillargues AA 4, fols. 33-37), but the prestige of his wife’s name also played a part in his selection as communal judge and ambassador to the town’s lords: Germain, Commune, 1, preuve 25 (1299, 1306); AM Montpellier BB 2, nos. 456-457 (1301); Alexandre Germain, Histoire du commerce de Montpellier, 2 vols.

(Montpellier, 1851), 1 preuve 60 (1297); Documents relatifs aux états généraux et assemblées réunis sous Philippe le Bel, ed. Georges Picot (Paris, 1901), no. 652 (1303). He may have been royal judge for Montpellier in 1302: HL, 10:387. The transference

42 The Consuls and the People consuls, and the families of the populares themselves may have been so honored.°®

If the consuls answered to a larger portion of the citizenry than was admitted by the people, there was also little truth to the latter’s description of themselves as the major part of the populace. Between 1323 and 1338, fifteen men from thirteen families acted in the name of the people.’ Continuing leadership was provided by Pierre de Ribe, Bremond Grimaud, and Jean de Fraissé, who were joined in several acts by Bernard Liborel,

Deodat Clavade, and Bernard Cazals. The social standing of four of these six can be ascertained;® all had substantial means and an honorable

position in the community. Bernard Cazals was a merchant (mercator) engaged in overseas commerce,? and Bernard Liborel was enrolled in the guild of saddle-makers (bastiers), whose members voted in consular elections although themselves ineligible for office.!° Brémond Grimaud and of a family’s power through females merits additional study; it was especially crucial to the maintenance of social stratification during these years because of the unusually rapid disappearance of elite families throughout France: Rogozinski, “Ennoblement,” n. 10; Lester Little, “The Size and Governance of Medieval Communities,” Studia Gratiana 15 (1972), 386. 6. The lists supply numerous Rogers and several variants of Rippere, but direct filiation has not yet been proved (see below, nn. 8 and 14). Although the consuls accused the populares in April 1331 of grievously abusing the public trust when they held the same rank (GC, no. 3553), the popular leaders mentioned by name never held public office, perhaps because they belonged to guilds customarily excluded. 7. See below, Appendix IV. . 8. The family de Ribe or de la Riba were burgenses and money changers, and Jean and Pierre de Ribe held the office of consul or bayle five times between 1266 and 1281 (Combes, “Bourgeois,” p. 99). But I have not yet found a direct connection between this family and the Pierre de Ribe active in the 1320s. Surnames were fixed in this region by

the twelfth or thirteenth century, and names with a geographical origin, like de Montferrier or de Béziers, are relatively easily traced through the records. But de Ribe (from Rippere; sometimes de Riviére in northern French: see above, Chapter I], n. 1) is a type of name that cannot be tied to any one province and that could have been borne by a recent immigrant as well as by members of the family de Rippere already resident in the city.

9. GC, no. 450 (1340); Combes, “Bourgeois de Montpellier,” p. 105 (1424). For the technical meaning of mercadier (mercator), Thomas, Ville marchande, p. 61; André Sayous and Jean Combes, “Les commercantes et les capitalistes de Montpellier,” Revue historique 188-189 (1940), 358; cf. Bartier, Légistes, p. 74. Merchants did not form a

guild and thus had no voice as such in municipal elections; their activities were regulated by four “consuls of the sea” appointed by the consuls major: Germain, Commune, 1:166-173; Albert Berne, Consuls sur mer et d’outre mer (Carcassonne, 1904), pp. 23-33.

10. Thomas, Ville marchande, pp. 50, 63-64; Gouron, Réglementation des meétiers, pp. 386-387.

The Consuls and the People 43 Jean de Fraissé owed their incomes to the profession of law. Grimaud appeared as an attorney in Montpellier and Paris in cases concerning the bishop of Maguelonne and the communal government.'! In the early 1320s he took part in the legal maneuvers through which the guild of notaries sought exemption from municipal taxes, and his temporary success in this case perhaps suggested that larger concessions might be gained through a syndicate appealing to several groups.'? Like Celestin

Seguier, Jean de Fraissé was a rentier benefiting from property accumulated by a legist who had combined an extensive private practice with his duties at the faculty of law.'* These representatives of the people thus enjoyed a position considerably above the average, as did also the men, like Raymond Roger and Etienne Aymeric,'* who joined with them to sign the act of compromise with the consuls in 1331.

Although the leaders of the populares came from the upper ranks within the city, the arguments they presented were not directed toward any one class. The name taken by their party was itself a slogan eliciting a wealth of favorable connotations and emphasizing their assertion that the reforms they demanded would benefit every inhabitant of the city. Through the influence of Marxist and nationalistic theories reflecting

Romantic sensibilities, the rubrics people and popular have come to designate the lower classes when these are contrasted to those possessing 11. Cart. Mag., no. 1450 (1320); Les statuts et privileges des universités francaises, ed. Marcel Fournier, 3 vols. (Paris, 1890-1892), no. 928 (1327). Grimaud may have been related to the Bernard and Jean Grimaud who were “notaries of the consulate” at the end of the thirteenth century (AM Montpellier BB 1, BB 2, passim). 12. GC, no. 1492 (September 1320 to June 1323); royal enquéteurs seemed willing to grant immunity if the notaries turned over a sufficiently large sum of money. 13. Clément de Fraissé was major judge from 1309 to 1311; joining the Montpellier faculty about 1300, he had represented the king of Majorca when Jewish goods were seized in

1307 and acted as arbitrator between the lords and communities of Agde and Aimargues as well as in Montpellier: Rogozinski, “Counsellors,” p. 433; “Ordinary and Major,” p. 603. He came to Montpellier from the Narbonnais where the de Fraissé were members of the seignorial council from the 1220s: Gens just., p. 59; Monique Gramain, “La composition de la cour vicomtale de Narbonne,” Annales du Midi 81 (1969), 127, 133; André Gouron, “Enseignement du droit, légistes et canonistes dans le Midi de la France,” Mémoires droit écrit 5 (1966), 7. 14. Etienne was possibly related to Pierre Aymeric, consul in 1310 and 1323. Members of the Roger family held the consulate for a total of eight terms between 1269 and 1313. Perhaps the family no longer belonged to the eligible guilds; using the title of bourgeois de roi, Etienne and Pierre Roger in the 1330s and 1340s acted as mercatores engaged in maritime commerce with Sicily: AP, ed. Furgeot, nos. 252, 254, 2190, 8622, 9469, 9597. For the seal of Raymond Roger, see Arch. de Montp., 10: Sceaux conservés dans les archives, ed. Maurice Oudot de Dainville (Montpellier, 1952), p. 236.

44 The Consuls and the People wealth and power.!® During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, however, populus almost always signified the whole body of the people before it was actually or conceptually differentiated into occupational, social, or economic categories. In biblical and moral writing it designated

the entire populus christianus, the community described by Saint Augustine that embraces all mankind because it is united by justice and love.'6 In less didactic usage populus referred to all those who constituted a city, region, or corporation,!” and thus it was synonymous in the canon

law with universitas,'® just as it meant in the Roman law the entire citizenry divided for some purposes into patricians and plebeians.'® Whether or not their neighbors believed them, opponents to taxation acted in the name of the people to give the impression that they sought the common good rather than individual or factional privilege. By their

use of this name as well as by their impeachment of the consuls, the populares of Montpellier implied that their party served the interests of the lower classes, the plebs in the idiom of Roman and medieval law,?° 15. Chapter I, above. The Oxford English Dictionary shows that these terms retained their classical sense into the nineteenth century; the recent change in usage may also reflect the disappearance of Latin from the curriculum. 16. Fourquin, Soulévements populaires, p. 56. Always thus in Augustine, while Jerome is sometimes inconsistent in his translation of the Old Testament: Jeremy Adams, The Populus of Augustine and Jerome (New Haven, 1971), pp. 18-22, 28, 68-69, 98-111.

17. Compare the imperial charters granted to Italian cities in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: Mundy, High Middle Ages, p. 451; Peter Riesenberg, “Citizenship and Equality in Late Medieval Italy,” Studia Gratiana 15 (1972), 435. 18. Pierre Michaud-Quantin, Universitas: Expressions du. mouvement communautaire dans le moyen age latin (Paris, 1970), pp. 31, 46; Mundy, High Middle Ages, pp. 408 (tracing this usage to Isidore of Seville and Aristotle), 438-450; Post, Studies, pp. 374-375. 19. Inst. 1.2.4: “Plebs autem a populo eo differt, quo species a genere: nam appellatione populi universi cives significantur connumeratis etiam patriciis et senatoribus: plebis autem appellatione sine patriciis et senatoribus ceteri cives significantur.” See Adams, Populus, p. 201; Michaud-Quantin, Universitas, p. 29; Martines, Lawyers and Statecraft, p. 423; Ernst Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies (Princeton, 1957), pp. 210, 294-302. Texts of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries thus contrast the nobility and bourgeoisie to “alit de popolo” or the “universus alius populus”: David, “Labora-

tores,” p. 304. Philippe de Vitry, a royal notary and publicist, echoed this distinction in 1335 (Fourquin, Soulévements populaires, p. 64): “Le Peuble, pour mieulx eschiver les maulx, qu’il veoit ariver, si fist de soy trebel partie.” 20. Guerre de cent ans, ed. Timbal, p. 20 (1341): “Predictus Johannes nobilis dici non

‘debebat vel eciam reputari, sed tanquam plebeyus vel burgensis.” Recueil des monuments inédits de Uhistoire du Tiers Etat, ed. Augustin Thierry, 4 vols. (Paris, 1856-1870), 4:708 (1382): a court order obliging all citizens, “majores, scabinos, populares et plebeios predictos.”

The Consuls and the People 45 precisely because it rose above any selfish class interest and looked to the

needs of the entire community and all its members — bourgeois, merchant, artisan, or plebeian.?! The populares described themselves as representatives of the entire citizenry working for the common good because they sought allies within the city but also because they wished to be favorably received by the seignorial and royal courts. By appealing to the principles of evident necessity they turned against the consuls theories frequently used to justify royal and municipal levies. Charges of dishonest administration were brought as a subsidiary argument to support the claim that customary rates would suffice if municipal funds were directed to the specific needs for which they had been raised.22 Royal officials may have believed

that there was some basis to this indictment of the consuls; whether or not the allegations were true, they almost ensured the people a hearing before the courts in Nimes and in Paris. The crown normally would not abridge individual or corporate privileges unless a case was made that the common profit of the entire community demanded such action;?3 it had frequently recognized, moreover, that taxes should meet a stated necessity and should cease when that necessity ended, and southern lords had

been forbidden to take new and unwarranted levies. The populares ap-

pealed to recognized principles of jurisprudence, and the Capetian 21. GC, no. 3524 (1326): “syndicus popularium et plebeyorum universitas.” No. 3554

(1333): “syndicus popularium predictorum nomine suo et omnium populorum montispesulani” (see below, Appendix IV). The consuls also claimed that they acted for the whole people (above, Chapter II, and GC, nos. 760, 772, 764): “sit contra populi voluntatem”; “totius populi universitatis montispessulani seu consules ex eadem”; “congregato populo ad sonum compane de consensu totius populi universitatis.” By the fourteenth century, it was a common practice for all factions to identify their interests with those of the populus or universitas: Bernard Guenée, “Etat et pouvoir a la fin du moyen age,” AESC 26 (1971), 404-405. In England also, the barons urged the king to live “sicut unus de populo”: De speculo regis Edwardi III, ed. J. Moissant (Paris, 1891). p. 144. There is a large literature on the popular and magnate parties in thirteenth-century Florence and the subsequent division of the latter (perhaps reflecting the influence of Aristotle) into populo grosso, medio, and minuto; see in this context Mollat and Wolff, Ongles bleus, p. 23; Fourquin, Soulévements, p. 160; Lestocquoy, Villes de Flandre et d’Italie, p. 146; Goubert, “Vocabulaire sociale,” p. 90. 22. For popular allegations that new taxes were not needed to support specified common expenses, see below, Chapter VIII. In April 1327 (GC, no. 1967) the bayle’s court upheld the increase in milling charges because the consuls acted “ab utilitate publica et universitate hominum eiusdem ville.” See also no. 3531 (1328) as well as consular libellus against Séguier (1343; above, Chapter III; see that chapter also for “evident necessity” as a justification for royal taxation). 23. See RTF, p. 311; Guenée, “Etat et pouvoir,” pp. 403-405.

46 The Consuls and the People monarchs were bound to uphold the authority of the law that sanctioned their own dominion.?! Just as they had to consider Ceélestin Séguier’s claim to the safeguard that symbolized royal justice, representatives of the king could not ignore the complaints of illegal and unjust taxation that touched directly on the legitimacy of the municipal government and indirectly on that of the crown. The leaders of the people relied on universally accepted principles of law and did not present a detailed program that might cause controversy or alienate influential families, but their concerns and purpose can be inferred from the issues they stressed and the nature of the compromise they accepted in 1331. While putting themselves forward as advocates for

the entire community, they paid little attention to the lowest classes within the city. When they asked the crown not to enforce collection of the ¢aille in 1326 and again in 1328 because the poor were more heavily burdened by these taxes than the rich, attorneys for the people did not include the propertyless among those intended by the rubric pauperes, they were claiming that those with smaller holdings effectively paid a larger portion of their income because the tax commissioners underassessed the very rich.2° The populares emphasized the concepts of evident necessity

and specificity to block the imposition of the faille, and they never spoke to the needs of the landless brassiers and unskilled workers who had no goods subject to this tax and were most affected by imposts on consumption.”° The validity of the customary sales and import duties was

24. Post, Studies, pp. 288, 306; Brown, “Taxation and Morality,” pp. 25-28; Joseph Strayer, “Philip the Fair—A ‘Constitutional’ King,” in Medieval Statecraft, p. 209. The obligation of royal officials to adhere strictly to established rules of procedure is

constantly repeated in ordinances of reform and in commissions to enquéteursréformateurs. 25. GC, nos. 3524 (1326), 3299, 3530-31 (1328); cf. 3525 (1327). The tax in 1326 fell on property and revenues; that in 1328 is also called a taille, which usually meant a direct levy on capital or income. 26. The sources from the first half of the fourteenth century often fail to specify what forms of property were affected by communal failles, and they do not indicate whether there was a minimum value below which property escaped taxation altogether. Even when movable property was assessed, as it was in 1323 and 1326 (GC, nos. 3508, 3524), the tax must have been very small for a laborer owning only a few clothes and simple tools. The question of a lower limit for the purposes of tax assessment has largely been discussed as part of a long controversy over the value for demographic purposes of lists of hearths or feux. Some have argued that households were not registered unless they possessed ten pounds of revenue or of capital, but these lists served only to fix the amount owed to the crown by the community as a whole and tell us nothing about the

The Consuls and the People 47 not questioned, and the large increase in milling charges in 1327 was challenged primarily by representatives of the town’s lords, who saw in it

a usurpation of their authority.2” During the seven months of negotiations that led to the compromise of 1331, the people apparently did not look to lower these regressive levies, and they specifically agreed that the

new milling charges should be retained to retire the municipal debt, which was grossly swollen by the inclusion of their own obligations. Those leading resistance to the consuls consistently concentrated on limiting direct taxation and ensuring that property would be assessed publicly and tax rates applied with greater uniformity. The common welfare of the whole people spoken of in political and legal thought was in this case reduced to those with homes, farms, or goods liable to the taille.

If the populares were men of property and advanced the concerns of the propertied, less favored members of society might temporarily join them in attacking the consuls. In judging the character of the popular faction, much has been made of the demonstration in December 1325, and little attention has been given to the years of admittedly tedious legal maneuvers that frame this incident. A large group of demonstrators, as many as a thousand or more, was easily worked up to applaud opposition to taxation, and the crowd may have proved less orderly than the people anticipated. Montpellier was a big city by medieval standards and

had a substantial floating population that included many elements distribution of taxation among the individual members of the community: Borelli de Serres, Recherches, 3:392-397; Muriel Laharie-Van Elsuwé, “La révision des feux en Gascogne orientale,” Annales du Midi 82 (1970), 352. The situation within each town can be known only from the records describing individual assessments (called compoix or estimes in contrast to the topographically organized cadastres that replaced them about 1500). Although such records existed by 1336 and the “fourteen of the chapel” probably had lists for their own use much earlier, the first extant compoix for Montpellier date from the 1370s: Arch. de Montp., 6:124, 144. The existence of some sort of limitation by the 1350s is implied by the more careful distinction drawn between taille and fouage (GC, nos. 3220-23). A lower limit of ten pounds for registration was set in the sénéchaussée of Carcassonne in 1296, and this seems also to have been the rule in Toulouse, where portions of the estime from 1335 have survived; all immovable property was registered in Lyon (that of the poor at the base value of ten pounds), but assessments sometimes were reduced: Borelli de Serres, Recherches, 3:398; Philippe Wolff, Les estimes toulousaines (Toulouse, 1956), p. 27; Jean Rossiaud, “Problémes fiscaux urbaines,” Cahiers d’histoire 9 (1964), 331; 10 (1965), 20-21. See also Michel Mollat, “En guise de préface: Les problémes de la pauvreté,” Etudes sur l’histoire de la | pauvreté, ed. Michel Mollat, 2 vols. (Paris, 1974), 1:21-22. 27. See above, Chapter II.

48 The Consuls and the People habituated to violence.?® There were perhaps five hundred or a thousand students associated with the university, several thousand underemployed

agricultural workers, and the itinerant journeymen, vagabonds, entertainers, prostitutes, and criminals found in any regional capital.?9 It is significant that the people did not again find the backing of so large an assembly and that this demonstration took place during public ceremonies welcoming the archbishop of Narbonne that would have attracted a numerous audience. Speeches against governmental extravagance would be well received by the gathering — December was a lean month for the poor, whose distress was perhaps greater because of bad harvests in 1322 and 1323.° Acts of protest would gain legitimacy from the presence of a royal officer as well as from the exhortations of the substantial citizens speaking for the people. In these circumstances, angry threats and physical harassment of the consuls were a very real possibility.2! The number

28. We have no sources prior to 1350 that can provide accurate evidence for demographic purposes. The highest possible estimate would place the population prior to the Black Death at forty thousand (assuming that there were as many as ten thousand hearths and counting four to each), with another thirty thousand living in the surrounding villages: Josiah Russell, “L’évolution démographique de Montpellier,” Annales du Midi 74 (1962), 353-355; idem, Medieval Regions and Their Cities (Bloomington, 1972), pp. 163-165. By these calculations Montpellier would have been second or third in France as well as the largest city along the Mediterranean coast between Barcelona and Milan. About 1300 the king of Majorca complained that more than eight thousand inhabitants of Montpellier had illegally become bourgeois de roi (AN J394, no. 23), but this is obviously an exaggeration. 29. A petition of 1378 lists 403 students and professors; their number would have been greater prior to the Black Death, and the faculties of arts and civil law probably de-

clined in importance during the second third of the fourteenth century: Russell, “Evolution démographique,” p. 359; Rogozinski, “Lawyers of Lower Languedoc,” pp. 157-179. (Gouron, “Training,” pp. 223-225, describes the law school as most influential after 1340, but he cites no evidence.) Thomas, Ville marchande, p. 47, plausibly Suggests that six or seven thousand agricultural workers were residents of the city. For

the “floating world” of migrant workers, vagabonds, and criminals, see Jacqueline Misraki, “Criminalité et pauvreté en France,” Histoire de la pauvreté, ed. Mollat, 2:535-546; F. Graus, “The Late Medieval Poor,” Change in Medieva! Society, ed. Sylvia Thrupp (New York, 1964), p. 317. Davis, “Religious Riots,” pp. 86-87, for extreme violence by women and adolescents. 30. Marie Larenaudie, “Les famines en Languedoc,” Annales du Midi 64 (1952), 28-29; Le Roy Ladurie, Paysans de Languedoc, 1:141. 31. Most rebellions in the later Middle Ages began with demonstrations against tax collectors, who were always liable to physical attack in the performance of their duties: Guerre de cent ans, ed. Timbal, pp. 217, 393; Mollat and Wolff, Ongles bleus, pp. 123,

The Consuls and the People 49 of those who were involved, and the vehemence of their protest may have been exaggerated; even if the consular petitions are taken as accurate, a riot is a poor indication of the extent to which the populares enjoyed support from the lower classes or depended on mass sentiment in formulat-

ing their plans. Many inhabitants of low condition may well have gathered on this occasion and threatened mob violence without having a continuing interest in the activities of the people or any real share 1n the fortunes of their cause.

168-177, 181-183. The “hypersensitivity” of people in medieval and early modern times,

and their tendency to sudden rage or panic, has been described by, inter alia, Marc Bloch, Feudal Society, trans. L. Manyon, 2 vols. (Chicago, 1964), 1:73; Robert Mandrou, Introduction a la France moderne: Essai de psychologie historique (Paris, 1961).

V

Royal Responses to Popular Resistance ——.-o—

The Officers of the Crown for the Sénéchaussée of Beaucaire and Nimes

Because their responses can be followed over two decades, the history of

the populares permits us to identify and compare the divers ways in which royal officers might act to end or resolve internal dissidence. A narrow focus on a few uprisings has prompted the conclusion that urban unrest was normally suppressed by royal officials, who often responded with crushing brutality toward its leaders.! This may have been true in the 1380s when popular revolts interfered with the ambitions of princes of the blood or served their greed by excusing harsh fines. It was not the case in Montpellier, where the quarrel between consuls and people was dealt with by the seneschal and his advisors or by commissions charged with the tasks of investigation and reconciliation. These representatives of the king lacked the military force to compel obedience. In dealing with men of their own social rank, and sometimes with their own neighbors,

they turned instead to the many forms of arbitration provided by a regional custom that incorporated the substantive principles as well as the procedures of the Roman law. 1. Mollat and Wolff, Ongles bleus, pp. 178-179, 309-311; Lewis, Later Medieval France, . 385. 2. The communes of Paris and Rouen were harshly punished following uprisings in 1382,

largely because these interfered with the ambitions of Philip the Bold in Flanders: Mollat and Wolff, Ongles bleus, pp. 171-180; Edouard Perroy, The Hundred Years War, trans. W. Wells (London, 1951), pp. 189-190. Riots in Montpellier and Béziers in 1380 and 1382 served as a pretext for the imposition of enormous fines by Louis of Anjou and Jean of Berry (successive royal lieutenants in the Midi): HL, 9:874-877; Ongles bleus, pp. 182-185. 50

Officers of the Crown 51 Popular resistance to taxation involved four distinct groups of officials who might simultaneously be present in Montpellier: the officers of the sénéchaussée, royal enquéteurs, mediators appointed by the courts, and royal commissioners whose errand was essentially fiscal. Issues arising from the dispute prompted inquires by both the ordinary courts and the Parlement, while commissions were sent from Nimes and Paris to reconcile the factions or to reform fiscal abuses. Since the social standing

and apparent strength of the populares precluded the use of force, the seneschal came forward as an impartial arbitrator, and the failure of the compromise he initiated in 1323 caused the people to appeal to the crown. Inquiries into their conduct of municipal affairs and the danger that the popular syndicate might gain permanent recognition induced the

consuls to permit an audit of town finances. When this second compromise proved abortive in 1327 and provincial officials demanded a supervisory role in municipal elections and taxation, the authority of the consuls was again brought before the Parlement; partially because of appeals by Celestin Séguier, it remained at issue until the 1340s, although the differences between the factions in Montpellier were successfully mediated in 1331. While enquéteurs and arbitrators weighed the legal evidence and popular allegations, moreover, other royal envoys treated with the consuls throughout the 1320s and 1330s regarding war subsidies or looked into violations of fiscal ordinances.°

Each of these groups within the government was swayed by its immediate concerns as well as by institutional traditions, and they did not always coordinate their activities. Officials in Nimes had to maintain order and administer justice throughout the sénéchaussée. Those empowered as mediators needed to end tax delinquency and political schisms without exacerbating fiscal disorder, and members of the Parlement and the chambre des comptes may well have been mindful of the crown’s obligations to the king of Majorca and other territorial lords and undoubtedly remembered that their decisions might serve as precedents whenever a subsidy was requested from southern towns. The authorities in Paris often seem to have responded to these political considerations by

answering appeals from the consuls and people without referring to earlier decisions in the same matter; they rarely solicited information 3. In this case, at least, a clear distinction was still drawn between the personnel and functions of commissions of reform and those of fiscal commissions. See below, Chapter VI.

52 Officers of the Crown from those present in the city and often issued conflicting orders that could not be followed. Because commissioners collecting extraordinary taxes did not always take counsel with the provincial officials or with other royal delegates and seemed to sacrifice larger issues to immediate financial exigencies, both the local and the national courts sometimes ignored privileges granted to the consuls during subsidy negotiations. The local courts were generally more consistent than those at higher levels in their response to events in Montpellier. It is possible that some men, such as Guillaume Cervier, temporarily favored the people in order to enhance their personal influence within the town, but most acted to maintain their authority as agents of the king by remaining free of either faction. Although their policies changed over time, three distinct stages can be ascertained, during which verdicts by royal officers in the South were generally of a piece. If they initially tried to end conflict and secure the collection of traditional taxes in an honest and efficient manner, they abandoned the role of impartial mediators in 1327 when they intervened in municipal elections and asserted the right to approve or forbid future taxes. It was the seneschal and the king’s procurator who thus contested the increased milling charges while the populares focused on property

taxes. It was again the seneschal and his councillors who would not accept either the compromise of 1331 or rulings by the crown and the royal judge in Montpellier affirming municipal autonomy, a matter which they insisted should be resolved by the Parlement. While the need

for royal authorization was under consideration by the high court between 1332 and 1343, however, the provincial authorities again took a neutral position in dealing with letters for Séguier that overlooked the agreement between people and consuls and imposed a decision unfavorable to the latter. The composition and methods of the popular party partially explain the confusion and vacillation of the royal government in Paris as well as the seneschal’s refusal to take sides even when tax delinquency in 1323 and 1326 hindered collection of subsidies intended for the crown. Those at the head of the people were citizens of the town and credit-worthy men of property, and the legality of their syndicate was affirmed by legists of

high repute. Although they made use of the crowd on occasion, the populares usually presented their case through attorneys well known to the courts and appealed to long-established custom and principles of justice that could not be disregarded. There was nothing revolutionary in the request for proportional taxation and impartial commissions of as-

Officers of the Crown 53 sessment, and an audit of the town records indicated that there might be some truth to popular allegations of dishonest administration and inequitable taxation. If the indifferent neutrality of local officials reflected the reputable standing of the people and their attorneys, it must also have been influenced by the lack of adequate power to compel obedience. The collection of taxes was normally enforced and individual violators were constrained by the seignorial and royal courts, which had available to them a small force of part-time police or sergeants. The frequent complaints that there was an excessive number of such sergeants have often been taken at face value, but these were no more accurate than the protestations of poverty

that were customary during every discussion of subsidy.* The exact number of men attached to the court of the bayle and that of the rector cannot be ascertained; judging by the evidence from Montpellier and other southern cities, there were certainly no more than about two dozen for a city of some thirty to forty thousand souls.5 Whether named by the 4. For the traditional interpretation, Lot and Fawtier, Jnstitutions francaises, 2:154. Royal letters limiting or reducing the number of sergeants: Dupont-Ferrier, Officiers royaux, pp. 220-221; Adolphe Vuitry, Etudes sur le régime financier de la France avant 1789, nouvelle série, 2 vols. (Paris, 1878-1883), 2:419-423. Much as they often insisted that the crown defend them without taking taxes, so contemporaries apparently wanted justice provided without a police force. The city of Toulouse had at least thirty-five

thousand inhabitants (Russell, Medieval Regions, p. 156); an ordinance of reform granted in 1277 ordered that the number of sergeants be reduced from eighty to fifty: AL, 10, no. 21. An ordinance granted at the request of the inhabitants of the Auvergne similarly called for a maximum of 194 sergeants throughout this large and mountainous province: Ordonnances, 1:690 (June 1319). 5. There apparently were sergeants attached to the bayle’s court from its formation, but they were never sufficiently numerous to form a guild or confraternity; Petit thalamus, p. 302, for their oath at the beginning of the fourteenth century. In 1329 four sergeants for the court of the king of Majorca were accused of seizing a criminal from French officers; five years later, four other men with the same title were fined for taking prisoner

inhabitants under the royal safeguard: AP, ed. Furgeot, nos. 156, 751. As lord of Montpellier, Charles of Navarre recognized in 1377 that the consuls might name two sergeants to enforce their rights: “Le grand thalamus,” Arch. de Montp., 3:150. About 1400, there were a dozen royal and a half-dozen seignorial sergeants in Lyons, a town of about eleven thousand inhabitants: René Fédou, Les hommes de loi lyonnais (Paris, 1964), pp. 79, 99-100; Russell, Medieval Regions, p. 89. There were about twenty-four for the entire sénéchaussée of Lyons, following Dupont-Ferrier (Officiers royaux, p. 221), who also cites fourteen for the bailliage of Meaux and twelve for the prévdté of

Soissons. Périgueux had seventeen sergeants for a town with some six thousand residents: Archives communales de la ville de Périgueux: Inventaire sommaire, ed. M. Hardy (Périgueux, 1897), p. 200; Russell, Medieval Regions, p. 156. The crown attempted to hold the number of sergeants attached to the Chatelet below 160; toward

54 Officers of the Crown municipal government or appointed at meetings of the assizes with the consent of local notables,® they had no permanent duties and did not receive a Salary. Investiture with the office of sergeant merely authorized them to act within a certain district and demand a set fee from an official or suitor who wished to engage their services.’ Since they could not depend on the post for a livelihood, many also worked as artisans or retail

merchants and thus were recruited from the very groups supposedly represented by the populares.*®

During the demonstration of December 1325, the bayle and rector could not have counted on this small body of sergeants taking action against their relatives or their fellow guildsmen, and the militia of the town, whose members took turns manning the walls, was also recruited partly from among the corporations of artisans and workers excluded from the consulate.2 No other force could have been assembled rapidly.

The consuls might have asked for assistance during a state of emer-

1400 they formed a confraternity with some 220 members, not a large force whether Paris had 80,000 or 200,000 inhabitants: Lot and Fawtier, Jnstitutions, 2:380; Russell, Medieval Regions, p. 150; Raymond Cazelles, “La population de Paris avant la peste noire,” Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres (1966), pp. 539-550. 6. Ordinance of 25 February 1319, art. 3 (Ordonnances, 1:679): “par le Conseil de dix, ou

douze des plus suffisans du Pays, tant d’Eglise, comme Nobles et Bourgeois... .” Repeated for the sénéchaussée of Beaucaire in February 1339 and for the entire kingdom in February 1346: Ordonnances, 2:131, 239. See also the ordinance of 23 March 1303, article 33 (Ordonnances, 1:363). 7. The reforming ordinances of 1303 and 1319 (art. 3) commanded that sergeants act only within a fixed district: Ordonnances, 1:363, 380. That of 1303 (art. 34) authorized payment of three shillings a day to sergeants using horses, half as much for those on foot. The permissible fees became higher during the fourteenth century; in Artois the charge in tax cases was limited to ten shillings even when several persons were involved: Ordonnances, 4:691 (19 November 1366). Guenée (Jribunaux, p. 183) reports the wages

of sergeants on royal service at six pence a day; accounts from this sénéchaussée (below, n. 11) give eight to twelve pence a day during the first quarter of the century. 8. Guenée, 7ribunaux, pp. 214-215. Citing evidence from 1325, however, Henneman (RTF, p. 54) argues that some sergeants found the office profitable since they were willing to pay to retain it. 9. The grouping of the guilds into seven échelles for the purpose of communal elections (above, Chapter IV) reflected the assignment of each profession or craft to a specific gate or gates one night a week. A guild’s part in the defense of the city corresponded somewhat more closely to the number of its members than did its voice in the electoral system. The /aboreurs thus manned five of the ten town gates but had access to only One seat on the consulate, whereas the money changers and drapiers, who were respec-

tively responsible for four and three gates, were each virtually guaranteed two consuls: Gouron, Réglementation des métiers, pp. 56-57, 97-98.

Officers of the Crown 55 gency,!° but local authorities had at their command only the sergeants attached to royal courts in other towns and the small garrisons quartered in

forts along the Rh6ne.'! The seneschal could not call upon the army, which assembled only at the king’s command or that of a royal lieutenant to whom sovereign powers had been delegated,!2 and the mobilization of troops through the ban and arriére-ban was a slow and cumbersome pro-

cess in the fourteenth century. In treating with the people, officials in Montpellier and Nimes must have been aware of their limited power to punish widespread resistance to taxes or to prevent disorder by crowds supporting popular demands. The men who embodied the authority of the crown were bound by the traditions of royal justice and had to consider the physical means at their disposal. The ways in which they dealt with disagreements among the inhabitants of major cities were affected also by the regulations and customary procedures of institutions that had in many cases already acquired the forms they would retain until at least the eighteenth century.'* The preceding decades had witnessed the development of a relatively logical

10. Just as seignorial and communal sergeants were not supposed to arrest royal subjects or those under royal safeguard, so also sergeants licensed by royal courts normally were forbidden to act in the territories of lords possessing high justice; thus Ordonnances, 1:362 (1303), as well as the royal letters for the viscount of Uzés and the bishop of Maguelonne: AD Herault A 4, fols. 136v-137 (1339); Cart. Mag., nos. 1030 (1296), 1621 (1330).

11. Sergeant was used generically for any man at arms below the rank of knight or écuyer. The royal accounts for 1302-1303 make mention of three sergeants at Montpellier, seven at Nimes, and three at Meyrueis; the same source reports daily wages of eight to fourteen pence for garrisons of 28 sergeants at Beaucaire, six at Roquemaure, and nine at Aigues-Mortes (the force at Aigues-Mortes had risen to 34 men in 1312): Comptes royaux (1285-1314), ed. Robert Fawtier, 3 vols. (Paris, 1953-1956), 1, nos. 13606, 13637, 13659, 13721, 13786, 13809, 13819; 2, nos. 230-231. An account from 1324,

probably for Uzeés, mentions five sergeants, three by name: Comptes royaux (1314-1328), ed. Francois Maillard, 2 vols. (Paris, 1961), 1:328-331. 12. Contamine, Guerre, état et sociéte, p. 27. 13. Many posts took on the attributes of formal offices in this region several decades earlier than in the North, and recent guides to French institutional history confidently ascribe the creation of virtually all organs of the state to the 1300s: Lot and Fawtier, Institutions francaises, 2, passim; Francois Autrand, “Offices et officiers royaux,” Revue historique 242 (1969), 285-338; Guenée, “Etat et pouvoir,” p. 399, and “The History of the State,” The Recovery of France in the Fifteenth Century, ed. Peter Lewis (New York, 1971), p. 339. See also Henneman, “French Ransom Aids,” pp. 628-629; Raymond Cazelles, “Une exigence de l’opinion depuis Saint Louis: La réformation du royaume,” Annuaire-Bulletin de la Société de Vhistoire de France, années 1962-1963 (Paris, 1964), p. 98.

56 Officers of the Crown hierarchy of offices whose duties and powers were defined by the prece-

dents carefully and systematically recorded in the public archives at

Nimes.'* The seneschal remained the nominal head of the royal bureaucracy, directly answerable for the governance of the province. Bailiffs and seneschals were not yet the decorative figureheads they became in later centuries, and the personal backgrounds of the three men in office during these years had some impact on the manner in which the government responded to urban unrest. By offering to end the dispute in Montpellier as an arbitrator rather than imposing a settlement as a judge,

Guy Chevrier, who had risen through the ranks in southern France, showed greater respect for the privileges of the consuls than did Hugues Quiéret and Philippe de Pria, men of northern France whose talents were more military than administrative.!°

14. The judicial decisions and administrative correspondence of the seneschals and viguiers were recorded from the early 1280s, as were mandates from the king or higher courts and ordinances promulgated at the seneschal’s assizes and meetings of the estates of the sénéchaussée. The provincial archives were also deliberately utilized after 1300 as a

depository for some types of private records. (The chancellery in Paris began methodical and continuous registration of royal acts some two decades later, and the methods adopted for this purpose may well have been patterned after those used in Nimes.) Financial documents were also kept, and they proved useful during subsidy negotiations. Hugues Betti (Appendix II, no. 7) maintained one of the earliest fiscal archives while chief financial adviser to the seneschal of Beaucaire and Nimes. Because historians have been slow to see the value of these local records, we know little about the archives in other provinces. In the neighboring sénéchaussée of Carcassonne and Béziers, registration of royal letters and other documents began at the order of the major judge in 1287: BN MS lat. 9996, fols. 105-106v (ed. Eugene Martin-Chabot, Les ar-

chives de la cour des comptes, aides et finances [Paris, 1907], pp. 63-64); cf. Rogozinski, “First French Archives,” p. 113, n. 8; Cheyette, “Suum cuique tribuere,” p. 289. Systematic records of royal commands and the acts of local courts were kept in the county of Provence from the end of the thirteenth century; the first registers of letters to the seneschals and of acts concerning the vicariate of Aix-en-Provence both start

in 1294; those of the chambre des comptes in Aix date from 1308: Les sources de Vhistoire économique et sociale du moyen Gge: Provence, Comtat Venaissin, Dauphiné, Etats de la maison de Savoie, ed. Robert-Henri Bautier and Janine Sornay, 3 vols. (Paris, 1968-1974), 1:11-12. Laharie-Van Elsuwé, “Révision des feux,” p. 351, for the registration of the records of the fiscal enquéteurs in the 1370s. Did the local governments in northern France also possess public archives at so early a date? Joseph Strayer suggests that a lengthy inventory of the royal domain in Rouen compiled in the 1260s seems to depend on old records that must have come from the archives of the bailiwick: The Royal Domain in the Bailliage of Rouen (Princeton, 1936), p. 7. 15. Appendix II, no. 17 for Guy Chevrier (November 1321 to February 1324). Hugues Quiéret (March 1324 to 1332), lord of Tours-en-Vineu near Artois in Picardy, had not previously held royal office and perhaps owed his appointment to Robert of Artois, a

Officers of the Crown 57 By the 1320s, administrative habit (sometimes confirmed by national ordinances) had brought about a transfer of effective judicial and fiscal

authority to subordinates who had once possessed merely delegated powers but now held formal offices under the crown. Many of the highest of these posts were filled through royal letters, and their incumbents

generally were removable only at the pleasure of the king or through legal action. Most provincial officials enjoyed a long tenure under several seneschals.'® In overruling the judge of Montpellier in 1331 regarding the milling charges, Quiéret made it clear that his council retained the right to intervene in judicial matters, but the personal initiative of the seneschal normally was limited by the powers secured to his subordinates through a half-century of bureaucratic precedent as well as by an increasing tendency to collegiality in provincial government.

favorite of Charles IV; Quiéret was subsequently sent by Philip VI on several important diplomatic missions and was among the leaders of the forces that raided the English coast in the late 1330s. Philippe de Pria (January 1333 to February 1340) was lord of Buzancais in Nevers and later bailiff in Berry. For Quiéret and Pria, see Soc. politique, p. 66 and sub. nom; Gallia Regia, 1 nos. 29327, 2933, 3881, 4020. The outbreak of the Hundred Years’ War naturally increased the military duties of the seneschals, and most of those appointed after 1340 were experienced captains: Rogozinski, “Counsellors,” p. 245; Roland Fiétier, “Le choix des baillis et sénéchaux aux XIII* et XIV* siecles,” Mémoires de la société pour Vhistoire du droit et des institutions des anciens pays bourguignons, comtois et romands 29 (1968-1969), 271. 16. All royal officers in this sénéchaussée now received salaries, although the vicariates were briefly farmed in 1311 and 1312. There has been no systematic study of the ways in which provincial officials were given their appointments during the later Middle Ages. It seems likely that the seneschals chose their chief subordinates under Philip the Fair. No royal letters of appointment have been found from this reign. Officers not native to the sénéchaussée came from districts in the Orléannais near the home of one of the seneschals; on several occasions those attached to the court in Nimes were replaced as a new seneschal entered into office: Rogozinski, “Counsellors,” pp. 432-433; “Ordinary and Major,” pp. 596-599; Joseph Strayer, “Viscounts and Viguiers under Philip the Fair,” Speculum 38 (1963), pp. 247, 253-255. The chancellery records discussed by Olivier-Martin are concerned with the lowest offices, and primarily with that of sergeant: “La nomination aux offices royaux au XIV* siécle d’aprés les pratiques de la chancellerie,” Mélanges Paul Fournier (Paris, 1929), pp. 487-501. From the reign of Philip V letters of appointment quamdiu Regi placuerit are found on behalf of men seeking both these minor offices and the curial offices in Nimes, but several merely confirm the seneschal’s choice, and one allows the latter to appoint Guillaume Cervier to any office with a salary of twenty-five pounds: Reg. Ph.V, nos. 954 (1317), 1104, 1251, 1260, 2266, 2268, 2281, 2395. There was certainly no regular procedure for obtaining provincial office that would have allowed the crown to ascertain the political views (or even the competency) of its representatives: Lewis, Later Medieval France, pp. 142-143; Fiétier, “Choix des baillis et sénéchaux,” pp. 263-266.

58 Officers of the Crown The king’s laws were enforced and his revenues collected by a professional corps of some thirty men who had the advice and assistance:of a score of lawyers associated with the council of the sénéchaussée. The oldest offices were those of the men concerned as viguiers and castellans with the administration of the royal domain as well as the maintenance of public order and defense against brigands.!” Professional judges had largely absorbed the judicial functions of the viguiers during the second half of the thirteenth century; the less important offices were now normally confided to one man, and the vicarial jurisdictions were merged in the 1330s into ordinary courts sitting at Nimes, Beaucaire, Montpellier, and Uzes.!® Attached to the seneschal’s court were five judicial officers and a treasurer (or treasurers) with broad responsibilities throughout the sénéchaussée. The major judge and the judge of crimes heard in first instance cases involving violations of certain royal ordinances as well as

those considered of importance or brought by towns and lords immediately justiciable before their courts, and they also reviewed

appeals from decisions by the ordinary judges and the viguiers, castellans, and receivers in the localities. To the king’s advocate and the king’s procurators was assigned the task of representing the crown before the courts and preventing the loss of royal rights through legal challenge or usurpation.!? A rudimentary fiscal bureaucracy also existed, although procedures for the collection of taxes developed, as we have seen, more

slowly than those for the administration of justice. Control of royal funds was largely taken from the seneschal by the end of the thirteenth 17. After some reorganization of the royal domain, vicarial courts were maintained at Aigues-Mortes,* Alés,* Anduze, Bagnols, Beaucaire,* Meyrueis-Le Vigan,* Lunel, Montpellier (the courts of the rector and, after 1349, that of the bayle), Nimes,* PontSaint-Espirit,* oquemaure,* Saint-André (Villeneuve-les-Avignon),* SommieresCalvisson,* and Uzés.* Castellans were regularly present in the towns identified here by

an asterisk, and perhaps also in Fourques and La Motte-sur-Rhdéne. As Guenée has remarked for the bailiwick of Senlis (“Géographie administrative,” pp. 307-311), the boundaries of these lower administrative divisions were remarkably stable. See Rogozinski, “Ordinary and Major,” at nn. 7, 17, 29; Michel, Administration, p. 74 (before 1270); Jules Viard, “Les gages des officiers royaux vers 1329,” BEC 51 (1890), 254; Ménard, Nismes, 3, preuve 17 (1384); Dupont-Ferrier, Officiers royaux, p. 882. Viguiers and castellans had comparable duties, and the two offices were often combined by the same man: Michel, Administration, p. 80; Strayer, “Viscounts and Viguiers,” p. 248; Gallia Regia, 1:308-369 passim. 18. Rogozinski, “Ordinary and Major,” pp. 594-600, 604-605, and map between pp. 592 and 593. 19. [bid., pp. 596-598, and above, Chapter II.

Officers of the Crown 59 century and given over to receivers or treasurers2° who were accountable to the chambre des comptes in Paris for the income from the domain and

some extraordinary revenues.?! Prior to the creation of élections in the second half of the century, however, the seneschal often took an active part in subsidy negotiations, and extraordinary imposts frequently were raised by collectors specially commissioned for each levy.22 In addition to performing the duties assigned to an individual post, the chief judicial and financial officials took part in the meetings of the exec-

utive council that watched over the viguiers and sergeants in the local districts and coordinated the legislative and judicial operations of government in this sénéchaussée. Every medieval ruler took care to have the counsel of those affected by his decisions or experienced in the laws and habits of the area, and the seneschals had sought out the advice of jurists and notables at his assizes or at large assemblies before promulgating

20. The two titles seem to be synonymous. In April 1301 (HZ, 10, no. 111) Montpellier received a quittance from the “thesaurarii domini nostri Francorum regis,” but the surviving accounts for this sénéchaussée refer to royal receivers (receptores): Fawtier, Comptes royaux (1285-1314), 1:636, 2:432. Géraud Gayte, who combined the receiverships of Beaucaire and Champagne until he was imprisoned in 1322, styled himself in 1314 “thesaurarius regis et receptor in senescallia Bellicadri”: Ménard, Nismes, 2, preuve 10; Soc. politique, p. 107; Pegues, Lawyers, p. 193. Marquis Scatisse was called treasurer in 1328 and 1329, but the chambre des comptes in 1335 addressed itself to the receiver for the sénéchaussée: HL, 10, nos. 252, 301; Ménard, Nismes, 2, preuve 31. Compare Gallia Regia, 1:290-291; HL, 10, no. 308; Dupont-Ferrier, Officiers royaux, p. 166. 21. Borelli de Serres, Recherches, 1:220; Vuitry, Régime financier, 1:295, 2:260; Dognon, Institutions, p. 339 bis; HL, 7, n. 59, p. 500; Fawtier, Comptes royaux, 3:xvili-xix, XXvli-xlix. A receiver or clavier was sometimes attached to the local courts, but the treasurer for the sénéchaussée more commonly dealt directly with the viguier: see the account of the viguier of Aigues-Mortes for 1312, in Fawtier, Comptes royaux, 2:229; Strayer, “Viscounts and Viguiers,” p. 254; Dupont-Ferrier, Officiers, pp. 587-588. The independence of the receivers was formally recognized by ordinances of January and May 1320 that ordered the seneschals immediately to turn over the profits of their

assizes and forbade them to receive other royal funds: Isambert, 3:236, art. 4; 3:242-245,

22. The seneschal personally intervened in 1328, for example, to force the consuls of Montpellier to raise their grant from fifteen hundred to two thousand pounds (see Chapter II). On the royal commissioners, see Appendix X. In 1304, the crown authorized the seneschal and G. Aimar, lord of Montilly (Montillo), to raise a subsidy for the

war in Flanders; in 1328 the lieutenant of the seneschal entrusted Hugues Betti (Appendix II, no. 7) and the viguier of Uzes with collection of a levy for the Flemish campaign of that year: Ménard, Nismes, 1, preuve 125; BN Collection Languedoc (Bénédictins) 81, fols. 11-13.

60 Officers of the Crown provincial ordinances or appointing minor officials.2? By the end of the 1330s, and probably earlier, it had also become customary to consult a smaller council with a stable membership that included some twenty lawyers drawn from the bar of the capital city of Nimes. These councillors served as such for long periods of time and held no other office, although they often acted as lieutenants or as ad hoc commissioners;?+ by 1350 they may already have received fixed salaries and taken a formal oath of office. They met frequently during the months that intervened between meetings of the assizes in order to ensure that substitutes took the place of absent or preoccupied judges; together with the ordinary and major judges, the king’s advocate and procurator, and his treasurer, they formed the council of the sénéchaussée that considered major questions of law, the administration and general welfare of the region, and its military and fiscal obligations toward the government in Paris.25 The conse23. Rogozinski, “Counsellors,” pp. 426-427. See also the ordinances of 1302 and 1331,

discussed in idem, “First French Archives,” n. 12; see n. 6 above for the public appointment of sergeants. 24. Rogozinski, “Counsellors,” pp. 434-438. 25. Ibid., pp. 434-435; see also Dognon, Institutions politiques, p. 336. Despite continuing interest in the history of representative institutions, historians have generally ignored the councils of the bailiwicks and sénéchaussées, which continued to function, unlike many of the provincial estates, until the Revolution and even after; as Guenée has noted (“History of the State,” p. 345), there is no recent work on the subject. (James Fesler, “French Field Administration: The Beginnings,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 5 [1966], 84-94, mentions the local councils within the context of a general oscillation he finds throughout French history between centralized control and local autonomy.) It is clear, however, that formal councils comprised of royal officials and other professionally trained lawyers receiving a set salary and meeting at frequent

intervals had by 1500 replaced the earlier gatherings of vassals and “good men” throughout France; see in general Dupont-Ferrier, Officiers royaux, pp. 249-267. Despite the intervention of such councils in every aspect of local government, they have been overlooked partially because of the state of the evidence; their members may well have been bound to secrecy, and the records of their meetings have, in any case, largely disappeared: Officiers royaux, p. 260; Vuitry, Régime financier, 2:413. They existed well before 1340 in southern France, where seignoria! and town councils had long been composed of Roman lawyers of high social rank: Rogozinski, “Ordinary and Major,” pp. 600-604; Gramain, “Cour vicomtale de Narbonne,” pp. 137-139. For the Agenais, see AN J229, no. 93 (1339); for Toulouse and Albi, AL, 8, no. 509 (1264); Gens just., p. 23 (1298); Reg. Ph. V, no. 3494 (1321). Yet such councils also appear at an early date in certain northern bailiwicks. In Amiens a council for the bailiwick is mentioned in 1341, one of its members receiving a pension as such in 1346: Edouard Maugis,

Documents inédits concernant la ville... d’Amiens, 2 vols. (Paris, 1908-1914), 1:34-37; idem, Essai sur le recrutement et les attributions des principaux offices du siége du bailliage d’Amiens (Paris, 1906), pp. 68-70; Paul Viollet, Histoire des institutions politiques et administratives de la France, 3 vols. (Paris, 1890-1903), 2:283. In

Officers of the Crown 61 quences of tax delinquency and internal disorder in the largest city of the

region and the implications of the legal issues raised for more hana decade by the populares must have been among the matters receiving their attention. If it was the duty of the rector and judge in Montpellier to give justice to its inhabitants, these officials subsequently brought their decisions before ihe council of the sénéchaussée, which might make suggestions concerning their verdict or, as we have seen, request that a case be reconsidered.

Judges and administrators have private concerns as well as public careers. In fourteenth-century Montpellier the ways in which these men viewed social conflict were shaped in part by their personal involvement

in the life of the city and region. The traditional judgment that the bureaucracy was an independent force invariably more royalist than the crown itself cannot be sustained when the interests of many officials were closely linked with those of the governed. Almost all of the local courts and many of the higher offices were staffed by men drawn from the same middling classes that provided the leadership of the consular and popular factions. Viguiers and castellans were usually chosen from among the lesser nobility of the sénéchaussée and sometimes held posts near their estates. If they did not make influential enemies, they could serve for life and might be succeeded by close relatives.2© The noble Hugues de Carsan,

rector or viguier of Montpellier, actively fulfilled the functions of that office for at least twenty-three years without complaint from his superiors or suitors before his court.?’ It is probable that the peaceful enjoy1341, the bailiff of Senlis was assisted by a council formed almost exclusively of lawyers: Eugene de Roziére, “L’assize du bailliage de Senlis,” Nouvelle revue historique de droit francais et étranger 15 (1891), 720-722. In Vermandois and elsewhere the creation of formal councils in the 1340s and 1350s was perhaps related to the frequent meetings of the estates of the bailiwicks and sénéchaussées required to approve and assess royal taxes: Henri Waquet, Le bailliage de Vermandois aux XIIT° et XIV* siécles (Paris, 1919), p. 144; RTF, pp. 227-233, 288-292; John Henneman, “The French Estates General and ‘Reference Back’ to Local Constituents, 1343-1355,” in Representative Institutions in Theory and Practice (Brussels, 1970), pp. 44-45, 48-50. 26. Strayer, “Viscounts and Viguiers,” pp. 247-248, 251, for the reign of Philip the Fair. Historians have paid little attention to the royal courts in the localities, and the records of the latter have fared little better than those of the council of the sénéchaussée. All of the viguiers who are mentioned in the royal accounts between 1314 and the 1330s, when Dupont-Ferrier begins his record (Gallia Regia, 1:308-335, 4:211-214), came from this region. 27. Called noble and knight, Carsan was rector from October 1323 or earlier to April 1346: Arch. de Montp., 6:69, 11:183; GC, nos. 468-470, 878-79, 3824, 2828; HL, 10,

62 Officers of the Crown ment of his salary and perquisites was as important to Carsan as the aggrandizement of royal power in the city and lordship of Montpellier. In attending to the arguments of the populares, the lawyers who acted as his lieutenant during the 1320s and 1330s were likely to bear in mind the impact of changes in taxation and government on the well-being of the community in which they made their home. A long-standing affiliation with the bishop of Maguelonne and his legal advisors may also have been

a consideration with Jean Ricard,?® and the possible benefits of tax reform to their families must have occurred to Bertrand Guillaume?’ and

Bernard Cabrespine, the latter allied by marriage to prosperous merchants and an example — rare for this region — of a man who studied law after practicing the notary’s art.?° The judges assigned to Montpellier and the other vicarial or ordinary courts were also inhabitants of the sénéchausée, although they were less likely to hold office in their native city. National ordinances prohibited

judges from serving in the province of their birth, but this rule was enforced only once during the fourteenth century, providing in that case an excuse for the transfer of an individual who had outraged the consuls of Montpellier by egregiously betraying their interests while communal

no. 307; Gallia Regia, 4, no. 15879. Carsan is a small village near Pont-Saint-Espirit, but such surnames had long been fixed and inheritable. Guillaume de Carsan, also noble and knight, was rector in February 1312 and April 1316: GC, nos. 347-48; HL, 10, no. 188. 28. Appendix II, no. 27. 29. Lieutenant of the rector between October 1332 and January 1340: GC, nos. 234, 726, 1015, 3828-29; Cart. Mag., nos. 1718-19; HL, 10, nos. 303, 307; Ménard, Nismes, 2, preuve 48; AM Ganges II 33. Bertrand Guillaume was jurisperitus and bachelor in law; he was described as a clerk of Avignon diocese and Carsan’s brother-in-law in 1342 when the latter requested for him benefices in the dioceses of Narbonne and Mende: ASV, RS 1, fol. 247; Gallia Regia, 4, no. 15879. 30. Royal notary in 1307 and 1312 and notary of the rector’s court from 1313 to 1321: Arch. de Montp., 12, EE 749; AN J 339, nos. 2, 3; GC, no. 2631; Cart. Mag., nos. 1450, 1500, 1504. (Accused of bribery and extortion in December 1317: AN X** 2, fol. 49.) Jurisperitus and lieutenant of Carsan from 1332 to May 1346: Cart. Mag., no. 1668; Gallia Regia, 4, no. 15909; Arch. de Montp., 12, EE 761 (1346). Counsellor of the same court and witness to acts of Bertrand Guillaume: ibid. (1336); HL, 10:775, no. 307 (1337); AD Herault B 37, liasse 8, no. 3. Cabrespine reclaimed his daughter’s dowry of 830 pounds in 1342 following the death of her husband, Pierre de Baume, merchant of Montpellier: AM Montpellier, BB 3, no. 637; Jean Hilaire, Le régime des biens entre époux dans la région de Montpellier (Montpellier, 1957), p. 159. He was in all probability related to Pierre Cabrespine and to Jacques Cabrespine, the former a notary and the latter active as a money changer in the 1340s.

Officers of the Crown 63 representative in Paris.*! All but one of the nineteen ordinary judges ap-

pointed between 1314 and the end of 1340 were in fact born in this sénéchaussée; and the one man who came to the Midi from northern France became a permanent resident, dying in office after more than twenty years of service.*? The seneschal’s council perhaps attempted to follow the spirit of the law by separating the personnel of the local courts from cases involving their families or friends. Only five of the nineteen were appointed to courts in their home communities; three of the five

judges assigned to the ordinary court in Nimes, for example, came to that post from Montpellier.2? But even this modified rule was inconsistently applied and probably of limited effectiveness. While neither judge of Uzés was born in that town,** and a noble citizen of Alés held the post in Beaucaire throughout the 1330s,*° all three men had ample op-

portunity during their long tenures to become acquainted with the inhabitants of these small cities. It would have been difficult, moreover, to find a judge for the court in Montpellier who had no ties to the largest 31. Two years before he was named major judge in 1312, Jean Marc was entrusted with the

delicate mission of paying fifteen thousand pounds for royal confirmation of municipal privileges, despite the king of Majorca’s objections to the recognition of French sovereignty implicit in the transaction. Marc was granted nobility while in Paris, where he apparently did not relate to the royal council the conditions attached to the promised grant. The letter removing him as major judge in 1317 at the outraged and express request of the consuls disingenuously explained that his transfer to Toulouse was required by laws of Philip the Fair forbidding a royal judge to hold office “in loco senescallia vel ballivia in qua seu quo traxerit originem” (GC, no. 419); see the sources cited by Rogozinski, “Ennoblement by the Crown,” nn. 37-40. The “laws” of Philip IV invoked by the letter of 1317 may include Ordonnances, 1:362 (1303). 32. Robert ’PEnfant was ordinary judge of Uzes (1330-1348) and major judge (1349-1353): Ménard, Nismes, 2, preuves 36 (1330), 69, 78 (1348); AD Hérault A4, fols. 123-124; AM Uzes FF3; Gallia Regia, 1, no. 3572; Rogozinski, “Ordinary and Major,” p. 604. L’Enfant presumably came from Amiens, where he solicited a canonry for himself as well as benefices and other favors for his family and friends in 1349 and 1350: ASV,

RS 18, fol. 128; 19, fol. 245; 22, fol. 76v; cf. Gallia Regia, 1, no. 3000. He had already requested a canonry in Tournai in 1342 (ASV, RS 1, fol. 211). 33. See Appendix II, no. 14 for Bertrand Castel (1313-1323), Chapter II n. 8, for Bertrand

Guiraud (1325-1326), and Appendix II, no. 21, for Etienne de Molton (1328; 1332-1343). Guillaume Vigier, judge of Nimes from July 1328 to December 1330 (AM Nimes NN 1; Cart. Mag., nos. 1615, 1630; GC, nos. 90-91; AM Uzés FF 1), was noble, bachelor in law, and a clerk of Saintonge diocese; he was related (consanguineus) to the seneschal of Carcassonne who in 1343 and 1344 asked the pope to grant Vigier various prebends: ASV, RS 1, fol. 64v; 4, fol. 30v. 34. Jean Audoard, miles and jurisperitus (1302-1324): Gens just., p. 90; Arch. de Montp., 6:68 (1322). Above, note 32 for Robert l’Enfant (1300-1348). 35. This individual was Jean Bon: see Appendix II, no. 9.

64 Officers of the Crown law faculty or to the bar of the main commercial and financial center.*® Although Armand de Baume, who heard the original complaints of the populares in 1323, was a citizen of Uzes, he had received the doctorate

from the school at Montpellier. Rostang de Béziers, who succeeded Baume at the end of the 1320s, must have had frequent dealings with the city’s attorneys and merchants regarding his lordship located near the neighboring village of Bagnols. Jean Ricard and Pons Bérenger, judges of Montpellier while communal taxation was under review during the 1330s, were citizens of the town and certainly no strangers to its courts.%’ When they ruled on cases involving men of relatively respectable standing like the populares, those who gave justice at the end of the Middle Ages, even in a large town, knew of and often were acquainted personally with those who came before their court. A dispute that might set significant financial and legal precedents was of interest to the seneschal’s council as well as to the courts that heard appeals from verdicts by the rector and judge in Montpellier. Although the corps of permanent consiliarii and the judges in the localities were inhabitants of the sénéchaussée, many of the higher officials in Nimes during these years came to the province from northern or western France. The government often assigned the district’s treasury to an Auvergnat or Italian family enjoying favor with the court in Paris,?* and those charged with maintaining the rights of the crown often were royal clerks who continued to acquire benefices and possessions in the regions of their birth. Etienne de Cabanes at the end of the 1320s and Raymund Saynier in the 1330s were promoted from among the seneschal’s councillors, but the majority of those named to the largely administrative post of king’s procurator had not previously held an office in this region.*? All of those 36. See, for instance, the careers of Guillaume de la Rouviére and Bernard de SaintQuentin in Appendix II, nos. 29 and 32. Raymund Marc, who served briefly as judge of Montpellier in 1318, may have been related to Jean Marc (Gens just., p. 80, and n. 31 above).

37. See Appendix II for the careers of Armand de Baume (no. 4) Rostarg de Béziers (no. 8), Jean Ricard (no. 27), and Pons Bérenger (no. 6). 38. Notes 20 and 21, above; R7F, p. 11; Fesler, “French Field Administration,” p. 107;

Joseph Strayer, “Italian Bankers and Philip the Fair,” Medieval Statecraft, pp. 245-246. 39. See Appendix II for the careers of Etienne de Cabanes (no. 11), Raymond Saynier (no. 35), and Guillaume Cervier (no. 15). For Hugues Malcolhone (procurator from October 1319 to May 1326), see Ménard, Nismes, 2, preuve 17; Gens just., p. 98; GC, nos. 1586, 3320; Arch. de Montp., 7 Inventaire de la maison consulaire, ed. Maurice Oudot de Dainville (Montpellier, 1939), p. 320; BN Collection Languedoc (Bénédic-

Officers of the Crown 65 holding the highest judicial office, that of major judge, were northern clerks who did not, with the exception of Enguerrand de Fieffes in the early 1320s, use the title of /egum doctor—a striking contrast to the situation not only during the reign of Philip the Fair, when the seneschal’s chief lieutenant was normally a member of the Montpellier law faculty, but also during the final years of the century, which saw legists from the Midi again become predominant.*® Southerners and citizens of Montpellier were still preferred, however, for the office of appellate judge of crimes‘! and especially that of king’s advocate, for which knowledge of the Roman law was virtually a prerequisite. *?

tins) 83, fol. 196. For Jean Privat (procurator from June 1327 to March 1329 or May 1330): Cart. Mag., nos. 1570, 1633; AM Uzes FF 1. Robert Lausime (July 1331): AM Nimes CC 1. Guillaume Bonier (May 1332 to July 1336): Ménard Nismes, 2, preuve 40; Cart. Mag., nos. 1709, 1713, 1722; GC, nos. 234, 760. Privat was lieutenant to the bailiff of Macon prior to 1341, according to AP, ed. Furgeot, no. 3739. Among the others, Cervier, Malcolhone, and Bonier were jurisperitus, indicating some training in law. No title was used by Lausime and Privat, the latter was called maitre, possibly suggesting a university education (Appendix III; Gens just., p. 28), as well as consiliarius regis when he inquired in 1346 into Séguier’s appeal to the Parlement (Chapter III above). 40. For the reign of Philip the Fair, see Rogozinski, “Counsellors,” pp. 430-432; “Ordinary and Major,” pp. 597-598; Gens. just., pp. 15-17. Gallia Regia, 1:278-280, indicates the major judges from 1341 to 1553. See Appendix II, no. 19, for Enguerrand de Fieffes

(major judge 1318 to 1323), and Chapter II, n. 14, for Jean de Parede (April 1325 to November 1328). Pierre Maurel (December 1329 through 1336): GC, nos. 1474-75 (1329), 1493, 3303 (1336), 3548; Cart. Mag., nos. 1613, 1656, 1703, 1709, 1722; AM Nimes CC-1; Ménard, Nismes, 2, preuves 37-40; AD Hérault A-4, fols. 82v-83v. André Auban (March 1339 to September 1340): GC, no. 3853; Gall. Reg., no. 2298. Auban raised war taxes in this sénéchaussée from November 1340 to July 1342; during the same months, he was also commissioned as enquéteur for Parlement: GC, nos. 450, 1020; AP, nos. 3728, 4466. De Parede and Auban were /icentiatus in legibus; no title indicating legal training was used by Maurel. All are called clericus regis. De Fieffes held a benefice in Utrecht, and Auban acquired one in Chartres in 1343 and was a clerical member of Parlement by 1345: AP, nos. 4801, 6412.

41. See Appendix II, nos. 27 and 11, for the careers of Jean Ricard (1327-1329) and Etienne de Cabanes (1332-1339), two appellate judges who were citizens of Montpellier. 42. Pons Guillaume Alazard, advocate from June 1325 to 9 March 1327: HL, 10, no. 336; GC, no. 1586. Bertrand Plantier (10 March 1327 to May 1332): Cart. Mag., nos. 1513, 1563, 1689, 1615, 1635, 1656, 1686; Menard, Nismes, 2, preuve 37; AM Uzeés FF-1. Baudet Macarel (November 1333 to February 1336): AD Gard H-168; Cart. Mag., nos. 1693-94, 1708-09; GC, no. 3128. All three were /egum doctor; Gouron (“Enseignement,” p. 11) believes that Plantier studied and taught at Montpellier. Alazard was present at the royal assizes and was perhaps already one of the seneschal’s counsellors in 1321; he owned rural property near Beaucaire where he witnessed for the town in 1331:

66 Officers of the Crown While some of the highest offices were temporarily closed to them, the majority of those comprising the council of the sénéchaussée were native

to the region, and attorneys from Montpellier, the largest city, were always to be found among the seneschal’s advisors. Perhaps because a small salary did not attract ambitious clergymen, the twenty consiliarii were invariably citizens of Nimes, and the ordinary judges were, as we have seen, laymen already residing in the province. At least one of the five curial officers in Nimes or the four ordinary judges was always a Montpelliérain who had first hand knowledge of communal government and politics. Bertrand Castel, judge of Nimes during the early stages of the popular agitation, had previously served as assessor of the communal

court and had acted for the lieutenant of Majorca and the bishop of Maguelonne. He had represented several of the town’s wealthier citizens

in family disputes, and thus may well have been acquainted with the leaders of both factions.*? Etienne de Molton, his successor in Nimes when the council considered the claims of Célestin Séguier, could certain-

ly have provided expert testimony on the custom governing nobility, since he had acted for the seignorial judge in a similar case a few years earlier .*+

A preference for northern clerks during the reign of Philip of Valois

perhaps interrupted, but did not halt, the tendency to reserve royal offices to lawyers drawn from a small group of families among the urban

Reg. Ph. V, no. 3477; AD Gard G-1237, nos. 132, 167. (A Guillaume Alazard is cited as witness for the town in 1311: Eyssette, Beaucaire, 2, preuve 14.) Plantier was given the additional title of knight, and he was forgiven the deaths of two clerks in 1332 when the crown received pledges of surety from nine southern lords: AL, 10, nos. 275, 287. 43. See Appendix II, no. 14, for the career of Bertrand Castel. 44. See Appendix II, no. 21, for Etienne de Molton. His earlier experience in a case involving claims of fiscal exemption by reason of nobility arose in the early 1330s (before July 1333: GC, no. 3211). Pierre Sabors sought exemption as a noble from communal taxation. The royal court of the rector sent his suit to the court of the bayle because he lived in the section of the city under the direct lordship of the king of Majorca, and Sabors appealed from the bayle’s court to the king of Majorca’s lieutenant. De Molton heard the case for the judex majoricarum before December 1337 (ruling for Sabors according to GC, no. 305; from the context the reference must be to the lieutenant of Majorca rather than to the bayle). Sabors, who was among the entourage of the duke of Anjou in 1357 (GC, no. 676), cited “ancient custom” exempting his family and knighthood granted by the king of France. He was the son of the Pierre Sabors who taught at Montpellier about 1300 and thus a close relative of the Bernard Sabors who ruled on popular allegations in 1325 (for Bernard, see Appendix II, no. 31); although his family

had enjoyed noble rank from at least the thirteenth century, the matter was still unresolved in 1343: GC, no. 3212; Rogozinski, “Ordinary and Major,” n. 60.

Officers of the Crown 67 citizenry and lesser nobility. Several of the counsellors in Nimes belonged

to the wealthiest clans in that city and were elected to the consulate as representatives of the placiers or the knights of the arena.*® No fewer than six of the sixteen curial officials and ordinary judges native to the region are described as noble or knight. At least five enjoyed full rights of citizenship since they are specifically given the title of civis or came from families dignified with consular rank.*® Given the disappearance of many private records from smaller towns,*’ it is significant that relatively full information is also extant concerning the property rights of eight of

the sixteen men holding office during these years. More abundant evidence would certainly raise rather than lower an estimation of their holdings. Whatever their origins or social rank, royal officials generally held the same post for many years. A statistical average is meaningless when the population sampled is so small; except for a period of administrative confusion immediately following the accession of Philip VI, however, ten or fifteen years in office was normal for the counsellors and ordinary judges, and the curial officials, who were perhaps appointed at a more advanced age, served for at least five or six years. In several cases, moreover, a career that included a post with the royal administration was already a family tradition.*® Stability of office precedes hereditability; a young lawyer could not expect immediate succession to the rank held by

a father or uncle until the next century. The first half of the fourteenth century saw the development, however, of a kind of nobility of the robe, and the national ordinances that regulated the inheritance and sale of office recognized patterns long accepted in this region.*? The academic achievements of the royal judges did decline in comparison with those of their predecessors during the early 1300s, when the

seneschal’s staff included some of the most distinguished legists associated with the University of Montpellier. But this change is more apparent than real. Although members of the faculties at Montpellier and at Toulouse assisted the seneschal at meetings of the assizes and 45. Rogozinski, “Counsellors,” pp. 435-436. 46. See Appendix VII. 47. Above, nn. 25-26; André Gouron, “Les archives notariales des anciens pays de droit écrit,” Mémoires droit écrit 5 (1966), 53-54. 48. See Appendix II, no. 8, for Rostang de Béziers; above, nn. 27 for Hugues de Carsan, 29 for Bertrand Guillaume, and 36 for Raymund Marc. 49. See in general Roland Mousnier, La vénalité des offices sous Henri IV et Louis XIII (Rouen, 1947); cf. Jacques Kubler, Recherches sur la fonction publique: L’origine de la perpétuité des offices royaux (Nancy, 1958), pp. 77-91, 267-274.

68 Officers of the Crown council, a long-term career with the provincial administration was always the choice of lawyers concerned with applying the law rather than with theoretical jurisprudence.°° Long tenure as well as their upbringing and education in an elite family taught such men how to maneuver within the constraints of regional custom. The seneschal, major judge, and procurators relied, especially during their first years in office, upon the experience and understanding of political realities possessed by their subordi-

nates; the larger responsibilities assumed by the council of the sénéchaussée during the 1330s may, indeed, be an indirect consequence

of the appointment to the highest posts of northern clerks. Since the custom of the sénéchaussée governed the assessment of taxes, every sene-

| schal was thus guided during subsidy negotiations by Hugues Betti, a citizen of Nimes. As custodian of the council’s accounts and royal archivist, Betti kept track of receipts from extraordinary levies as well as those from domainal rights. He was regularly joined to subsidy commissions

during the 1320s and 1330s, and he must have been consulted when popular allegations of fraud or the consequences of tax delinquency were under discussion.°! Nobility or the rights of citizenship did not create a bias toward either faction. Although police and courts favor those in possession, the controversy between the town government and the populares did not grow

out of a struggle between rich and poor, and the attorneys for the two parties came from a level of society and had received an education similar to that of the judges ruling on their appeals. Nor is it safe to assume that the seneschal’s counsellors necessarily favored those who had previously hired their services; lawyers do not always admire their clients. Under these circumstances it cannot be maintained that the bureaucracy was more royalist than the king.*? All participants in legal or extralegal maneuvers within the walls of a medieval city shared a common fortune, including those who spoke for the king. Individual officials

might gain by subordinating the town governments to the institutions they staffed, but the same men or close relatives would simultaneously 50. Gens just., pp. 21-24; Rogozinski, “Counsellors,” pp. 430-432. 51. See Appendix II, no. 7, for Hugues Betti. 52. For the royalist view, see especially Lot and Fawtier, Institutions francaises, 2:153-154; Robert Fawtier, The Capetian Kings of France, trans. L. Butler and R. J. Adam (New York, 1960), p. 182. Cf. Fesler, “French Field Administration,” pp. 108-110. The evolution of this interpretation is outlined by Pegues, Lawyers, pp. 1-35; Guenée, “History of the State,” pp. 325-328.

Officers of the Crown 69 lose the influence they enjoyed as voting citizens and officials of an autonomous municipality. Those who had no voice in elections or the administration of revenues would still be directly affected by changes in the tax structure of comparatively small communities with limited resources.

They would immediately suffer from a rise in the price of consumer goods caused by an increase in the level of indirect taxation, and their assessments would inevitably be higher if individuals or corporations with substantial means succeeded in avoiding levies on income and property or gained formal exemption.*?

If the economic welfare of royal officials was inescapably bound up with that of the city or village, their effective sphere of political action was confined to the immediate region or province, and the theatre of their ambitions was never larger than the seneschal’s council and assizes or

the assemblies of towns and gentry. No national forum existed in which they might play a role, and there were not as yet any common institutions for what later became the province of Languedoc.*+ The political and economic concerns of the king’s officers throughout France were those

of the class of provincial notables that stood between the territorial magnates and the crown.*> The members of this class rarely dealt directly with the national government. Many were seignorial representatives in

meetings with tenants and neighboring lords and communities. When they did seek to enhance their standing in relation to other elite families, they solicited the support of the secular and, in Languedoc, especially the ecclesiastical lords who were already close to the throne and expected to intercede for clients as the natural representatives of the pays.°® Rather | than single-mindedly trying to expand the authority of the crown at the

expense of the nobility and church, provincial officials frequently had 53. Chapter III, above; Carlo Cipolla, Before the Industrial Revolution (New York, 1976), pp. 46-47.

54. Strayer, “Viscounts and Viguiers,” pp. 219-220; Thomas Bisson, Assemblies and

Representation in Languedoc in the Thirteenth Century (Princeton, 1964), pp. 291-299. 55. Joseph Strayer, “The Future of Medieval History,” Medievalia et Humanistica, New Series, 2 (1971), 185; Charles Radding, “The Estates of Normandy and the Revolts in the Towns,” Speculum 47 (1972), 84-87. As indicated in Appendix XI, I may discuss someday the social origins of provincial officials and their role in the codification of class privileges. 56. Rogozinski, “Ennoblement,” pp. 276-284, and especially pp. 276-277 and 281 for members of the council of this sénéchaussée. See above, Chapter II, n. 15, for the case of Pons d’Aumelas, and Appendix II, no. 36, for Guillaume Séguier.

70 Officers of the Crown more to gain personally by acting to preserve the revenues and the influence of more immediate lords. Fundamental patterns of personal and regional loyalties thus retained their power to influence action. The Midi and Paris did not speak the same language or share the same laws. When Bertrand Castel, later judge of Nimes, was retained to defend the widow of a consul, the clause empowering him to act not only in Montpellier but also “in France” was something more than a rhetorical flourish.®? With-

out denying that “some of the strongest supporters of French nationalism . . . have come from the peripheral provinces,” loyalty to the principle of dynastic right incorporated in the mystical body of the sovereign did not imply a unity of sentiment or compel self-abnegating promotion

| of royal policies.5® Practical considerations and the habits of thought shared with other provincial notables and with the greater men who protected them might speak more directly to the everyday decisions of royal officials than the decrees of a distant king and his ministers. The robe was coming into existence, but it did not constitute a separate national caste.

57. AM Montpellier BB-2, no. 468, fol. 21: statement of Agnes, widow of Pierre del Bossones relating to a suit brought against her by Arnaud and Guiraud del Bossones. Guiraud had served as consul in 1281, Pierre in 1290; an Arnaud del Bossones was con-

sul in 1320. For the difficulties caused by linguistic diversity in fourteenth-century France, see Lewis, Later Medieval France, pp. 4-5. 58. Quoting Joseph Strayer, “Normandy and Languedoc,” Medieval Statecraft, p. 59. The rubrics provincial and curial are perhaps used somewhat anachronistically in this chapter. I am aware that “provincial” did not have the precise sense in law or literature that it later acquired. But it was in fact used by notaries in this region; by analogy to the Roman law, the seneschal was thus dignified with the title praeses provinciae: Ménard, Nismes, 2, “notes,” p. 18. “Curial” provided a brief way of referring to officials in Nimes who were responsible for the governance of the entire sénéchaussée, as opposed to officials in the localities whose authority was limited to one city or vicariate.

Vi Royal Responses to Popular Resistance —>o.o—

Enquéteurs-Réformateurs, Fiscal Commissioners, and Agents of Conciliation Royal Officials could not easily separate their interests and concerns from those of the community and province in which they lived, and their response to popular resistance was affected also by bureaucratic habits, the traditions of royal justice, and the lack of an effective police force. During the later Middle Ages, cases that involved influential men or large groups frequently escaped the ordinary courts, whose judges hesitated to impose a decision by force and allowed formal or informal arbitration to

provide a kind of justice. In Montpellier, however, the local officials were unable to bring the factions together either through the forms of the Roman law or through those of equity. The conflict could be resolved only when both consuls and people were willing to end it, and reconcilia-

tion was impossible if either side believed that a proposed solution favored the other. If the crown at first relied on its representatives in the province to bring peace, it gradually became apparent that they could not bring about a compromise acceptable to both parties, and the task of ap-

portioning political power within the town and reforming its governmental procedures fell to royal arbitrators specially brought in for this purpose from outside the sénéchaussée.

The role of these agents of reconciliation has often been misunderstood, and their work has been confounded with that of fiscal commissions. While they were in the city, however, other men were also sent to Montpellier to raise extraordinary taxes or to collect fines for violations of royal ordinances. Although popular delinquency made it more difficult for the crown to collect subsidies, commissioners of conciliation

and finance received different kinds of mandates, and their activities 71

72 Enquéteurs-Réformateurs were normally kept separate. For this reason the presence of arbitrators — unlike that of tax collectors — was often welcomed as necessary and desirable by the populace. The backgrounds and qualifications of men assigned to fiscal commissions were generally different, moreover, from those of mediators. Fiscal agents were recruited from every part of the kingdom and spent most of their careers dealing with specific types of financial matters throughout France. The arbitrators were lawyers who had already carried out similar missions in the South, and perhaps they succeeded in bringing an end to this quarrel precisely because they were themselves citizens and property owners in the region. In addition to enquéteurs commissioned by the Parlement in the normal course of adjudication, commissions of conciliation were named on no fewer than eight occasions between 1325 and 1331. Their members were ordered to look into popular grievances and to establish concord within the community. Since those with mandates from the seneschal or the lieutenant in Languedoc failed to achieve this end, four cornmissions

empowered directly by the crown dealt in turn with the questions at issue before a compromise could be obtained. Judging by the mandates issued to its delegates, crown policy toward affairs in Montpellier took a very different course from that of the officials in the province. The provincial officials initially approached the dispute as impartial mediators

and then attempted to assert their own authority in municipal affairs, while the government in Paris increasingly gave up trying to make sense of the legal and fiscal arguments and became willing to accept any resolution that might lead to a lasting reconciliation. Commissions appointed by the seneschal and those with a mandate from the crown were both active in the initial stages of the conflict, and the crown at first deputized its ordinary representatives in Montpellier and Nimes. As the dispute threat-

ened to continue indefinitely and the consuls and people refused the intercession of the seneschal, the crown after 1327 had recourse to agents

without ties to the provincial government.

The first efforts at mediation by the provincial officials failed because they could not arrive at a solution agreeable to both factions: no compromise was possible as long as neither side was willing to retreat from its initial demands. Seignorial and royal officials failed to enforce collection of the ¢aille in 1323 and 1324, and they could not dictate a decision as arbitrators because the consuls would not reform customary methods

of assessment.! In March 1325, the crown responded to continuing 1. See above, Chapter II.

Enquéteurs-Réformateurs 73 popular appeals by appointing a commission consisting of a royal councillor, Pierre de Chalon, and two members of the seneschal’s council, Bertrand Guiraud and Pierre Malbosc. The king was obliged, their mandate ran, to show justice to all his subjects, and they were to examine and correct the town accounts and to punish any acts contrary to the utilitas of the town.? Since the records of the “fourteen of the chapel” apparently were in a confused state, an audit would be a lengthy affair. Although the appointment of these royal auditors implicitly recognized that their charges might be justified, the people were not satisfied. They resorted to violence the following December when the consuls followed traditional methods in levying a subsidy for the Gascon campaign. The consuls in turn refused to have any part in the investigation of this demonstration by Guiraud and the king’s procurator, whom they perceived as biased

toward the people. The additional authority and flexibility of action granted to provincial officials through a mandate from the seneschal or the crown had proved

insufficient to end popular delinquency and agitation, and efforts at mediation by local magnates were equally fruitless. Although the bishop of Maguelonne was an effective administrator without any immediate stake in the quarrel, he could not bring the disputants and the royal commissioners to peace and concord through extensive private negotiations.‘ Since it included men favorable to the people, the consuls, and the provincial administration, the commission of audit appointed by the lieutenant for Languedoc in the summer of 1326 may be considered an attempt at conciliation that exemplifies the frequent blurring in these years of the distinction between the ordinary system of justice and the techniques of arbitration; it may well have failed precisely because of this hybrid nature.’ The punishment of old crimes did not end popular resistance to new taxes, and those fined challenged the validity of the commission in the ordinary courts. 2. GC, no. 3510 (March 1325); see Chapter II at nn. 8-10 for these commissioners. 3. These events are described at greater length in Chapter II. The audit mandated by Alphonse of Spain apparently was never completed, even though the commission sat for over a year. 4. GC, no. 3515 (17 December 1325): “. . . postque volentes partes predictas ad concordiam et pacem reducere et plures et diversos tractatus in aula episcopi montispessulani cum partibus superpredictis habuissent, necnon . . . inter se convenire non possent.”

5. Ibid., no. 3523 (25 June 1326), cited above, Chapter II. See also Chapter VII for methods of arbitration.

74 Enquéteurs- Réformateurs Since it was apparent by the end of 1326 that the local representatives of its authority could neither compel obedience nor win it through arbi-

tration, the crown took the matter out of their hands and confided investigation and conciliation to other royal officials. The intention was patently to name mediators who could understand regional custom and the complexities of municipal politics without being bound by them. All of those appointed between the summers of 1326 and 1331 were Roman lawyers from southern France, and Raymund Saquet, who increasingly took charge of the matter, had investigated fiscal abuses for the crown; in this case, however, Saquet confined himself to carrying out a mandate to examine consular accounts and give justice,° and other men were sent during these years to enforce fief or monetary ordinances. If he was at first ordered to look into criminal charges stemming from the audit of 1326, Saquet’s role as a conciliator was emphasized by a second commission in 1329 stressing the royal desire for peace and concord; his author-

ity as enquéteur was maintained but he was told to forgive the sentences previously imposed if this would prove an inducement to compromise.’ Perhaps he had reported that an immediate judgment was not feasible concerning the disputed accounts, and the crown may also have taken into consideration the slowness with which a subsidy was collected in 1328 in the face of continuing popular resistance. It seems that Saquet acted strictly as a mediator after 1329; he took no part in investigating new allegations of irregularities, and the seneschal ordered the judge of Montpellier to look into the increase in milling charges. Yet Saquet still proved unable to reconcile the parties; perhaps his earlier connection with the fines for peculation weakened his position as a mediator. In the end it was Arnaud de Balseng and Hugues Fabreforte, both skilled at conciliation but apparently without experience in fiscal matters, who worked out the compromise between the hitherto intractable opponents. The appointment of these two mediators seems to confirm the conclusion suggested by Saquet’s second commission — that the crown had given up any hope of a binding judgment regarding municipal finances.® 6. GC, no. 3529 (15 June 1327). 7. See Chapter II, n. 41. For the /icentia concordandi and the commission to Saquet, see AIL, 10, no. 263 (26 and 27 September 1329). 8. These proceedings are, again, discussed in Chapter II. See the entries in Appendix II on Balsenq and Fabreforte. Two enquéteurs were sent from Parlement simultaneously; if the terms of the royal license of September 1329 were carried out, however, their powers ended when the crown approved the compromise between the consuls and the people.

Enquéteurs- Réformateurs 75 In southern France — and perhaps also in the North — commissions of

arbitration staffed by jurists had long provided perhaps the most common way of resolving social conflict as well as many types of civil and commercial disputes. The number of arbitrators acting at the royal mandate during the fourteenth century is striking because it shows that ad hoc commissions were frequently appointed to support or supplement the ordinary courts.? Historians have ignored the mediation of internal conflict by royal delegates because they have stressed the use of commissions of inquiry as a fiscal device. Although the enquéteurs sent out by

Saint Louis to correct abuses by royal officials have generally been praised, their successors after 1270 have been described as primarily con-

cerned with extorting money from the king’s subjects.!° Employing a kind of blackmail, royal commissioners would, in this view, offer to forgive purported infractions of royal ordinances in return for the payment of large “fines” that were at best lightly disguised taxes. As a result of their concentration on revenue rather than reform, commissions of inquiry were generally unpopular, their descent upon a locality the occasion of fear and hatred.!!

9. There is no secondary work that considers royal delegates as arbitrators of social discord, and the nature of the evidence has largely prevented study of special commissions during the later Middle Ages and the ancien régime. Since such commissions were staffed by a changing personnel drawn from several branches of the royal bureaucracy, their records are scattered throughout the national and departmental archives and must be reassembled for each individual case. See in general Gustave Dupont-Ferrier, “Le role des commissaires royaux dans le gouvernement de la France,” Mélanges Paul Fournier (Paris, 1929), pp. 171-184; Cazelles, “Exigence de lopinion,” pp. 91-99; Lewis, Later Medieval France, pp. 158-159. Three unpublished works treat aspects of the subject prior to 1328: Jean Glénisson, “Les enquéteurs-réformateurs de 1270 a 1328,” PTEC (1946), pp. 81-88, deals with inquiries into misdeeds by provincial officials; Marie-Elisabeth Carreau, “Les commissaires royaux aux amortissements et aux nouveaux acquéts,” PTEC (1953), pp. 19-22, discusses the use of special commissions to enforce fines arising from royal ordinances on the acquisition of fiefs by non-nobles; Elizabeth Brown plans to publish a study (cited in Appendix II, no. 16) on the mission of the bishop of Laon and the count of Forez as reformers in Languedoc in 1319. 10. See Appendix IX. 11. Lot and Fawtier, /nstitutions francaises, 2:157-158; Edgard Boutaric, La France sous Philippe le Bel (Paris, 1861), pp. 176-177; Charles Petit-Dutaillis, The Feudal Monarchy in France and England (New York, 1964), p. 299. This interpretation apparently is accepted by Carreau (“Commissaires,” p. 20); it has been advanced forcibly by Henneman, “Enquéteurs-Réformateurs,” pp. 310-314, 320, and passim (see Chapter II above for comments on this thesis). Waquet, Vermandois, pp. 154-155, suggests that royal inquisitors may have acted as a check upon dishonest local officials, but he also stresses their unpopularity. Although agreeing that the financial needs of the crown generally

76 Enquéteurs-Réformateurs Royal “reformers” were more likely to abuse their trust, it is also argued, because the practice grew up of assigning to them a wide variety of tasks in one province. Although theoretically appointed for a specific purpose and time, many thus possessed several commissions that cumu-

latively gave them almost unlimited authority. The temptation for the crown to confuse the responsibilities of its delegates was especially strong during times of war when commissioners delegated to raise extraordinary

taxes were also empowered to collect customary revenues and punish violations of established ordinances. Justice required respect for the rights of the crown, but the threat that normally neglected prerogatives would be vigorously enforced became an obnoxious device for compel-

ling more generous grants. It is also argued that the employment of reform commissions for financial ends through the assignment of multiple responsibilities was a deliberate policy during the decade between 1325 and 1335, which saw a coordinated campaign to increase receipts by granting powers of investigation to the men negotiating subsidies for the

Gascon campaigns. Although their mission was entirely fiscal, these commissioners were simultaneously ordered to collect franc-fief penalties, enforce laws against usury, and “reform” various abuses.!? Recent descriptions portraying royal reformers as disguised fiscal agents reflect the complaints, not necessarily disinterested, of those from

whom large fines had been collected. But an approach that accepts as typical of all commissioners the misdeeds committed by a few men of great notoriety or high rank cannot explain either the effect of these royal delegates on local institutions or the general esteem in which they were held by contemporaries. The years intervening between the visits of fiscal commissioners witnessed the presence of agents who had no part in financial dealings and whose missions apparently had no connection with the crown’s need to increase revenues. When the activities of the royal

delegates sent to Montpellier during these years are considered, it becomes clear that a wide variety of reasons prompted their appointment by the crown. Since the opinion of the local populace was affected by the

prevailed over other concerns, some historians have questioned the general unpopular-

ity of royal commissioners and have argued that contemporary opinion was less disturbed than modern authors by the exaction of a payment for missions of “reform.” See in this regard Cazelles, “Réformation du royaume,” p. 93; Glénisson, “Enquéteursréformateurs,” p. 88; André Artonne, Le mouvement de 1314 et les chartes provinciales de 1315 (Paris, 1912), pp. 78, 123-124, 141-142. 12. Henneman, “Enquéteurs-Réformateurs,” especially pp. 314, 324-330.

Enquéteurs-Réformateurs 77 entire body of decisions rendered by all commissioners, their presence was often welcomed and perceived as generally beneficial.

The seventeen royal commissions active in the sénéchaussée of Beaucaire and Nimes between 1325 and 1335 received mandates for three

separate and distinct purposes that rarely were confused. As we have seen, no fewer than four commissions were employed to inquire into the legal issues arising from the resistance of the populares or to bring peace between the people and the consuls. The function of thirteen commissions was at least partially fiscal, but a distinction was clearly made between the powers and personnel of the five commissions that negotiated extraordinary war taxes and eight others that were to inquire into the enforcement of royal ordinances and fine those who had escaped their application. Additional specialization can be discerned in that members of the fiscal commissions almost never held multiple commissions. Three commissions were authorized to collect the fine of franc-fief from non-

nobles and that of amortissement from ecclesiastical corporations acquiring noble fiefs,!* and another three — usually with a different personnel — were to enforce laws against usury or to retrieve for the crown the property recently seized from Italian merchants or forfeited by the Jews

and Templars in 1306 and 1312. Although their mission served to increase the king’s receipts, actual cases of theft were apparently found by another group of men who investigated the usurpation of crown lands and revenues by royal officials. The appointment of special commissions with political, judicial, and fiscal mandates was a natural expression of the reserved authority of the crown from. which all public officers were held to derive their powers. However they were chosen, all royal officials were literally royal lieuten-

ants possessing only a delegated authority, and the crown always retained its original full powers in matters of justice, police, or defense. '* Most provincial offices were at first temporary delegations that had only

gradually gained a permanent authority within a fixed geographical area,'5 and the language of the royal chancery during the fourteenth cen13. See Appendices [IX and X. For one man who held two mandates in 1325, see Appendix

II, no. 5. 14. Dupont-Ferrier, “Commissaires royaux,” pp. 176-177. The same author (Officiers royaux, p. 268) quotes a maxim (unattributed) from the 1480s: “pour ce que le Prince ne peut estre en chascun territoire de son Royaume, il a mis ses dits Bailliz, Prévostz et autres Juges qui gerunt vices Principis, ausquelz on a recours.”

15. See the summary of recent literature by Fesler, “French Field Administration,” pp. 83-87.

78 Enquéteurs-Réformateurs tury shows that no formal distinction was drawn as yet between tempo-

rary commissions and permanent offices.‘ Moreover, although an organized hierarchy of local institutions had come into existence before the 1320s, there was not a regular or effective means of communication between the provincial courts and the Parlement or chambre des comptes in Paris, nor did these latter bodies have a clearly defined responsibility in supervising local officials.!’ Administrative policy or financial exigencies sometimes prompted the assignment of enquéteurs to missions normally left to ordinary officials in the localities. Sometimes the crown issued special commissions empowering men to act in a province in which they already held a formal office. This practice emphasized their authority, making them responsible as commissioners for tasks routinely performed in other years without a special mandate.'® In the 1320s, it seems to have been the policy to grant extraordinary powers to those who raised war subsidies, whether or not they were special delegates. Half the commissions assigned to levy taxes for the Gascon campaigns were composed of provincial officials. Pierre de Beaujeu, prior of La Charité, was specially sent to the province for this purpose in 1325 and 1328, but the royal lieutenant for Languedoc received this mandate in 1326, and the seneschal of Beaucaire and Nimes had the assignment in 1329.'9 Contemporary jurisprudence did not clearly define or limit the powers of royal commissioners, but the crown did differentiate in practice between the types of functions that might be performed by royal delegates. The task of each commission was specifically described in its mandate, 16. E.g., Reg. Ph. V, nos. 746, 970, 1039; Soc. politique, pp. 352-353. Royal letters of appointment seem to alternate indifferently between the verbal forms for commit, concede, institute, and constitute; see also Reg. Ph. V, nos. 734, 842, 959, 2242, 2505, 2547.

17. This administrative confusion is pointed up by the series of letters — often contradictory —that responded to the appeals of Célestin Seguier (see Chapter III), as well as those concerning the milling tax (Chapter II). 18. Soc. politique, pp. 352-353. Henneman, “Enquéteurs-Réformateurs,” n. 44, for Pierre de Ferrieres, seneschal of Rouergue, as commissioner for franc-fief and reformer in his own jurisdiction. Jean Marc, then major judge of Toulouse, took an active part in 1318

and 1319 in the investigations carried out by the bishop of Laon and the count of Forez: Reg. Ph. V, nos. 1927, 2879, 3078-79. The crown initially entrusted investiga-

tion of popular complaints to men associated with the ordinary courts in the sénéchaussée. 19. For Pierre de Beaujeu, prior of La Charité, see Appendix IJ, no. 5. For the mandate in

1326 to Alphonse of Spain, see Chapter II. For that to the seneschal in the spring of 1329, see HL, 10, nos. 257, 259, 261.

Enquéteurs-Réformateurs 79 and care was taken not to confuse the duties of men concerned with taxatio.: or fiscal matters and the responsibilities of judicial or administrative

officials. A commissioner held two mandates and possessed multiple ‘powers during these years only in 1325, when Pierre de Beaujeu, prior of La Charité, simultaneously raised a war subsidy and looked into usury and franc-fief violations, and it is probable that this trusted royal coun-

cillor combined these activities through chance rather than deliberate policy. Beaujeu had acted as ambassador to Aragon and served on commissions of inquiry in Carcassonne and the Lyonnais, and the crown may simply have thought to profit from the presence in Montpellier of a commissioner expert in southern custom. Three of the four subsidies for the Gascon war were taken by men without multiple commissions, and Beaujeu limited himself to the matter of taxation when he returned to Montpellier in 1328 because a separate commission was already concerned

with fiefs and usury. In 1325, moreover, Beaujeu did not deal with Jewish goods because Raynaud de Saint-Ouen had been independently assigned to this matter, and there is no evidence that the two men worked together during the months they were in Montpellier.?° Popular unrest was directly caused by municipal taxes levied to pay royal subsidies and could not be ended without profoundly affecting royal prerogative and municipal autonomy. The people accused the consuls of misadministration and questioned the need for new taxes, and the provincial authorities received their appeals and challenged consular authority partly because they needed to ensure the orderly collection of funds promised to the king. It is thus significant that those with commissions of franc-fief or violations of the usury or monetary regulations, whose activities sometimes did lead to complaints, had no part either in investigations of popular allegations or in negotiation of subsidies. Just as the royal agent dealing with fiefs did not coordinate his inquiries with those of Pierre de Beaujeu in 1325, so Etienne de Villiers and Guillaume de Mouy in 1326?! and Pierre de Prouville and Thomas de Reims, who 20. For the sources on Beaujeu’s multiple commission, see Appendix II, no. 5. Raynaud de Saint-Ouen was commissioned “ad negocia Templi quondam et Judeorum quorumlibet fideliter excequenda” by royal letters dated September and December 1324; in a third letter of July 1325 he and Benoit Brossart are described as jointly delegated to this task (HL, 10, no. 231). Brossart apparently did not join Saint-Ouen in the South, and Jean d’Alnay acted as his lieutenant in Montpellier until November 1325, when the commission was revoked at the request of the consuls: GC, nos. 1941-46.

21. The royal accounts for 1326 and 1327 mention the expenses as reformatores in senescallia Bellicadri of Etienne de Villiers, cantor of Montbrison, and Guillaume, lord of Mouy and king’s knight (Seine-et-Marne, con. Bray-sur-Seine): Robert Bautier, “In-

80 Enquéteurs-Réformateurs looked into coinage violations in 1328,22 had no connection with raising subsidies while they were in the area. They may have depended upon the seneschal for assistance in carrying out their own missions, but their in-

vestigations were separated from the ordinary administration of the sénéchaussée and they did not collaborate with the seneschal by directing their activities against ungenerous subjects. Although they were present

in Nimes in the early 1330s when the seneschal’s court considered the legitimacy of the milling tax, Prouville and Benoit Brossart did not become involved in this dispute between the consuls and the provincial government.”? The fiscal obligations of the consuls and the legality of their authority were questions that concerned the crown’s ordinary officials (who acted independently of the fiscal commissioners) and also the commissions of conciliation. The enquéteurs investigating fief and monetary violations did not con-

cern themselves with taxation or social conflict because they were specialists who spent most of their careers in the field as fiscal reformers

and had little interest in or understanding of the configurations of political power in this region. Etienne de Villiers thus came to Montpellier in 1326 from Senlis, where he had spent the previous year as commissioner super facto usure.** Benoit Brossart traveled throughout the kingdom during the 1320s and 1330s investigating fief abuses and trying

to locate the property and assets of Jews, Templars, and Lombards. Thomas de Reims was a judge in the chambre des enquétes of the Parlement, where Pierre de Prouville also served at least briefly as rapporteur. In contrast with other members of Parlement normally assigned to civil ventaire de comptes royaux particuliers de 1328 a 1351,” Bulletin philologique et historique 56-57 (1960), 789, nos. 56-57. Mignon, no. 2737, speaks of condemnationes made by them in 1328; these probably were taken for violations of usury laws since an ordinance regulating the court of the Petit-sceau in Montpellier that they issued in 1328 would be a natural consequence of an inquiry into contracts: Ordonnances, 2:21 (mentioned HL, 9:451). Guillaume de Mouy returned to this sénéchaussée as reformer prior to 1341 when his sentence concerning a disputed estate was overturned by the Parlement: AP, ed. Furgeot, no. 3415; cf. nos. 1052, 9235. 22. Their commission of July 1327 empowered them to punish a wide variety of coinage and monetary infractions throughout Languedoc, and they were active during much of

the following year: HL, 9:447-448; cf. Henneman, “Enquéteurs-Réformateurs,” n. 104 (citing AN JJ 65A, no. 80). 23. See Appendix II for Brossart (no. 10), Prouville (no. 25), and Thomas de Reims (no. 26).

24. Journaux du trésor Charles IV, ed. Viard, nos. 8425, 9467. |

Enquéteurs- Réformateurs 81 or criminal affairs, both were empowered almost exclusively as fiscal reformers; Prouville was often responsible for large sums of money raised through fines or taxes, and he collected clerical tenths for the crown as late as the 1340s.25 The fiscal commissioners sent to Montpellier

were representative of a group of Parisian officials whose long experience in enforcing fief and monetary ordinances undoubtedly contributed to their efficiency, since the same techniques would presumably serve to trace out violations anywhere in the kingdom. They did not take part in the delicate and lengthy process of social conciliation or subsidy negotiations precisely because constant involvement with fiscal matters left them little time during their stay in each locality to learn the special customs governing taxation or the complicated system of political and administrative alliances between its inhabitants and the provincial officials. When fiscal agents are compared to those looking into popular unrest, it is apparent — although allegations of malfeasance and peculation were

involved —that the crown did not intervene in Montpellier merely to make money. Popular resistance to taxation was not treated as a financial opportunity; it was dealt with as a dispute at law to be resolved by the ordinary procedures of justice or, these failing, by the less rigid process of arbitration. Familiarity with southern law and politics was more to the point than fiscal expertise. In contrast to fiscal commissioners who primarily came from the North, the crown relied at first on citizens of Montpellier or Nimes who were members of the seneschal’s council and then turned to lawyers from other regions in the Midi.26 The appointment of such men perhaps simply recognized that local customs

diverged in fundamental ways. It may also reflect the differing circumstances that led to the appointment of fiscal agents and commissions of inquiry and conciliation. Investigations of usury or fief transfers were sometimes — but not always — resorted to following the failure of subsidy campaigns, and the crown thus sent officials to Montpellier and other

cities for its own purposes; it is unlikely that such inquiries were re25. Again, see Appendix II for these individuals. 26. Two of the three royal commissioners in 1325 were ordinary judges, one a resident of

Montpellier. The commission of audit appointed in 1326 by the lieutenant in Languedoc similarly included the judge of Montpellier as well as Hugues de la Porte, previously king’s procurator and a member of the council of the sénéchaussée. Under a mandate from the seneschal, the ordinary judge of Montpellier had sole responsibility concerning the milling tax from 1328 to 1331.

82 Enquéteurs-Réformateurs quested by those affected. But the crown neither initiated nor immediately benefited from an inquiry into popular resistance; its agents were empowered as a consequence of appeals from the people or the consuls, and _ they could not carry out their mission without an understanding of the legal issues raised by these appeals as well as skill in mediation. If royal enquéteurs performed a greater variety of tasks than has been suggested by the traditional interpretation, the way in which they were chosen was not entirely uninformed. Royal officials already specialized in dealing with certain types of problems, and some attempt was made to match a

commissioner’s experience to the responsibilities associated with his mission. A consideration of the composition and mandates of the commissions

active in Montpellier during these years shows that the assignment of royal enquéteurs provided a useful and genuinely popular way of giving justice. The agents who supplemented the work of the ordinary judges were less likely to be personally involved in town politics, but Roman lawyers shared a similar education and enjoyed a comparable social rank throughout the Midi.?” Like the royal judges in Montpellier and Nimes,

Raymund Saquet, Hugues Fabreforte, and Arnaud de Balsenq were clients of local magnates, and Fabreforte and Balsenq had represented communal and seignorial governments before the Parlement. They did not single-mindedly work to enrich the crown or extend its authority but brought the factions together without openly infringing on the rights of the town’s lord or setting precedents injurious to his prerogatives. They may well have succeeded as arbitrators precisely because of this sensitivity to the complex network of legal and social obligations that united all classes within late medieval cities. Although social peace might indirectly facilitate the imposition of royal taxes, the men who looked into popular unrest were sent to bring order and not to raise funds, and their appointment shows the same concern for the general welfare that is said to have motivated inquiries into local abuses by the enquéteurs-réformateurs of Saint Louis. The continued existence of such disinterested commissions may have contributed to the high esteem in which the principle of “reformation” was held during the fourteenth century. Some types of usury or 27. See above, Chapter II. For Saquet, whose brother was an officer of the count of Foix, see Appendix II and above, at n. 7.

Enquéteurs-Réformateurs 83 fief investigations were generally unpopular, but the office of special commissioner as such did not come under general attack. Rather than dreading their arrival, the king’s subjects sometimes welcomed and even solicited the presence of his agents.?°

28. Cazelles, “Réformation du royaume,” passim; Henneman, Royal Taxation 1356-1370,

p. 46, for the appointment of enquéteurs-réformateurs by the Estates General of 1356. The inhabitants of other cities also requested the appointment of commissions of reform or conciliation. Every charter wrested from the crown in 1315 by the provincial leagues (with the exception of that for the Languedoc, perhaps now incomplete) promised an immediate and general inquiry; several also posed the principle of a general inquiry every three years. “Les enquéteurs gardaient cependant dans !’esprit des Francais une renommee excellente et des enquéteurs diligents leurs semblait étre le critérium de

la bonne administration.” Quoting, Artonne, Mouvement, pp. 123-124; see also pp. 78, 141-142 for Auvergne. See Appendix HI, no. 5, for the mission of Pierre de Beaujeu to Lyons in 1319.

Vil Roman Law and Equity in the Resolution of Social Conflict

The Penetration of Public and Private Acts by the Roman Law The history of the populares in Montpellier can provide useful insights into the nature of the groups involved in late medieval social unrest, the

ways in which these groups pursued their concerns, and the means through which disputes could be contained or resolved. The abundance of paper and parchment stemming from the conflict between the consuls and the populares in Montpellier provides a source of inforrnation — seldom used by students of French law — that sheds new light on the role of legists in the maintenance of social peace and on the use of the Roman law in the Midi. The very nature of our evidence forces the conclusion that the crown and its officers in the sénéchaussée, as well as the consuls and the people, largely perceived this dispute as a problem at law that could be solved through the courts or through arbitration. They trusted to the Roman law and its practitioners to achieve an equitable solution. The minutes of the town council and popular syndicate, or those of the council of the sénéchaussée, might indeed show that the parties were not unwilling to bribe the king’s officers or that the latter were occasionally tempted to use force. Nevertheless, recourse was had to the way of law, and to judges and arbitrators trained in the Roman law who provided, from their store of antique learning, principles that were found relevant to contemporary needs.

For more than a century, it has been agreed that the Roman law known to the Middle Ages — the compilations issued during the reign of Justinian taken together with the accepted glosses and commentaries! —

was studied and taught at the University of Montpellier and other 1. There are few references to the Lombard law, the libri feudorum, which was generally attached for teaching purposes to the corpus juris civilis. 84

Roman Law and Equity 85 schools in the Midi from the last third of the thirteenth century and perhaps earlier. Scholars long believed that southern public and private law had, by the fourteenth century, accepted the procedures and adopted many of the substantive enactments of Roman jurisprudence.? During the last twenty years, however, systematic exploration of the notarial registers preserving the ordinary transactions of commerce and family life has prompted the judgment that this “learned law” was generally ignored by everyday practice, and recent studies of the royal administration have similarly argued that it had little effect on the style of the courts or on agreements justifying taxation. Although the royal courts and the charter granted to the town in 1204 had authorized recourse to the jus

scriptum in the absence of contravening legislation or recognized custom, the applicability of the code was more symbolic than real. An organic law continued to evolve during the fourteenth century, embodying forms distinct from the stipulations of the town charter as well as those of the corpus juris civilis. The independence of local custom is most marked when familial continuity was at issue. The legal rules governing loans or commercial agree-

ments still require investigation,? but documents transferring property are Said to have depended on procedures entirely different from those of the law taught in the schools. Thus marriage contracts display little familiarity with the learned law and misinterpret or violate its precepts;

in contrast with the notarial usage of nearby cities in Provence, moreover, their compilers seem unacquainted even with collections of notarial formulae derived from the Roman law.* Perhaps because of 2. The older manuals seem to agree that Languedoc was already a pays de droit écrit by the fourteenth century. See thus Emile Chénon, Histoire générale du droit francais public et privé, 2 vols. (Paris, 1929), 2:123-129, 285-287. 3. A recent survey of economic trends states that credit instruments seem relatively archaic in form when compared to Italian or Flemish techniques of the same period: Kathryn Reyerson, “Commerce and Society in Montpellier, 1250-1350” (doctoral dissertation, Yale University, 1974), 1:284. Cf. Sayous and Combes, “Commercants et capitalistes.” 4. In Avignon, for example, notarial acts never refer to the town statutes, and the incorporation of Roman requirements through the influence of Italian formularies is already substantial by 1350 and largely complete by 1450: Paul Ourliac, Droit romain et pratique méridionale au XV° siécle: Etienne Bertrand (Paris, 1930), pp. 29-30; idem, “Le droit privé dans le Midi de la France,” Recueils de la Société Jean Bodin 7 (1957), 127. Relatively strong indications of Roman influence are already found in Provence by the middle of the thirteenth century: Roger Aubenas, “Documents notariés provencaux du XIII* siécle,” Annales de la faculté de droit d’Aix 25 (1935), 82-83.

86 Roman Law and Equity changing economic circumstances, the provisions of such contracts also diverged increasingly from those required by the town charter, which rarely was cited after 1300 and apparently was forgotten from the middle of the fourteenth century.® Wills also misunderstand the written law,

- sometimes require forms of inheritance contrary to those it prescribed, and resort to novel devices such as the testamentary executor. Since notaries quoted them approvingly as late as the seventeenth century, some sections of the town charter concerning wills did, however, retain their force.®

Quarrels over property that could not be settled by arbitration or voluntary agreements preserved by the notarial registers were brought to the courts by practitioners who were less likely to misinterpret Roman

terms and took greater care in drawing up documents empowering a procurator or appealing to a higher court. But a more precise rendering of procedural phrases did not, it has similarly been argued, bring with it an increased reliance on the substantive legislation of the jus scriptum. At-

torneys rarely appealed to the code and glosses and cited them as a graceful and sometimes irrelevant embellishment to arguments that were not in fact founded on Roman precepts.’ References to maxims like “evident necessity” and “urgent cause” during the negotiation of taxes were

5. Jean Hilaire, “Pratique notariale et influence universitaire,” Hommage a André Dupont (Montpellier, 1974), pp. 169-172; idem, “Patria potestas et pratique montpelliéraine,” Mémoires de la société pour Vhistoire du droit et des institutions des anciens pays bourguignons, comtois et romands 29 (1968-1969), 431-432. See in this regard also Hilaire’s “Exercise de style: Une affaire de succession 4 Montpellier,” Meémotres droit écrit 7 (1970), 283-301, and “Famille et ésprit communautaire,” RHD

51 (1973), 10-11. These works draw for their evidence on the author’s survey and analysis of marriage contracts: Le régime des biens entre époux, and “Les régimes matrimoniaux aux XI* et XII° siécles, ” Mémoires droit écrit 3 (1955), 15-38. A summary of Hilaire’s conclusions is provided by André Gouron, “Coutume et pratique meéridionale,” BEC 116 (1956), 194-209. 6. Louis de Charrin, Les testaments dans la région de Montpellier au moyen Gge (Ambilly,

1961), pp. 225-228. The tripartite distinction between “droit savant,” the custom codified in the municipal charters, and notarial custom that is strongly emphasized by Hilaire, de Charrin, and Gouron (“Coutume,” p. 195) first seems to have been imposed by Pierre Tisset, “Mythes et réalités du droit écrit,” Etudes d’histoire du droit privé offertes a Pierre Petot (Paris, 1959), p. 555. 7. Gens. just., p. 41: “Cet accent mis sur la procédure a été le résultant le plus important de l’étude du droit romain. Méme en Languedoc le droit écrit était rarement cité pour des questions de fond.” Thus also Strayer, “Normandy and Languedoc,” pp. 55-57; Charles Lefebvre, “Juges et savants en Europe,” Ephemerides juris canonici 22 (1966), 128-129, 140-157 passim.

Roman Law and Equity 87 again more symbolic than real, and Romano-canonical theories of taxa-

tion and representation had little effect, in practice, on the fortune of subsidy requests.® Oral custom remained a living law as notaries in Mont-

pellier adapted to particular cases the universal practices of the region, without reference to Roman jurisprudence or the written custom of the town.? If cases had to be brought before royal judges or commissioners, the arguments of attorneys, and presumably the decisions of courts, were in turn based upon the same local custom not yet subordinated to the dictates of statutory enactments. !°

| Recent studies stressing the independence of customary practices have depended on the unusually rich store of notarial registers preserved in the archives of Montpellier, but the contracts recorded in these registers are only one source for southern custom." The consilia of the legists and the

decisions of the courts that considered popular unrest, as well as the records concerning social discontent in other cities, supply another type of evidence concerning the reception of the Roman law in Occitania. Marriage contracts and other agreements regarding the transmission of family property may well have been regulated by oral custom when they were amicably arrived at and did not become the subject of litigation. A dispute that involved large groups, or that touched on the relationship

between crown and subject, could not be settled informally and was dealt with by courts and arbitrators who followed a custom already heavily influenced by the written law. There can be no question that the inhabitants of Montpellier and other cities in Lower Languedoc presented themselves to the crown as bound by the Roman law, asking to be judged by its precepts and quoting them in defense of personal and corporate privilege. From the third quarter of the thirteenth century, the Parlement had ruled — sometimes to the detriment of the royal treasury — that appeals to the high court were to follow

Roman procedures, and it had also ordered lower tribunals to enforce 8. RTF, pp. 23-27; Henneman, “French Ransom Aids,” p. 627; Bisson, Assemblies, p. 296. (But the arguments presented by the attorneys for Montpellier in the 1330s and 1340s show that these were not the only statements in Roman law that were relevant to questions of taxation and exemption: see Chapter III.) 9. Hilaire, “Patria potestas,” p. 326; De Charrin, Testaments, p. 227. 10. The works cited above, nn. 7-8, do not state explicitly whether and to what extent royal officials justified their decisions by appealing to regional custom, royal commands, previous decisions in the same courts, or their own sense of equity.

11. Cf. Gouron, “Coutume,” p. 196: “Les notaires constituent donc bien notre unique source du droit pratique, mais une source bien précieuse.”

88 Roman Law and Equity the written law in cases between private individuals.!? Royal letters confirming communal privileges or responding to the requests of communal inhabitants frequently repeated these judicial commands. A privilege for the barony of Montpellier, frequently confirmed at the solicitation of the consuls, thus granted assurance that the royal seneschal would not move against the communal court occasione deffectus justitie as long as it was prepared to give justice according to the jus scriptum, or to municipal custom when the latter was asserted.!3 Although contemporary marriage agreements, it 1s alleged, ignored the Lex Julia and Senatusconsultum

Velleianum,'* the crown similarly ordered the seneschal to maintain dower rights in the face of contracts made in northern France and required notaries to explain in the vulgar tongue the provisions of these laws.'® These commands did not profit the crown, which surely would not have issued them if the jus scriptum had not been at issue in the courts of Montpellier and the other cities of this sénéchaussée. The assertion that the Midi was a land of written law, and its recognition by the crown, have been depicted as symbolic gestures showing the

power of the Roman myth and perhaps proclaiming the cultural in12. The Parlement was to follow the forms of the Roman law in hearing appeals from Languedoc: Olim, 2:268 (1287); cf. Ordonnances, 1:320, mandating special judges to hear cases involving the written law. Thus a third appeal was forbidden: Ordonnances, 3:605; Rogozinski, “Ordinary and Major,” p. 607, for the significance of this ruling. The seneschal was ordered in 1338 and 1339 not to collect a fine from those appealing rashly or unsuccessfully because the region was governed by the written law: GC, nos. 1189-90, 3012. As early as 1278 the seneschal of Carcassonne was to proceed briefly and intelligibly and follow the consuetudines Francie in cases between the king and lords (concerning jurisdiction?) but “inter alias personas secundum Jjus scriptum”: Menard, Nismes, 1:104, preuve 75. 13. HL, 10:190, no. 40 (1285): “quamdiu idem rex aut tenentes jurisdictionem suam parati sint facere justitiam secundum jura, in casibus seu causis in quibus jura scripta locum habere noscuntur, vel secundum consuetudines locorum.. . in casibus seu causis in quibus consuetudo vendicat sibi locum.” This privilege reaffirmed a grant of 1283; it was confirmed in 1317 and 1322. Cf. Tisset, “Mythes et réalités,” pp. 555-556. 14. Gouron, “Coutume,” p. 201; Pierre Tisset, “Placentin et son enseignement a Montpellier,” Mémoires droit écrit 2 (1951), 86-87; as well as the works of Jean Hilaire cited above in n. 5. On the Senatusconsultum Velleianum (D 16.1.1) and other terms from

the Roman law, consult Adolph Berger, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, 43 pt. 2 (Philadelphia, 1953). 15. Ménard, Nismes, 1:137, preuve 105 (1294): dower rights were to be protected “maxime

cum illa terra in qua sita sunt bona predicta jure scripto regatur.” See ibid., p. 151, preuve 129, for this provision of an ordinance of 1304 regulating the notarial profession.

Roman Law and Equity 89 dependence of the region.’® Yet those who advanced the primacy of 1m-

perial law may have done so not merely out of sentiment but also with the intention of subverting intervention by royal officials and restricting the expansion of their authority. Since the seventeenth century, scholars

have propounded the thesis that the reception of the Roman law strengthened the power and authority of the crown at the expense of the nobility and other privileged groups.’ In the light of the events described in this study, however, it now seems possible to challenge this interpretation. Indeed, the history of royal government in Languedoc suggests exactly the opposite of the traditional thesis — that the adoption of the written law actually placed new limits on the initiative of royal officials and forced the crown to grant new concessions and exemptions to the ruling classes. The majority of lawyers in the Midi were, as we have seen, in the service of seignorial and municipal governments, rather than that of the crown,'® and they were highly skilled in manipulating complicated and dilatory processes and inventing excuses for new appeals. Litigation

preventing the enforcement of royal orders could be carried on for decades by the representatives of organized groups such as the populares or wealthy individuals like Célestin Séguier until “fatigue et surmenage” forced judges and enquéteurs to settle for compromises that fell far short of the crown’s initial demands. '9 16. Hilaire, “Patria potesta,” p. 421; Roger Aubenas, “De quelques problemes concernant ~ la renaissance du droit romain,” Mémoires droit écrit 6 (1967), 51-53. 17. See Chapter V, n. 52, for recent surveys of nineteenth-century scholarship, which often read back into the Middle Ages centralizing tendencies that appeared under Louis XIV or Napoleon I. Robert Fawtier, while maintaining in his last works the traditional view that provincial authorities were “more royalist than the king,” nevertheless admitted

that it “a besoin d’étre nuancée” regarding the judges at the Parlement (Lot and Fawtier, Institutions francaises, 2:357). The participation of legists in the royal admin-

istration has been most intensively studied for the reign of Philip IV; see also Jean Favier, “Les légistes et le gouvernment de Philippe le Bel,” Journal des Savants (1969, part 2), pp. 92-108. Jo Ann McNamara, Gilles Aycelin, the Servant of Two Masters (Syracuse, 1973), pp. 4-5, 149-154, for a recent argument that the king and royal council sought to centralize the administration of justice. Many studies stress aggressive

statements by the king’s advocates before the sovereign courts; thus Lewis, Later Medieval France, pp. 84-87, 161-166, 236-240. 18. See Chapters V and VIII for Montpellier. Strayer (Gens just., pp. 20-22, 32-33) suggests that most of the jurists in Languedoc held judgeships only briefly because these paid very little; employment by communal governments and the local gentry was also

more rewarding in ways other than financial: see above, Chapter V, at nn. 54-56; André Gouron, “Le réle social des juristes dans les villes méridionales,” Annales de la faculté des lettres et sciences humaines de Nice 9-10 (1969), 62-66. 19. Chapter I, n. 17. The quoted words are from Gens just., p. 45, where examples are

90 Roman Law and Equity Judging by the evidence from Montpellier, the substantive enactments of the Roman law as well as its procedural formulae provided valuable assistance in forging bridles for a king. As one consequence of popular unrest, what had been merely unexamined habit now was made explicit. Formal compromise and judicial decisions that restricted innovation now regulated the collection of taxes by the crown and the municipality, and the consuls were not slow to turn against the crown the limitations writ-

ten into agreements ending popular and individual resistance. Formal definition of governmental prerogatives can set boundaries to official aggrandizement and prevent any easy abuse of power. Thus the same principles that were used to legitimize taxation also prevented its diversion even for the supreme obligation of defending the realm against foreign invasion.2° While other communities may have been less skillful than the consuls of Montpellier in using the learned law to defend local autonomy, most did find in its text rules that slowed the collection of taxes and reduced the king’s revenues.2! Renaissance princes found it more difficult than their “feudal” predecessors to levy taxes and raise armies precisely because written law and established judicial precedent defined govern-

mental procedures and guaranteed personal and provincial privileges. The claim that the Roman law governed the region may have served in part as an easy device for defending consular taxation and the autonomy of consular courts. Since the written law took effect when custom was deficient, and the consuetudines and libertates granted in 1204 went only to the men of the town,22 the Roman code might thus have been cited as a cited from Foix, Montauban, and the Gévaudan as well as Montpellier; but cf. Strayer, Royal Domain, p. 19. 20. See below, Chapter VIII, at nn. 9-10. 21. In 1334, the brief submitted by the attorneys for the consuls of Nimes contained extensive citations of the Roman law. This brief alleged that a subsidy for the knighting of the king’s eldest son was contrary to the written law that the king had accepted until

then (“et regi hactenus consuevit”) and also to privileges granted by the count of Toulouse and the king, the maintenance of such privileges being called for by the Roman law. Objections to the gabelle on salt seven years later declared that it was contrary to the right of free trade found in the Roman and natural law and sanctioned by immemorial custom: Ménard, Nismes, 2, preuves 43, 67. Even the syndics of Lunel, a town that supported relatively few lawyers, found arguments in the written law against the fine of franc-fief: BN MS lat. 9174, fols. 101-106. (It should be noted, however, that this document is unusual in presenting the argument from the written law after those from judicial precedent, the custom of Lunel, and that of the sénéchaussée.) 22. Layettes, ed. Teulet, p. 255. Note 77 below for the requirement that the written law be followed when custom was deficient. Mundy, Later Medieval Europe, p. 448; Martines, Lawyers, p. 92, for the Roman law as “common law.”

Roman Law and Equity 91 kind of jus gentium justifying decisions in cases touching noncitizens. This restriction on urban law was characteristic of the Midi, where even tiny villages enjoyed their peculiar privileges, but cases involving noncitizens arose with unusual frequency at Montpellier, since the communal charter and consular legislation did not extend even to the contiguous suburbs and rural communities under the jurisdiction of the bayle’s court.23 By gaining prior recognition for judgments said to be founded on the universal custom, the consuls, who appointed the bayle and judge, may have hoped to limit intervention when custom had no sway.24 Tags from Roman law, it might be argued, were thus quoted to substantiate and ornament rulings that were not in fact derived from the jus scriptum. But the consuls of Montpellier intended more than a symbolic gesture or political ploy in invoking the learned law, instead of and in preference to oral and written custom, to impeach the legitimacy of the popular syndicate and individual demands for tax exemption and to defend the fees charged for the use of the town’s mill.?5 At each crucial stage in the strug-

gle with the people, all of those involved considered it appropriate to consult the written law, even though these matters were dealt with by seignorial and royal privileges and the attorneys for the consuls might have made a clearer and perhaps stronger case by appealing to prescrip-

tive right. The consilia of legists were considered binding, moreover, when they advanced the people’s cause by recognizing their syndicate. Whether or not these arguments from the Roman law were always accurate and appropriate, they were deemed to have an authoritative force,

not only concerning the relationship between the community and the

crown, but also regarding the reciprocal obligations of the town’s government and its citizenry. Although the populares generally relied on litigation rather than force in pressing their demands against the consuls, their aims were illicit; their 23. The bayle of Lattes was required by the charter of 1204 to obey the bayle of Montpellier “et sub ejus examine de jure respondere” (Layettes, p. 255), but it needed an express declaration by the king of Aragon in 1268 to extend Montpellier’s custom to that community: Gouron, “Coutume,” p. 194, n. 4; cf. Germain, Commune, 1:193. For urban law in Languedoc, see Gouron, /oc. cit.; Timbal, Guerre, pp. 115-123. 24. The consuls of Montpellier would in any case have had more limited ambitions than those of Toulouse who, in the first half of the thirteenth century, had claimed wide jurisdiction over the surrounding countryside: John Mundy, Liberty and Political Power in Toulouse (New York, 1954), pp. 125-131. 25. For the debate over the town’s milling charges, see above, Chapter II at n. 30 and Chapter III at n. 16.

92 Roman Law and Equity association was created by an oath that was as much a “revolutionary act” as those taken by the predecessors of the consuls when they had rebelled against the seignorial overlord. The consuls and their advisors nevertheless allowed the legality of the syndicate to be treated as a question at law, advancing the principle that corpora and collegia could be formed only with the approval of the crown.?¢ Even if the people had

formed a valid corporation,?’ however, the consuls had exercised for more than a century the prerogative of licensing and regulating all subordinate political, religious, and economic bodies;?* the statutes of the most powerful professional and commercial organizations as well as artisanal guilds were thus promulgated as consular enactments and enforced by officials who took an oath to the town fathers and acted under their surveillance.?? The town’s lords had confirmed this right of control both

26. See above, Chapter I, esp. nn. 16-17. 27. The popular syndicate was allegedly a temporary association, but the principle that a corporation have a permanent end or purpose was not strictly adhered to during the Middle Ages or under the ancien régime: Chapter II, above; Francois Olivier-Martin, L’organisation corporative de la France d’ancien régime (Paris, 1938), pp. 485-487. 28. The membership and privileges of the clergy, still in the process of being defined in law, were a matter of dispute at Montpellier as in other cities (see above, Chapter III). Consular legislation was held to oblige the whole community, but the consuls did on occasion modify statutes that infringed on the “liberties” of the Roman church: Germain, Commune, 1, preuve 12 (1316). The consuls watched closely over associations such as confraternities formed by laymen with a religious or semi-religious end; see ibid., 3:482-489, for the statutes on confraternities promulgated at the end of the thirteenth century “ab voluntat e ab expres autreiamen des senhors cossols” (p. 485). The immunity of students and faculty also was questioned by the consuls. At the meeting of 23 April 1327 that considered complaints against increased milling charges, the communal assembly also resolved to appeal against a royal decision allowing students to import wine not grown by inhabitants of the city: Cart. Univ. Montp., 2, no. 45; see also nos. 46-50. This prohibition had been restated by a consular statute of June 1317 and had been confirmed by the crown in 1318 and 1320, following an inquiry by the court of the seneschal: Germain, Commune, 1, preuve 13; Arch. de Montp., 6:67-68. Although the consuls were excommunicated by the bishop of Maguelonne in 1325 for applying it to the clergy, they apparently were able to make good their authority regarding students: ibid., pp. 69-70; Cart. Univ. Montp., 2, no. 81. This litigation, which ran simultaneously with that arising from popular appeals and those of Séguier, shows the determination of the consuls to enforce their authority in small matters as well as large, and

may also indicate a resolve to control corporate groups more strictly; cf. Marvin Becker, Florence in Transition, 2 vols. (Baltimore, 1967-1968), 2:205-219. 29. Gouron, Réglementation, pp. 141-142, 165-185, for a discussion of the texts in the Petit thalamus and those published by Germain, Commune, 3:455-470. See also Thomas, Ville marchande, pp. 42-45; Chapter III above for the Roman law regarding such regulation. The consuls major thus appointed, and examined the accounts of, the subordinate “consuls” who supervised maritime commerce in the city and its ports and

Roman Law and Equity 93 tacitly and specifically, and provincial officials had never challenged it.?° They had similarly raised no objection when the consuls had exercised

their inherent police power to suppress groups deemed detrimental to public health or safety.?! Lawyers for the communal government also drew on the Roman law to deal with the fundamental issues raised by the intervention of royal officials in municipal affairs instead of falling back on the clear record of

approved custom. When the seneschal and his council assailed the administration of the town’s mill and asserted the novel and perhaps unprecedented rule that a prior license was required before taxes could be levied, the attorneys and legal advisors for the consuls found themselves

attempting a definition of taxation, although they might simply have shown that the communal monopoly was derived from the town’s charter and, again, had received frequent confirmation.*? In answering the allegations of Célestin Séguier in the 1340s, the consuls asserted a prescriptive right to tax the whole community for the common good. Not content

with this statement, however, their advisors preferred to discuss the nature of nobility and noble privilege and to ascribe to the consuls some of the attributes of sovereignty.*? The consuls had in fact assessed all those representing municipal authority at sea, in foreign cities, or at the fairs in northern France: Germain, Commune, 2:69-72; Berne, Consuls sur mer. 30. In confirming, in 1351, the statutes of the guild of tailors, for example, the crown presumably recognized consular authority to promulgate such rules: Ordonnances, 2:468-472. Royal officials apparently made no move to intervene in the supervision of such associations until well after 1350: Gouron, Réglementation, pp. 154-157; cf. Coornaert, Corporations, pp. 92-96. 31. Most notably in 1292, when the officium of tavern-keeper was abolished temporarily because taverns were a menace to public order: GC, no. 938; cf. Petit thalamus, ed. Pegat and Thomas, p. 139; Germain, Commune, 1:146; Gouron, Réglementation, p. 149. 32. Article 97 of the charter of 1204 (see above, Chapter II, n. 4). For the confirmation of this monopoly, the hearing before the seneschal’s court in July 1332, and the consilia of members of the law faculty at Montpellier, see above, Chapter II. 33. The summary of consular allegations discussed above (GC, no. 3689, and above, Chapter III) repeatedly states that the consuls acted in accordance with the jus commune or jus scriptum, only once, however, does it make a specific reference to the Roman law, which is said to forbid the inheritance of noble status by a son born before

his father’s ennoblement (item 39, cited above, Chapter III, n. 44). It is not clear whether the author had in mind a gloss to the rules governing the children of milites in D 49.16-17 or intended some reference to other laws touching on the children of slaves.

This list of allegations, which is probably not in its final form, is accompanied by various papers citing at length the law and glosses; given the state of the present inventory, it often impossible to ascertain from microfilm copies which allegations each of these documents was intended to justify.

94 Roman Law and Equity members of the community since the first decades of the thirteenth century, and this right had been upheld even against the clergy.** It was no exaggeration when the consuls argued further that they possessed all rights pertaining to the government and administration of the universitas and the respublica of Montpellier ,*° since they had exercised without protest from the second half of the thirteenth century a monopoly of legislative, administrative, and police powers, appointing all lesser officials and groups of officials and supervising their expenditures.** Consequently it

was superfluous to expatiate on consular sovereignty unless it was believed that the written law bestowed on consular government a greater legitimacy than did mere usage.

We cannot know why the Roman law was given such primacy, although this universal custom may have been thought a more stable guarantee than the king’s will, given the ease with which conflicting letters were obtained from Paris throughout the 1320s and 1330s. Representatives of the consuls were probably not unacquainted with privileges confirming their authority; the participants in these disputes and their 34. Article 94 of the charter of 1204 empowers the “fourteen of the chapel” “et indicere et manifestare quantam unusquisque quantitatem debeat dare et expendere in hiis que opus erunt ad constructionem murorum; et isti possunt minuere vel augere in singulis hominibus secundum quod eis bona fide visum fuerit.” See above, Chapter II, for this body, which was perhaps in existence by 1196 (Lewis, “Town Government,” p. 62); see Chapter III for royal and seignorial letters confirming their authority and denying individual claims to exemption. As early as 1252 the consuls defeated an attempt by the town’s lord, the king of Aragon, to diminish their customary powers of taxation (Germain, Commune, 2:26; cf. below, Chapter VIII, n. 5). 35. GC, no. 3689, item 1; cf. the privilege of 1310 confirming the consular form of government (above, Chapter II). 36. A full history of municipal government in Montpellier has never been written. The

charter of 1204 and the supplementary enactment of 1205 (ed. Teulet, Layettes, pp. 289-291; see esp. art. 9) empowered the consuls to appoint most subordinate officials with the exception of the bayle; after the middle of the thirteenth century, the lord of the town retained only an increasingly symbolic right to be represented at the election of the latter official: Lewis, “Town Government,” pp. 62-63; Germain, Commune, 1:138-150, 193-194, 280-284, preuve 5; Baumel, Seigneurie, 2:58-69, 106-110. The consuls had by 1223 already abrogated to themselves the right to modify the seignorial charters: Germain, 1, preuve, 4; Baumel, pp. 62-69. Their monopoly of political authority was essentially unchallenged until the rise of the populares in 1323, and effective intervention by the immediate lord became increasingly unlikely after the passage of lordship in 1276 to the absentee kings of Majorca, who were frequently

caught up in the rivalry between their overlords, the kings of France and Aragon: Lecoy de la Marche, Relations politiques; Louis Thomas, “Montpellier entre la France et Aragon,” Monspeliensia 1 (1928-1929), 1-56.

Roman Law and Equity 95 allegations can be identified precisely because of the care taken to preserve documents that might serve as precedents. It is pointless to postulate that they might have done better to rely on these precedents and the particular custom of this city rather than initiating discussion of the basic principles of law. Had the faculty of law and the courts found their syndicate illegal, the people would almost certainly have continued to meet clandestinely, as they did after formally dissolving the same syndicate in

1331. Although the crown was normally loath to abrogate corporate rights of demonstrably ancient establishment, the courts might have ignored precedent in ruling on milling charges or Célestin Séguier’s claim

to exemption. Since the Parlement sustained consular authority over internal finance and administration, the arguments of their attorneys did no harm. It seems clear, however, that the learned law was invoked in the tribunals concerning basic questions and that its purpose was not merely ornamental; in this case at least, the Roman law is cited more frequently

than municipal or seignorial enactments, and the rare quotations from the latter are usually intended as a token that local usage was in accord with the laws of reason and nature embodied in the jus scriptum quo regitur illa terra.?’

The Role of Compromise and Arbitration in the Maintenance of Social Harmony Whether their decisions codified a regional custom or appealed to the learned law, the ordinary courts in this province could neither bring tax resistance to an end nor restore social peace, and recourse was had to informal mediation ratified by an act of arbitration. One of the original forms of justice in all societies, arbitration was especially valuable during the early Middle Ages when the lack of effective courts often made it the only alternative to private war.38 The renaissance of legal studies and the erection of public courts from the twelfth century did not end reliance on 37. GC, no. 3689, items 22, 25. 38. For early examples of private arbitration in southern France, see Cheyette, “Suum cuique,” pp. 291-295; Archibald Lewis, The Development of Southern French and Catalan Society (Austin, 1965), /oc. cit., n. 50 below. Cf. Fourgous, Arbitrage, pp. 24-31; Amanieu, “Arbitrage,” cols. 862-866; Mundy, High Middle Ages, pp. 270-271; Henri Janeau, “L’arbitrage en Dauphiné au moyen age,” RHD 24-25 (1946-1947), 229-231, 269-271; Francois de Menthon, Le réle d’arbitrage dans lévolution judiciaire (Paris, 1926), pp. 1-77.

96 Roman Law and Equity these private judges, and arbitration remained the most common way of

settling disputes between families of high social rank and those that involved lay and religious corporations. The greater regularity and sophistication of forms introduced by professionally trained lawyers — increasingly preferred from the 1250s — increased the flexibility of the

arbitrational method, which continued to allow the relatively rapid achievement of solutions that might be presented as equitable. Although the personnel of royal commissions of conciliation and their function in

the governance of this province have already been discussed, this alternative system of justice may be profitably considered from a juridical point of view.*9 There was much justification for contemporary complaints that royal justice was excessively dilatory and costly. It was not unusual, as we have

seen, for the government in Paris to issue orders without reference to previous mandates, and the existence of competing jurisdictions allowed

a suitor to draw out a process almost endlessly by alleging denial of justice and bringing different procedural and substantive questions before several courts.t° The consuls of Montpellier needed more than seven years to carry their point against Célestin Séguier, and several decades were needed to settle many cases. If individual resistance was often carried on with impunity, the provincial administration was especially careful in dealing with appeals from corporate groups. The ordinary courts lacked the force to compel obedience from large numbers, and the council of the sénéchaussée was thus obliged to consider cases that involved organized resistance. Municipal governments purportedly acted de consensu totius populi, and vociferous denial of this consent by a substantial portion of the people vitiated that claim. A definitive judg39. There is still no satisfactory history of legal procedures in medieval France. Although private arbitration, which exists on the borderline between and supplements state courts and self-help, should be of special interest to students of comparative history, “public arbitration” between rulers and states has received more attention; histories of diplomacy can sometimes be helpful in understanding private arbitration since the techniques of the latter were largely adopted by public law. See Mileta Novacovitch, Les compromis et arbitrages internationaux du XII’ au XV*° siécles (Paris, 1905); Francois Louis Ganshof, The Middle Ages: A History of International Relations, trans. Rémy Hall (New York, 1971), pp. 314-318; Donald Queller, The Office of Ambassador in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1967), pp. 44-48; Merriam Sherwood, “Pierre Dubois on the Arbitration of International Disputes,” Essays in Medieval Life and Thought presented in Honor of Austin Peterson Evans, ed. John Mundy et al. (New York, 1955), pp. 139-149. 40. The prohibition of third appeals (n. 12 above) was in this way rendered ineffective.

Roman Law and Equity 97 ment was difficult to obtain and more difficult to enforce. Even when the crown took quick action and ordered people to contribute to a specific tax, as it did in 1326 and 1328,*! this did not ensure collection of subsequent levies, since the syndics simply brought new charges of illegality and dishonest administration.

Like the royal government, many municipalites found themselves obliged to compromise with corporate groups and with the higher ranks of the nobility and clergy, and arbitration brought about this result more rapidly. Judging by the circumstances surrounding the use of concilia-

tion and arbitration in Montpellier, this method might present other significant advantages. By its very nature it allowed the parties to choose their own judge when the ordinary court was suspected of hostility or

was directly affected by the matter involved. Since the question to be resolved and the procedures to be followed were defined by the compromissum agreed to by the parties, an arbitrator’s powers were strictly limited; his sentence bound only those subject to the transaction and could not raise tangential issues.*2 No precedent was set that might be cited in subsequent cases; since a transcript was usually not made of the inquiry and deliberations, the privacy of the parties was preserved, and harmful evidence did not become a matter of public record.*? The issues raised, the social rank of the people, and, perhaps, the division of lordship over the town all suggested that tax resistance and social schism could not be terminated through the ordinary processes of law. The word itself is not always present in the documents, but some form of more or less binding arbitration was thus proposed on no fewer than six occasions between December 1323 and June 1331. In December 1323 the seneschal and lieutenant of Majorca put on record their desire to lead the consuls and people to true peace and concord as amicable compositors and friends of both parties;** an act of compromise accepting their ser41. See above, Chapter II. 42. Whereas a judge could do whatever was not forbidden by the law, an arbitrator’s sentence was void if he exceeded his instructions: D 4.8.32.15, 21. Cf. Amanieu, “Arbitrage,” cols. 869, 879-880. The standard term compromissum seems also to have been preferred in Montpellier; thus GC, nos. 3508, 3543. 43. An emphasis on secrecy is most noticeable in 1331; see above, Chapter II. It is thus likely that records of arbitrators’ hearings are absent from the archives because they never existed. 44. GC, no. 3508. They acted not as officers of Majorca or France “sed ut amicabilibus compositoribus et amicis partis utriusque communibus et tractantibus amicabiliter inter partes diversis temporibus atque locis ad quendam ultimum et finalem tractatum ver pacis et concordie . . . amicabiliter induxisse. . . .”

98 Roman Law and Equity vices and a treaty (tractatus) recognizing their decision were read and signed, but the consuls later reneged on these agreements by appealing to the Parlement.*® The members of the law faculty who spoke to the legality of the popular syndicate in December 1325 and the representatives of

the town’s lords who arranged an audit of town finances in June 1326 were also unsuccessful in their larger purpose, which was again described as the reduction of the parties to peace and concord.*® When Raymund Saquet in 1329 and Fabreforte and Balsenq in 1331 were sent to inquire

into the same question of municipal finances, they were instructed that the crown would forgive earlier sentences and relax the full rigor of the laws if the opposing factions in this “ad pacem et concordiam facilius reducantur.”?”? The mediation proved fruitful, but the compromise was presented as a sentence by the bishop of Maguelonne and the lieutenant of Majorca, who had been elected by the consuls and the syndics or procurators of the people, acting for themselves and all others of the people.

The two men were given complete and special powers to deal with all aspects of the dispute as “arbitri, arbitratores, seu amicabiles compositores.”*® Although the populares cautiously kept their syndicate in existence until the consuls carried out all its terms, the agreement attributed to these dignitaries was confirmed by the crown in October 1331 and again in 1340, and it was generally obeyed. This recourse to arbitration is consonant with the medieval practice of taking counsel with those touched by governmental acts in order to gain at least the semblance of consent. A forced or violent solution was repugnant to this way of thought, and the decree of every medieval court was

“plus le résultant d’un arbitrage, l’enregistrement d’un accord qu’une décision imposée.’*? Like the reliance on a governing council of the sénéchaussée, a penchant for arbitration may also be seen as evolving

46. GC, nos. 3515, 3523. . 45. GC, no. 3509.

47. HL, 10:698 (September 1329): “Si vero partes predicte concordare seu pacem facere voluerint, placet nobis et volumus quod hoc facere possint sine emenda propter hoc nobis prestanda, ita tamen quod concordia per ipsos seu per comissarios predictos seu deputatos ab eis curie nostre deportetur. Et ut partes predicte ad pacem et concordiam facilius reducantur, volumus et de gratia speciali concedimus, quod in casu, in quo inter partes predictas pax et concordia facte fuerint, arresta prefata, ordinacio dicti Alfonsi et condempnaciones per ejusdem Alfonsi deputatos facte, pro non dictis, factis

et pronunciatis habeantur... .” 48. Following the text transcribed in GC, no. 3547 (October 1331).

49. Guenée, Senlis, p. 303, Cf. Fourquin, Soulévements populaires, p. 31; Gideon Sjoberg, The Preindustrial City (New York, 1960), pp. 227-230.

Roman Law and Equity 99 from the long-standing practice of assembling the leading families of a particular locality to decide matters that might adversely affect its peace or security.°° But the seneschal now was surrounded by professionally trained lawyers rather than vassals or “good men,” and arbitrators had also changed in form with the renaissance of legal studies. Arbitrational techniques were throughout France strongly influenced by the stipulations of the Roman and especially of the canon law, which favored this

form of justice;5! it has, indeed, been argued that the customs of the North followed these learned laws more slavishly than those of the Midi.5? Both the newer, more formal type of conciliation and the older intervention by “common friends” are often encountered in Montpellier, whose citizens, judging by the notarial evidence, turned to arbitration even more frequently than they went to law.>3 Since the custom of the city is, however, singularly silent regarding the practice,** it is the acts themselves that provide our only information about the specific procedures followed in this region during the later Middle Ages. The inhabitants of this province took full advantage of the presence of a distinguished law faculty and numerous bar; lawyers and members of the faculty were preferred as arbitrators even in relatively minor matters. Although the residents of rural communities sometimes had to fall back on notaries, these were seldom resorted to in Montpellier. Perhaps more noteworthy is the extraordinary diversity of the questions submitted to

the arbitration of legists. Despite their education in the two laws, arbitrators deviated in important ways from the rules of the glossators and 50. Dependance on such assemblies from the tenth century perhaps resulted from the disappearance of “feudal” institutions: Lewis, Development of Southern French and Catalan Society, pp. 364-373. For the arbitration of land rents between proprietor and cultivator, see ibid., pp. 279-282, 392-395; Lewis, “Popular Assemblies and the Charter of Liberties of Montpellier in 1202,” Album Elemér Malyusz (Budapest, 1976), p. 357.

51. Beaumanoir’s treatment of arbitration markedly resembles that of the canonist Tancred: Bongert, Cours laiques, pp. 159-163. Yet Beaumanoir was “le plus original cependant de nos vieux auteurs”: op. cit., p. 160; Paul Viollet, Précis de l’histoire du droit francais (Paris, 1887), p. 157. The canon law in turn largely reproduced the stipulations of the imperial code: Amanieu, “Arbitrage,” cols. 865-867. See also Fourgous, Arbitrage, p. 44; Janeau, “Arbitrage en Dauphiné,” pp. 239-240, for the church’s continuing preference for arbitration. 52. Adolphe Tardif, La procédure civile et criminelle aux XIIT° et XIV* siécles (Paris, 1885), pp. 20-21 (comparing the coutumier of Artois, compiled about 1300, with the customs of Toulouse and Montpellier). 53. Hilaire, “Pratique notariale,” p. 173. 54. The charter of 1204 (art. 112) was content to put the force of the communal court behind the decisions of arbitrators without specifically regulating the practice.

100 Roman Law and Equity decretalists, and common practice apparently placed no limits on the types of questions that might thus be resolved. Perhaps because of the complicated structure of property rights, members of the faculty were often asked to rule on disputes involving real property. Matrimonial and testamentary questions also were confided to their care, and the “common friends” regulating commercial matters generally included, by the

fourteenth century, at least one lawyer.®> Although the Roman law strictly forbade it,5® the commissions to Saquet and Fabreforte and the sentence of 1331 indicate that even criminal acts could be touched on by an arbitrator’s decision.*’ The history of the dispute in Montpellier shows that arbitration was used to resolve conflict between groups as well as between individuals, and the sentences of 1323 and 1331 modified the system of taxation and

the organization of communal government. The many extant acts of compromise and arbitrator’s decrees dealing with the relationship between lords and communities or between various corporations within a community may often be, like the sentence in 1331, examples of less formal mediation ratified by a fictitious sentence.*® It is nevertheless signifi-

cant that private judges elected by private contracts served to formulate public law and that the decisions of legists were considered sufficient to

regulate questions that would today be submitted to a constituent 55. Hilaire, “Pratique notariale,” p. 175; de Charrin, Testaments, pp. 198-202. Canon law did not allow arbitration affecting the status of marriage since only an episcopal court was competent to rule on the validity of marriages: Amanieu, “Arbitrage,” col. 878. 56. D 4.8.32.6. It is difficult to understand how civil courts could have taken into account the distinction in the canon law between criminal acts and intentions (Amanieu, “Arbitrage,” col. 878); the custom of Artois and many other thirteenth- and fourteenthcentury compilations thus accepted the Roman law in this, although Beaumanoir does

permit a compromise with the consent of the suzerain: Coutumes de Beauvaisis, paragraph 1296; E. Glasson, Histoire du droit et des institutions de la France, 6 vols. (Paris, 1895), 6:449. But cases that touched on criminal acts must have been in practice submitted to arbitration or there is no point to a ruling of 1290 stating that arbitrators cannot condemn a person to civil or natural death: Charles V. Langlois, Textes relatifs a Vhistoire du Parlement (Paris, 1888), p. 151. 57. N. 47 above. 58. The archives of this sénéchaussée contain more than fifty examples of the use of arbitration to modify governmental institutions or the rights of lordship. Fourgous, Arbi-

trage, pp. 36-40, comments that the majority of the acts from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries concern public and not private law. Janeau (“Arbitrage en Dauphiné,” p. 244) states that arbitration in Dauphiné dealt mainly with questions of real property, but he includes “droits féodaux” in the latter category.

Roman Law and Equity 101 assembly or to popular referendum. Lacking the concepts of a written constitution and universal suffrage, the Middle Ages fell back on experts cognizant of the natural law and “right reason” embodied in the Roman

law and representative in some sense of the interests touched. The medieval habit of taking counsel with men learned in the “ancient custom” of a locality is perhaps again reflected. The Roman law, the ancient custom governing Occitania, was the legacy of an equally urban civilization; its principles could thus be applied with sufficient accuracy and impartiality to give legitimacy to the decisions of /egum professores. This method of justice was apparently considered sufficiently authoritative that its appearance was sought even when a compromise had been reached through other means. French jurisprudence did not recognize forced arbitration,*? but freedom of choice may be considered somewhat illusory when provincial officials presented themselves as arbitrators or royal commissioners offered to end their inquiries if the parties would come to terms. Since, however, the outcome of these attempts suggests

that a decree was unenforceable until the consuls and populares were ready to obey it, arbitration remained effective only when it was freely elected in practice as well as in theory. The choice of royal or seignorial representatives does not in itself indicate that a compromise was forced since the authority and prestige of these officials might be sought to ensure compliance by all members of the two factions. It is perhaps for the same reason that, contrary to the Roman and canon law, the number of

59. Fourgous (Arbitrage, p. 51, n. 2) found no example of forced arbitration in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Among the sources of medieval jurisprudence concerning arbitration were sections of the imperial code discussing the appointment of experts (arbitri) enjoying a limited amount of discretion in cases demanding specific technical knowledge as well as for the valuation of property and the establishment of boundaries: Berger, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law, pp. 365-366; Paul Girard, Manuel élémentaire de droit romain, 8th ed. (Paris, 1929), pp. 1037, 1050-51. Medieval law also called for or permitted decisions by judicial or professional experts, but these were called judices dati rather than arbitri; see the examples from this sénéchaussée cited in Rogozinski, “Counsellors,” pp. 430-432. The assessor attached to the communal court originally fulfilled a similar function: Germain, Commune, 1:195. Arbitration was imposed by law under the ancien régime for certain types of familial and commercial matters; in the twentieth century, it has been made obligatory for the resolution of disputes arising out of the organization of labor: Amanieu, “Arbitrage,” col. 890; J. Lafon, “L’arbitre prés la juridiction consulaire de Paris au XVIII*® siecle,” RHD 51 (1973), 217-270; Henri Delfan, Des pouvoirs des arbitres et surarbitres en matiere d’execution de leurs sentences (Montpellier, 1941).

102 Roman Law and Equity mediators was always even and generally included two men associated with each of the town’s lords.® These acts thus reveal a relatively sophisticated understanding of the laws governing arbitration and the ways in which they might be manipulated to gain a desired end. The differentiation between arbitri and ar-

bitratores is not, for example, merely the jargon of lawyers. Legal thought had drawn fundamental distinctions between these two types of judges with respect to their powers. Several regional customs recognized these distinctions, and in Montpellier they still possessed certain practical consequences. Whereas an arbiter was thus required to follow standard judicial procedures and rule according to the law, an arbitrator was not bound to follow written or oral custom but might decide the matter ac-

cording to equity or the consensus of good men.®! Judging by the evidence from 1323, the amicable compositor or common friencl differed

from the arbitrator only in volunteering to bring the opposing sides

together as best he could rather than being nominated by a compromissum, like an arbitrator, his initiative was limited only by the demands of equitable justice and common sense, and the two titles were

generally assimilated.*2 From these definitions certain conclusions

60. Medieval civilians and canonists generally accepted with Ulpian a majority decision by

two of three arbitrators: D 4.8.17.5-7; Amanieu, “Arbitrage,” cols. 881-882; Fourgous, Arbitrage, pp. 99-100. Recommended by Beaumanoir and the customs of

Anjou and Artois, this procedure was sometimes adhered to in the Dauphine: Beaumanoir, Coutumes de Beauvaisis, paragraph 1265; Glasson, Histoire, 6:445; Janeau, “Arbitrage en Dauphiné,” p. 247. But notarial evidence shows a widespread preference for an even number, perhaps to allow each party an equal chance: Bongert, Cours laiques, pp. 171-172; Guenée, Tribunaux, pp. 117-118. In Montpellier commercial and familial matters not involving the communal or provincial governments were also submitted to a panel of two or four; cf. de Charrin, Testaments, p. 202.

61. Ex fide, ex aequo, ex bono: A. Amanieu, “Arbitrateur,” Dict. de droit canonique, 1:898; see also Amanieu, “Arbitrage,” cols. 869, 886. As this author indicates, the term arbitrator is not found in the classical texts but was created by the canon lawyers to describe a procedure that can perhaps be assimilated to the arbitrium bont viri prescribed as a form of appeal from the sentences of arbitrators; cf. the distinction between arbitrium and arbitratus, D 17.2.76. The distinction must have been useful for it passed from the canonists to commentators on custom and the Roman law (including Pierre Jayme, cited below, n. 85) and was also accepted by diplomatic practice; Beaumanoir does not use these terms but achieves the same end by differentiating between simple arbitration and that “de haut et de bas”: Coutumes, paragraph 1295; Bongert, Cours laiques, p. 170; Fourgous, Arbitrage, pp. 57-58; Glasson, Histoire, 6:451.

62. Several authors seem to agree with Ganshof (/nternational Relations, p. 315) that the usage of both arbitratores and amicabiles compositores reflects the “imprecision in ter-

Roman Law and Equity 103 followed that were apparently respected by practitioners. French custom, like the Roman law, often forbade an ordinary judge to be elected as an arbiter.©? Presumably this rule was binding in this district, since the act of 1323 carefully specified that the seneschal and lieutenant of Majorca had offered to induce true peace and concord as “amicabiles compositores et amici utriusque partis.”* Although Fabreforte and Balsenq successfully mediated this quarrel as common friends, their duties in Paris similarly

precluded election as arbiters, since arbiters could not delegate their powers as Fabreforte did in 1332.® Because arbitration and mediation were commonly resorted to when the parties did not wish to adhere to the strict rule of law, the techniques

of the arbitrator or compositor were generally more efficacious than those of the arbiter, and most acts of compromise included by the four-

teenth century the superficially redundant formula encountered in 1331.°° Mediators empowered as arbitri, arbitratores, or amicabiles compositores might thus act according to law or according to equity, and the exact method used must be ascertained by examining their sentence.®’ On minology, so frequent in the Middle Ages.” In this case at least, the voluntary nature of the intervention and the coupling of the latter rubric with amicus communis suggest

that amicable composition originally referred to the older procedure of consulting amici et boni homines (described by Lewis and Cheyette, n. 38 above), who were amalgamated with arbitratores after the device of the compromissum was adopted through the influence of the canon law. 63. D 4.8.9.2: a sentence of arbitrium by a judge acting in the affairs of his normal competence ought not to be enforced. See also D 26.5.4. The canon law, which rejected this provision and did permit arbitration by the ordinary judge (Amanieu, “Arbitrage,” col. 871), was cited by the custom of Anjou. In Brittany custom was said to forbid seneschals acting between those subject to their jurisdiction, and a statute of the count of Provence apparently extended a similar prohibition to all judges in that province: Fourgous, Arbitrage, pp. 92-93; Guiraud, Fondations, 2:34. In Dauphiné (Janeau, “Arbitrage,” pp. 250) the rule was respected with regard to ordinary judges in the localities, but the Parlement of Grenoble later mediated between nobles. 64. N. 44 above. 65. Since an arbitrator possessed only those powers conferred by the compromise, these could logically be delegated only when specifically permitted by that act: D 4.8.32.16; 4.8.45. 66. Thus also in Senlis and the Dauphiné: Guenée, Tribunaux, p. 117; Janeau, Arbitrage,

p. 247. Cf. Karl Bader, “Arbiter arbitrator seu amicabilis compositor: Zur Verbreitung einer kanonistischen Formel in Gebieten nordlich der Alpen,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung fur Rechtsgeschichte, Kan. Abt. 46 (1960), 239-276; Karl-Heinz Ziegler, “Arbiter, arbitrator und amicabilis compositor,” ibid., Rom. Abt. 84 (1967), 376-381.

67. Guillaume Durandus, Speculum judiciale 1.1, De arbitro et arbitratore 7: “Sed numquid peti potest huiusmodi reductio, quando compromissum est tanquam in arbitrum,

104 Roman Law and Equity all six occasions, including the hypothetical sentence in 1331, the way of equity was proposed, the mediators changing the customary constitution or dealing with matters not covered by customary law. A rapid solution was presumably desired, at least by the consuls, and the proceedings were normally secret. Witnesses were called and documents examined only by the hybrid commission of 1326, whose members were elected but acted under a mandate from the royal lieutenant for Languedoc responding to an order in Parlement. Common practice provided that a compromise or arbitrator’s sentence

might be rejected in cases of fraud or manifestly unjust decisions; the agreement of the members as well as the head of a corporation was required, and the syndics presented themselves as enjoying full powers of procuration from the people. The act was read and copies were provided to, and often registered with, the appropriate tribunals, which were expected to enforce it as a binding contract. Appeal to the ordinary courts

from binding arbitration was logically prohibited by the Roman and canon law as well as by several customs.® In 1324 the consuls did appeal to the Parlement, alleging a violation of their custom, although they had agreed to accept the compromise of amicable compositors; in accepting their appeal, the high court may not, however, have intended to derogate

from this principle but may simply have acted out of ignorance of the facts.°9 The clause in the sentence of 1331 specifically forbidding the parties to solicit any court would suggest, however, that appeals sometimes were permitted by local custom.”° A compromise reached with the help of common friends depended for

enforcement on public opinion and a high regard for the sanctity of oaths. Obedience to the decisions of arbitri or arbitratores was somearbitratorem et amicabilem compositorem? Dic inspici qualiter sit processum.” Speculi clarissimi viri Gulielmi Durandi, 3 vols. (Lyons, 1547), 1, fol. 47v. 68. See above, Chapter III, on the actions of the syndics. On the question of appeal from binding arbitration, see D 4.8.27.2. The reductio a bono viro allowed in cases of fraud or manifest iniquity (C 2.53.3; Amanieu, “Arbitrateur”) was possibly adopted again, in different terms, in the work of Beaumanoir, when he authorized the judge to be ap-

proached in the case of a sentence that had “outrageousment passe¢e measure”: Coutumes, paragraphs 1295, 1297. 69. Appeal to the Parlement from an arbitrator’s sentence was forbidden by the crown as late as 1363: Isambert, 5:160 (art. 2). 70. Some customaries did allow for appeals in the absence of a clause prohibiting them: Glasson, Histoire de droit, p. 456.

Roman Law and Equity 105 times guaranteed by a clause setting a financial penalty for noncompliance, but the agreements of 1324 and 1331 do not include such a penalty clause.”1 Enforcement was apparently left to the seignorial and royal courts, and the act of 1331 also enjoyed whatever authority might derive from ratification by the crown, which had repeatedly indicated its desire

for conciliation. The submission of such transactions to the ordinary courts has been criticized as blurring the distinction between arbitration and litigation,’”? although it is difficult to see why a compromise should have been treated differently from any other contract. Royal sanction was a legitimate exercise of gracious justice and may also have been indicated by the need to forgive prior sentences in criminal cases; southern custom had, moreover, traditionally treated the decisions of arbitrators as judicial acts, and the communal charter of 1204 thus promised that proceedings or agreements passed or made before arbitrators would have the same value as if they had taken place before the communal judge.” Since not only industrial and commercial guilds but also ad hoc associations such as the populares and relatively amorphous social groupings like the nobility, bourgeoisie, and laborers were conceived of as corporate bodies within the larger body of the community and regulated by its laws, arbitration of social conflict might more usefully be compared to contemporary systems of collective bargaining between management and labor that function within a procedural framework set up by statutory law yet depend on the assent of the parties concerned. The skillful use of arbitration to end resistance to taxation and recon-

cile the conflicting needs of large groups shows that the distinction

71. Penalty clauses are, however, sometimes found in compromises or sentences concerning private disputes; the general rule in Montpellier could be ascertained through a comparison of all extant acts from these decades. See below n. 73 for the custom of Toulouse; cf. J. Roussier, “Du compromis sine poena en droit romain classique,” RHD 18 (1939), 167-20. 72. Cheyette, “Suum cuique,” p. 296. 73. Art. 112. The custom of Toulouse (articles 10 and 66) also stated that the consular court would execute a compromise or sentence rendered by arbitrators even in the

absence of a penal clause; the author of the commentary to this custom shows a remarkable mastery of the classical sources but does not here refer to contemporary practice: Henri Gilles, Les coutumes de Toulouse (1286) et leur premier commentaire (1296) (Toulouse, 1969), pp. 190-195. It might be noted that French law presently gives an arbitrator’s decision the same force as that of a tribunal: Amanieu, “Arbitrateur,” p. 892.

106 Roman Law and Equity sometimes drawn between juridical procedures and substantive principles of law is a false dichotomy. In most cases, procedure /s substance, since the organization of justice and the techniques and powers of enforcement available to judges and arbitrators affect the outcome of a suit

as much as the rules of oral or written law. A widow who can find no court or agent of conciliation to enforce her rights is disinherited whether a province follows the Roman law of testament or the Norman custom of primogeniture. Several complementary systems of justice coexisted in southern France that incorporated the learned law more or less extensively: although they served different ends, each had been developed with the help of Roman models. Amicable agreements between individuals

may well have used the forms of traditional custom, but they were recorded by a notarial system influenced by medieval Roman law. An individual denial of tax liability, such as that advanced by Ceélestin Séguier, was properly within the purview of seignorial and royal courts patterned after those described by the imperial code. Tax delinquency by organized groups or other acts threatening the social or political constitution found

resolution through voluntary treaties achieved by manipulating techniques found in the treatises of canon lawyers. At each level or stage, the seignorial and royal courts in the province did not and could not impose a decision but merely sanctioned local custom, whether it was the oral

custom governing marriage contracts or the more heavily romanized custom defining the powers of arbiters and arbitrators. If the royal courts helped to enforce regional custom, we have seen that the judges of these courts and the members of commissions of conciliation and arbitration had strong ties to the province and enjoyed long terms of office. The members of the law faculty whose opinions were

solicited had previously acted as arbitrators in similar matters and as communal and seignorial councillors and judges. The manipulation of arbitrational techniques and the resulting consilia and responsa show familiarity with both the ordinary glosses and also the post-glossatorial literature. Judges and arbitrators did not rigidly adhere to Italian models and sometimes deviated from their texts, perhaps because they had confidence in their own juridical skills and certainly because of their long experience aS magistrates and as members of the community. The learned law provided a ready source of precedents, but these remedies could not serve to secure social order or regulate the duties of corporations and individuals unless they were adapted to contemporary circumstances or quietly passed over when they could not be made relevant.

Roman Law and Equity 107 The Participation of Jurists in the Creation of New Governmental and Social Forms The complicated process by which the Roman law became the universal custom of the Midi cannot be understood by placing on a map of the

region “one small flag” when a citation to the Digest or to the town charter 1s encountered.” A tripartite division between the learned law, written custom, and oral custom is inadequate to explain the efflorescence during the later Middle Ages of laws radically modifying the order

of society. Legum doctores were not, as we have seen, sequestered in their schools; they contributed to the creation of new governmental institutions and forms of social etiquette as councillors, judges, and arbitrators. The South was not ruled by three distinct types of law but by a congeries of customs, or rather by an undivided spectrum of custom that becomes more deeply tinged with the imperial purple as we move from

the documents copied into the registers of rural notaries to those pre-

sented before the court of the seneschal or the council of the sénéchaussée. If the science of jurisprudence reborn during the renaissance of the twelfth century did not immediately replace the traditional custom of southern France, neither can we say that it was ignored until imposed upon the populace by the sovereign courts of the ancien régime. The incorporation of the Roman law into local custom required four centuries precisely because it was welcomed or resisted as it proved useful or detrimental in each instance to influential and powerful elements within society. Several distinct stages are apparent in the “penetration” of the learned

law, the first of these being characterized by a rhythm of advance and retreat. The rebirth of the public notariate and the acceptance of rules governing the number of witnesses and the rights of survivors and wives has been dated to the decades between 1120 and 1160. Since it thus preceded the presence in Montpellier of Italian legists like Placentinus, this first stage was not dependent upon a sophisticated understanding of the text but perhaps represents the influence of notaries trained in Italy.”

74. Borrowing the felicitous phrase of Roger Aubenas, “Quelques problemes,” p. 51. 75. André Gouron, “Les étapes de la pénétration du droit romain au XII‘ siécle dans l’ancienne Septimanie,” Annales du Midi 69 (1957), 108-116; idem, “Diffusion des consulats méridionaux et expansion du droit romain,” BEC 121 (1963), 54-56; Edmond Meynial, “De l’application du droit romain dans la région de Montpellier,” Atti del

108 Roman Law and Equity Like the growing reliance on the renunciations specified by the law, the codification of municipal custom in 1204 is perhaps symptomatic of both greater knowledge of Roman legislation and resistance to these rules.’® Although the jus scriptum was to be followed whenever custom was silent or deficient,’”” marital and testamentary procedures contrary to its provisions were accepted or mandated by the charter.’ The specific rejection of the Roman law by private acts and the municipal code — the latter copied, often verbatim, by the charters for Alés, Narbonne, and Saint-Gilles — was perhaps more necessary because there was as yet no school of law in the Midi, and the /egistae and jurisperiti who had studied

at Bologna during the first half of the thirteenth century apparently made few attempts to reconcile their imported learning with regional habit.79

Congresso internazionale di scienze storiche, 12 vols. in six (Rome, 1904-1907), 9:147-169. Placentinus seems to have resided in Montpellier in the 1170s; he apparently devoted himself to his commentaries on the corpus juris and took no part in the public

or private life of the city: Tisset, “Placentin,” pp. 75-78. He was preceded at Montpellier by Rogerius, who may have written his Summa codicis there in the 1160s; see Carlo Mor, “A lorigine de l’école de Montpellier,” Mémoires droit écrit 6 (1967), 17. 76. Gouron, “Pénétration,” pp. 117-119; “Coutume,” p. 208; “Diffusion.” See the classic study of Edmond Meynial, “Des renonciations au moyen age et dans notre ancien droit,” RHD 24-26 (1900-1902), 28 (1904). Marie Carlin depended on the device of renunciation to show that the learned law was not known in Provence until the end of the twelfth century, considerably later than in Languedoc: La pénétration du droit romain dans les actes de la pratique provencale (Paris, 1967), pp. 153, 297-301. 77. The oath prescribed by the town charter (art. 5) obliged the bayle and “curiales” to judge cases “ubi mores et consuetudines curie deficiunt, secundum juris ordinem.” In ratifying the charter the king of Aragon and Marie of Montpellier similarly pledged that their court would hold these customs inviolate and render judgement “eis deficientibus, secundum jus scriptum”: Teulet, Layettes du trésor des chartes, 1:265. 78. Tisset, “Placentin,” pp. 80-83.

79. Pierre Legendre, “Pour une ré-interpretation des commentaires pré-accursien,” Mémoires droit écrit 6 (1967), 33. The influence of the customs of Montpellier extended even to the Rouergue and Auvergne: Gouron, “Coutume,” p. 194. See Tisset, “Placen-

tin,” p. 79, for their incorporation into the charters cited. For the presence of these men “learned in the law” and for Occitanian students at Bologna during the second half of the thirteenth century, see Henri Gilles, “L’enseignement du droit en Languedoc au XHI* siécle,” Cahiers de Fanjeaux 5 (1970), 208-209; and “Accurse et les universités du

Midi,” Atti del convegno internazionale di studi accursiani, 3 vols. (Milan, 1968), 3:1043-1046. The faculty at Bologna retained considerable prestige and continued to draw students from southern France even after the founding of law schools at Montpellier and Toulouse at the end of the century: Antoine Thomas, “Les méridionaux et Puniversité de Bologne,” Annales du Midi | (1889), 59-66.

Roman Law and Equity 109 Although certain of its regulations had been rejected, the learned law cannot have been repugnant to the inhabitants of the Midi or their lords. We have seen that the appointment of Guillaume Séguier in 1268 was initiated by the king of Aragon, and the nascent faculty enjoyed the support of the municipal government;® neighboring towns were soon eager, moreover, to possess their own schools, sometimes by bidding for the services of teachers at Montpellier.®! If the father of Célestin Séguier was

in fact the first professor of law attached to the University of Montpellier,®? lists prepared for ceremonial or juridical purposes show that he

rapidly gained the assistance of numerous colleagues. Some thirty-six 80. Pride in the possession of a law faculty undoubtedly contributed to the rapid association of legists with many acts of the town government; it is also exemplified by the inclusion in the town chronicle for 1293 of the statement (possibly erroneous) that the first doctorate was awarded in that year to Guillaume de Saint-Amans: Petit thalamus, ed. Pegat and Thomas, p. 341. By the 1330s /egum doctores were exempted from the communal taille (see above, Chapter III.) 81. For the attempts to found schools of law at cities such as Alés, Béziers, Carcassonne, Cahors, Lyons, Nimes, and Narbonne (in most cases soon abortive), see now André Gouron, “Enseignement,” pp. 2-15, and “Canonistes et civilistes des écoles de Narbonne et de Béziers,” Monumenta Juris Canonici, Series C: Subsidia 5 (1976), 523-536. See also Gilles, “Enseignement,” p. 214, and the studies of the schools at Cahors, Narbonne, and Pamiers in the same volume of the Cahiers de Fanjeaux (vol. 5, 1970). It may be added to these accounts that Pons d’Aumelas, while preparing to take a doctorate at Montpellier (Cart. Univ. Montp., no. 22) was in July 1290 paid by the consuls of Ales for reading the J/nfortiatum and Digestum Novum: Bardon, Alais de 1250 a 1340, p. 197. Gouron (“Enseignement,” pp. 6-7) has d’Aumelas leaving Ales shortly thereafter. He may, however, have remained in the city and continued to teach for another year, for he witnessed acts by the consuls in January, February, and July 1291 (in the latter case his presence is said to have been specifically requested by the consuls): AM Ales 18-10, no. 10; 1S-18, nos. 24-25. For his later career, see Viollet, “Bérenger Frédol,” pp. 66-67; Langlois, “Pons d’Aumelas”; Pegues, Lawyers, pp. 103-106. 82. In his letter intervening between the bishop of Maguelonne and the king of Aragon concerning the appointment of Guillaume Séguier (Appendix II, no. 36), Pope Clement IV affirmed episcopal authority to grant the licentia docendi in law but added that this right had not been exercised previously in Montpellier “ubi nec studentium vel docentium numerus exigebat”: Cart. Univ. Montp., no. 12; Gouron, “Enseignement,” p. 18; Tisset, “Placentin,” p. 94. Placentinus and Rogerius do not seem to have been associated formally with the university during their sojourns in Montpellier: Tisset, p. 78; Mor, “Origine,” pp. 18-20. The glossator Bernard de Dorna, who had studied and taught at Bologna, resided in Montpellier from 1224 to 1234 (and was judge of the seignorial court in the latter year), but no document states that he taught law while in the city: Gouron, “Enseignement,” p. 2. Jean de Saint-Michel is called juris civilis professor in 1267, but there is again no evidence that he provided a regular course of instruction: Gouron, p. 18. (Saint-Michel was, moreover, cited as simple jurisperitus the preceding year: Arch. de Montp., 12, no. 4.)

110 Roman Law and Equity men are associated with the law school before 1314, and an episcopal letter of 1292 suggests a teaching body of fifteen, a number certainly not exceeded in the fourteenth century.*5 Many wrote extensively on both the Roman law and local custom, and some are known to subsequent writers on the written law and even to commentators on northern French juris-

prudence.®* The work of these post-glossators was frankly didactic in nature and sought to present imperial law in a clear and attractive manner. The law of actions, for example, was related in the Practica aurea of

Pierre Jayme to the steps that might be taken in local courts,® and responsa and consilia, sometimes responding to specific questions, addressed precisely those aspects of property and familial law previously immune to Romanization.®* If some jurists who have received the atten83. See Appendix III. 84. Gilles, “Enseignement,” p. 214. Meijers, Etudes, 3:168, 205-208, for a discussion of some of the manuscripts in major libraries containing glosses on the imperial code. Several opinions by Bernard Sabors, Pierre Calvel, and Pierre Séguier have been published by Fabre, “Questiones doctorum Montispessulani.” A tractatus composed by

Thomas de Sauteyrargues was owned by the Provencal jurist Gui Pape: Louis Chabrand, Etude sur Gui Pape (Paris, 1912), pp. 207, 229. For Sabors, Calvel, and Séguier, as well as Brémond de Montferrier, see Appendix II. 85. The clarity and utility of this work, which has frequent references to the tribunals of Montpellier, brought it a large audience until the seventeenth century; it was considered authoritative by influential jurists and also cited by commentaries on customary law: Chabrand, Gui Pape, p. 204; Ourliac, Etienne Bertrand, p. 30; Paul Fournier, “Pierre Jame (Petrus Jacobi) d’Aurillac,” Histoire littéraire de la France, 36,2 (1927), p. 521; Régis Rohmer, “Un jurisconsulte de XIV* siécle, Pierre Jacobi,” Bulletin trimestriel de la société d’agriculture, industrie, sciences et arts de la Lozeére (1920), pp. 109-114. Jayme studied at Montpellier from 1291 and was awarded the doctorate toward the end of 1311 when he began work on this treatise; there is no certain proof that he was received as a member of the faculty, although he undoubtedly presented introductory lectures after receiving the /icentiatus in 1309: Fournier, “Pierre Jame,” pp. 482, 485, 495; Roger Grand, “Un jurisconsulte du XIV* siécle, Pierre Jacobi,” BEC 79 (1918), 77. Toward the middle of 1312 (Fournier, p. 488), he was appointed by Guillaume Durand, bishop of Mende and himself an esteemed legist, to the office of official or judge of the spiritual court for that diocese, but he was present at the trial of Guillaume Séguier in December 1312 and is given the title of /egis utriusque professor (GC, no. 1125). For his subsequent career, see the studies by Fournier, Rohmer, and Grand as well as the evidence presented by Fournier, “Nouveaux documents sur le jurisconsulte Pierre Jacobi,” BEC 100 (1939), 72-92. 86. See above, note 22, and, for Pierre Jayme, Fournier, “Pierre Jame,” p. 517; Edmond Meynial, “Notes sur la formation de la théorie du domaine divisé,” Mélanges Fitting, 2 vols. (Montpellier, 1907-1908), 2:430, 459. During the last quarter of the thirteenth century, jurists at other southern schools also began to relate the learned law to local

practice and to comment on written custom. A commentary on the customs of Toulouse dating from 1296 apparently began as a series of lectures by Arnaud Arpa-

Roman Law and Equity 111 tion of scholars taught only briefly at Montpellier, other men of equal note in their own time—including the canonist Jesseline de Cassagnes, Brémond de Montferrier, and several of those consulted concerning the legitimacy of the popular syndicate and its allegations — spent most of their lives in the city and expatiated on the written law through their counsel and through their judicial decisions as well as in their teaching and writing.®’

The members of this law faculty took an active part in the life of the province and contributed to the creation of new forms of governmental organization and social regulation. Their advice concerning private and public affairs was solicited by individuals and corporations as well as by seignorial and municipal governments; the provincial administration soon came to depend upon their juridical skills in the defense of royal rights, and at least three of their number held major offices in Paris. As members of town councils and the council of the sénéchaussée they had a large say in the reform of judicial procedures and were directly responsible for the establishment of organized systems of ordinary and appellate courts that betray the influence of late imperial models.®* Their decisions as judges of the same courts formed a network of precedents or judicial custom, often founded on the Roman law, that was preserved by the provincial archives and cited when similar matters came before the courts in

later years. When litigants avoided the ordinary system of justice, they often turned to members of the Montpellier studium, and the learned law was again cited in judgments touching on rights of dower or pasturage and the reciprocal obligations of lords and communities or groups within a community. Like their consilia addressing questions of inheritance or delle to local practitioners: Gilles, Les coutumes de Toulouse, pp. 23-24, 38. Recent scholarship has stressed the studies of judicial procedure such as the Summa conceptionis libellorum of Guillaume de Ferriéres, which may also have been directed to the bar of Toulouse: Fournier, “Pierre Jame,” pp. 500-501; Meijers, Etudes, 3:176. But the latter work is apparently only a fragment of lectures presented in 1285 and 1286 that may well have treated other, substantive topics in the same manner: Gilles, “Enseignement,” pp. 211, 219. 87. The advice of these legists was habitually solicited from the 1280s. Many members of the Montpellier faculty who were among the most esteemed teachers and prolific writers also held administrative and judicial posts; even if we do not have their opinions . on political and social questions, it is difficult to believe that they ignored the learning they professed in ruling on the cases submitted for their judgment. See Appendix II for the careers of individuals like Cassagnes and Montferrier. 88. Rogozinski, “Ordinary and Major.”

112 Roman Law and Equity taxation, these activities as councillors, judges, and arbitrators were a

natural extension of ordinary teaching responsibilities. Since both medieval education and the deliberations of governing councils relied on

oral presentation, the influence of individual jurists cannot always be traced, but the learning of these law professors would not have been so frequently called upon had there existed a strict separation between the learned law and everyday practice. Not least among the achievements of the Montpellier law faculty was the training of hundreds of ordinary practitioners who made available to

a large portion of the inhabitants of this sénéchaussée the sometimes mixed benefits of a numerous bar. No fewer than five hundred men acting as counsellors, procurators, or judges in lay courts before 1350 are given titles that unquestionably indicate some education in the Roman law.°° More than half resided in Montpellier itself, and the middling classes of the city could literally choose from among a hundred advocates learned

in the law. It is perhaps not surprising that most of those attending the university were recruited from among, and employed by, the wealthier citizenry of the larger towns, but the inhabitants of rural villages also secured professional counsel in matters they considered important by banding together in formal or informal corporations.°° By the 1320s,

those who appealed to the king’s justice normally did so with the assistance of an attorney trained in the Roman law. If the more humble members of society were likely to have their cases brought to court or arbitrated by simple jurisperiti or licentiati, these representatives at least were capable of following the proper procedures.*! When taxation or exemption from taxation was at stake, wealthy individuals like Célestin

Séguier or organized groups like the populares saw to it that their arguments were presented by men who were equal in learning and stature to the noble /egum doctores who comprised the seneschal’s council.

If the years between 1120 and 1160 witnessed the first stage in the recovery of the Roman law in the Narbonensis Prima, then those between 1280 and 1320 saw the taking of a necessary second step with the foundation at Montpellier — and in other cities, most notably Toulouse

—of an indigenous teaching faculty that trained hundreds of practi89. See Appendix III. 90. Rogozinski, “Lawyers,” chs. 5-6 for Montpellier, ch. 2 for the legal profession in small towns and villages. 91. Recent studies (above, nn. 7-8) denying the substantive influence of Roman law do recognize the general familiarity with highly sophisticated procedures.

Roman Law and Equity 113 tioners while it began the laborious process of reconciling oral and written custom with the learned law. The full incorporation of imperial juris-. prudence required centuries, but it would not have been possible without the relatively rapid acceptance of the Roman law exemplified by the ap-

pointment of members of this faculty as arbitrators and communal judges as well as by the large number of jurisperiti attached to the bar of Montpellier. The inhabitants of the city had sought to limit the applicability of the Roman law during the first years of the thirteenth century; by the end of the same century they no longer depended on custom as an adequate defense of individual or corporate rights and privileges. Roman lawyers continued to be harshly treated by popular literature,9? but the litigation arising out of popular unrest indicates that a large segment of the population made use of professional counsel. The proud boast that Occitania was governed by the jus scriptum cannot be dismissed as an empty gesture when men trained in that law intervened in every aspect of government and society.

92. Edmond Meynial, “Remarques sur la réaction populaire contre l’invasion du droit romain,” Mélanges Chabaneau = Romanische Forschungen 23 (Erlangen, 1907), pp. 557-584. See also Gouron, “Role,” pp. 66-67; Guenée, Tribunaux, pp. 3-6; Bartier, “Légistes,” p. 285, n. 2; Yvonne Lanhers, “Crimes et criminels au XIV‘ siécle,” Revue Historique 240 (1968), 330.

VIII Community and Privilege ——2-2—

By Way of Conclusion The Practical Applicability of Theories of Evident Necessity and Popular Consent The immediate consequences of this episode in the history of resistance to taxation do not seem to merit the strenuous efforts of the people of Montpellier and their sometime allies on.the seneschal’s staff: the popular challenge to consular rule may well appear an expensive exercise in litigation without concomitant gain. The dispute demanded the attention of many highly paid officials who might have been engaged with

other matters, and the direct cost to the people was higher than the largest subsidy demanded from the citizenry during these decades.' No radical changes in governmental or fiscal institutions rewarded their tenacity, and traditional forms of taxation were continued. Although popular leaders did receive minor offices, the consuls retained control of municipal affairs, and no member of the people gained the consulate.’ Popular and royal intervention probably encouraged more careful administration of public revenues, but the savings were not substantial. While the level of taxation was temporarily lower in the 1330s, it inevitably increased following the outbreak of the Hundred Years’ War; judging by the fines levied after the royal audit of 1326, moreover, consular peculation had involved minor sums whose recovery hardly warranted the expenditure of thousands of pounds. 1. As of 1328 the seneschal was paid 700 pounds a year, and the royal proctors and judge of Montpellier each received 100 pounds; the judgeships of Beaucaire and Nimes were worth 60 pounds, Alés 20: Viard, “Gages,” pp. 253-256. The people owed some 5,200 gold florins (worth perhaps five thousand pounds) by 1334, and Montpellier never paid more than two thousand pounds a year to the crown prior to 1350. 2. Brémond Grimaud (above, Chapter IV, at n. 11) may have been related to the Pons Grimaud elected consul in 1343 or to the Pons Grimaud who was consul in 1382 and 1384 (GC, nos. 2709-10, 2724, 3306), but kinship cannot be proved. 114

Community and Privilege 115 If they did not bring about radical changes in governmental forms, popular resistance and the consequent examination of consular authority

strengthened established customs contributing to fiscal integrity, encouraged greater reliance upon the proportional fai//le, and increased the influence of the popular assembly and especially of the town council. Montpellier and other commercial cities were curiously slow to follow the crown in establishing a system of public receivers, but the need to avoid a repetition of the royal audit of 1326 induced the consuls to keep a more careful watch over those hired to collect each tax. Town records were more open to public examination, and assessment of property by

public oath became obligatory somewhat earlier than in other cities.‘ Judicial debate over municipal autonomy led to more frequent meetings of the assembly and council, and the existing tendency to impose a proportional taille based on public assessment rather than increase the rate of indirect taxes was favored by the enhanced importance of these bodies. The larger voice in town affairs of the communal assemblies partially followed from acceptance by the crown and the attorneys for the consuls

of legal theories stressing the obligation to demonstrate the evident necessity of new levies. Customary right effectively legitimized the continuation of imposts such as the barrage or pavage that maintained the roads or the tolls levied on goods carried between Montpellier and the ports at Aigues-Mortes and Lattes; these taxes, which had been continuously raised for more than a century, were certainly among the practices intended by general confirmations of municipal privileges.> But seisin 3. In August 1327 and October 1340, the funds collected for a subsidy to the crown were deposited with private individuals; in the latter case the receiver was paid twenty-five pounds and ordered to keep a careful record of receipts: GC, nos. 3410, 319. Claviers who served as treasurers were perhaps established in Toulouse in 1336, but the consuls generally acted as their own collectors; professional receivers did not become normal in most towns until the end of the century: Ordonnances, 2:113; Jean Glénisson and Charles Higounet, “Remarques sur les comptes et sur l’administration financiéres des villes francaises entre Loire et Pyrénées,” Finances et comptabilité urbaines du XITF au XVI siécle (Brussels, 1964), pp. 37, 146-151. Chapter V, above, for the receivers attached to the provincial government. 4. Written estimation was practiced in Toulouse by 1335, but Albi did not have a written list of property values until 1343, and the registers of Carcassonne and Béziers were begun even later. The first “vaillant” for Lyons was compiled about 1358. See Wolff, Estimes, pp. 26-27; Rossiaud, “Problemes fiscaux,” p. 329. 5. See the list of taxes in Appendix I for the barrage and pavage. A toll collected at the gates into town, the barrage perhaps fell especially on cattle, from which the word may

116 Community and Privilege and customary right did not justify either a new faille or large increases in

the established rates, and the consuls thus claimed that they enjoyed, following the principles of the Roman law, the authority to raise whatever sums were needed for the general utility of the town. Some means was then required to demonstrate that an urgent state of need binding the

whole community was clearly evident to its inhabitants or to a large number among them, and the town’s lords required the consuls to show approval by the assembly of all citizens as well as by the legal and fiscal experts among their councillors.® The role of the town council was especially enhanced by the rule of specificity to which the populares had appealed when they denied the need for new taxes and insisted that existing funds, if not misdirected, were sufficient to meet the obligations cited by the consuls.’ In advancing the justification of “evident necessity,” all governments found themselves absolutely obliged to spend the revenues from taxes only for the specific needs recognized when those subject to their authority gave consent to the tax. So absolute was this rule in contemporary jurisprudence that it could take precedence over the supreme necessity of defending the patria be derived: see Jean Favreau, L’impot dans le cadre de la ville et de l'état (Brussels, 1966), p. 134; Lecoy de la Marche, Rélations politiques, 1:29, n. 1. The toll known as

the obolles de Lattes is mentioned in papal bulls of 1238 and 1257: GC, nos. 1105-1106; cf. Berne, Consuls sur mer, pp. 20-21. It was perhaps originally a seignorial charge: GC, no. 1092 (September 1264); Germain, Commune, 2:26, n. 394, for the toll on goods shipped through Aigues-Mortes. 6. The seneschal thus ordered the rector to constrain recalcitrant populares to payment in April 1328 if the consuls had in fact raised the taille with the consent of the majority: GC, no. 3300 (cited above, Chapter II, n. 28). Although they denied that the consuls were obliged to gain royal license, attorneys for the consuls agreed with the king’s procurator in 1333 that the popu/us must consent to any new tax. The crown continued to expect formal assent of the populace after it recognized municipal autonomy in taxation. In May 1343, for example, the procurator for the king could not forbid a tax levied with the approval of the council and popular assembly, and this concession was confirmed by the kings of France after they purchased direct lordship over Montpellier in 1349: GC, nos. 3217, 3306.

| 7. GC, no. 3506 (1323). The universal acceptance of this principle of specificity explains in part the significance attached to an audit of town accounts. The populares advanced a variation of this rule in protesting that the /ai/les raised in 1326 and 1328 would bring in substantially more than was sought by the crown, and the royal procurator presented a similar argument in 1333 when he alleged that increased milling charges were not

needed to maintain the mill: GC, nos. 3524, 3299, 3530, 760, 769 (cited above, Chapter II, n. 61). Specificity was also at issue in 1325 (GC, no. 651) when the seneschal was ordered to make sure that monies collected to build a public fountain were not di-

verted to other purposes. !

Community and Privilege 117 against foreign invasions.® Taxes raised for other purposes could not be used for the defense of the kingdom in time of war,? and Montpellier and other towns had even forced the crown to return subsidies granted for a specific campaign when a truce was concluded.'° The universal acceptance of specificity explains in part the traditional reliance by governments on indirect taxes and tolls. If the whole community must care for needs shared by all, smaller groups within the community are liable for their own peculiar necessities; by confiding collection and expenditure to the same body of overseers, moreover, it was relatively easy to ensure that receipts were used for the tasks for which they had been collected.'! When the consuls had to levy a taille for a common need, public scrutiny of their accounts by the members of the council provided an alternative way of showing that municipal revenues were being directed specifically towards the approved goal. Recognition of their right to raise a general

taille did not, therefore, grant the consuls a free hand but rather

8. This is a striking example of the way in which the extensive powers attributed to the crown were often weakened in practice by other provisions of medieval public law. See the sources cited by Henneman (R7F, pp. 22-24) for the considerable literature on Romano-canonical theories of public utility and reason of state. For an argument that the “religion of monarchy” had been fully established and the loyalties of the French transferred to the nation-state by the fourteenth century, see also Joseph Strayer, “France: The Holy Land, the Chosen People, and the Most Christian King,” Action and Conviction in Early Modern Europe, ed. Theodore Rabb (Princeton, 1969), pp. 3-16 (now reprinted in Medieval Statecraft, pp. 300-314). 9. In January 1343 the crown overruled the royal lieutenant in Languedoc when the latter tried to use for the defense of Gascony a tax on the value of goods entering or leaving Aigues-Mortes. The consuls apparently prevented in 1354 a second attempt to divert to the war effort funds raised by this duty, and the crown again ordered in 1356 that they be used only for the maintenance and restoration of this port: GC, nos. 2581, 3781, 3784; RTF, pp. 165, 274 (where no. 3784 is incorrectly cited with documents of 1354 rather than 1356). The crown became acutely concerned with the state of AiguesMortes in 1336, but the toll of a penny on the pound on goods entering or leaving the port was already being levied in 1321 (GC, no. 3751) and probably earlier. The consuls of Montpellier and Aigues-Mortes took turns in choosing a receiver and alternated every third year with those of Lunel in naming a superintendent of works: “Le grand thalamus,” no. 870 (1364), Arch. de Montp., 3:148. 10. For the development in philosophy and law as well as for the citation during subsidy negotiations of the maxim cessante causa, cessat effectus, see Brown, “Cessante Causa,” and RTF, pp. 24-25. As late as 1356 a tax for the war in Gascony was granted only for the duration of hostilities: GC, no. 2385. 11. Borelli de Serres shows (Recherches, 1:38-40) that the principle of specificity also forced the royal treasury to account separately for different types of receipts and expenditures.

118 Community and Privilege obligated them to obtain the advice and weigh the opinion of groups representative of those contributing to the levy. Prior to the grant of a consulate in 1204, large groups of inhabitants frequently were brought together to witness acts by the town’s lords. Although this popular assembly was still associated with the laws of the town during the second half of the thirteenth century,?? it had little in-

fluence on the municipal government and rarely was convoked after 1300. Its revival coincided with the new challenge to consular authority, and the agreements ending popular resistance made it useful as a forum for gaining public sanction and publicizing decisions by communal officials. Municipal ordinances of taxation issued prior to 1340 are generally silent concerning the assembly; those augmenting the sales tax in 1346 and confirming the yearly ¢tai/le between 1350 and 1356 take care to mention the cooperation of the council and “the people assembled in the consular house.”!3 A general assembly of all citizens deferred to legal tradition and perhaps to the increased emphasis on democratic forms during the fourteenth century.!* Its powers were always nominal, and only a 12. The preambles to the “establishments” or municipal ordinances promulgated before 1320 generally state that the consuls had carefully and diligently considered the advice of the secret or political council and had also presented the new law to the people assembled in the consular house; see the Petit thalamus, ed. Pegat and Thomas, pp. 101-117, 145-146. For the twelfth century, Lewis, “Town Government,” p. 58;

idem, “Popular Assemblies,” pp. 49-51; Dognon, Institutions de Languedoc, pp. 84-86; Bisson, Assemblies, pp. 35-38. 13. GC, nos. 1780 (1346), 3220-22 (1350-1352), 3223 (1354), 2385 (1356). The documents from the 1350s record the mandatory “authorization” of the taille required by an agree-

ment of 1343 with the king of Majorca (n. 6 above). The consuls may have been especially careful to maintain their privileges by following established forms because of the transfer of lordship to France in 1349, but letters of authorization in 1377 and 1390 still require approval by the large part of the town’s inhabitants: GC, nos. 680, 1664. By 1457, however, the assembly apparently served only as a forum for publicizing the edict of taxation: BN MS lat. 9178, fol. 121; Dognon, Institutions politiques, p. 109. 14. The nature of popular consent to local and municipal taxation merits investigation. Legal documents suggest that Montpellier was typical of most major cities in southern France where the general assembly was not regularly convoked until the 1330s. The assent of the assembly is not required by the charter of 1204 for Montpellier or by the customs granted to other cities before 1300; it is commonly mentioned by ordinances of taxation from the middle of the fourteenth century, and the late charter of 1390 for Beaucaire does require a general council of all heads of families: Dognon, /nstitutions, p. 108, n. 2; Eyssette, Beaucaire, p. 125. The assembly was perhaps associated with municipal taxes somewhat earlier in northern France than in the Midi; Louis IX thus ordered (Ordonnances, 1:291-293) that the college of thirty or forty men that chose the twelve tax assessors be itself elected “per consilum sacerdotum parochialium et aliorum

Community and Privilege 119 small part of the thousands of families liable to the taille could be accom-

modated in the town hall. Among those likely to be present, however, were the heads of the guilds and leaders of the popular faction who might seize the occasion to arouse public protest. Like the assessment of property under oath, consultation with the assembly probably checked overt favoritism and perhaps slowed the expansion of municipal taxation dur-

ing the second half of the fourteenth century. Every medieval ruler was careful to have the advice of those reputed to

be wise or learned, and the consuls of Montpellier always consulted a

“secret council” of probi homines before acting in matters of importance.'> While the popular assembly again fell into abeyance when it was no longer essential to claim majority consent, this political council,

its membership now fixed at twenty-four, gained a place among the permanent institutions of municipal government and had a crucial part in the administration of the ¢ai/le.'® In proclaiming a state of evident

virorum religiosorum, nec non et Burgensium, et aliorum proborum virorum de communi ipsorum. .. .” Texts from the first third of the fourteenth century describe taxes

“accorded by the commune” in Douai, and the consent of the assembly was also solicited in Senlis and Amiens as well as (by 1358) Troyes and Chartres: Georges Espinas, Les finances de la commune de Douai (Paris, 1902), pp. 75-76; Viollet, Jnstitutions politiques, p. 127; Timbal, Guerre, pp. 217, 343. But only a close study of municipal government and political factions in each city would tell us whether these assemblies served a real function or were convoked in superficial deference to the demand for more democratic forms found in the political philosophy and polemical literature of the fourteenth century; for the latter, see Guenée, “Etat,” pp. 404-405. 15. See the references to the “secret council” cited above, n. 12, as well as GC, no. 2997 (April 1260); Petit thalamus, ed. Pegat and Thomas, pp. 137-139. 16. A royal letter of 1390 (confirmed in 1483: Germain, Commune, 2:403) recognized that the popular or general assembly could be replaced by a body of twenty-four “bons hommes de ladite ville, ordonnées conseillers de par lesdit consuls”; an act of 1457 (cited above, n. 13) suggests, however, the new taxes were still published before the assembly during the fifteenth century. It is not clear whether the council of twenty-four was also meant to take the place of the “secret” council, although the consuls certainly retained the right to solicit the advice of other counsellors on an ad hoc basis. The Petit thalamus (pp. 253, 310) gives the oath taken by the secret council as well as that of the

members of the council of twenty-four; the edition of 1840 does not, however, distinguish between the various sections of the book of oaths (compiled about 1300 but containing additions from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries), and this duplication may simply have been overlooked or preserved for its antiquarian interest. No document demonstrably earlier than 1390 calls for a set number of councillors, but twentyfour was probably traditional. By the end of the thirteenth century, a council of twelve to twenty-four members was normally assembled throughout Languedoc to certify the authenticity of municipal representatives or the legality of new taxes. Royal charters of

120 Community and Privilege necessity, the government of the town asserted the existence of a specific and thus limited emergency; since excess revenues could not legitimately

be transferred to other purposes, the consuls had to suggest a remedy that might suffice to meet the designated need without bringing in a surplus. When they considered the proposed levy, the council took into account the existing state of the town’s finances and the revenues that might be raised by different levels of taxation. A body composed of merchants familiar with fiscal realities and jurists aware of regional custom and royal ordinances would expect an accurate accounting of earlier tailles and conformity with accepted principles of municipal and provincial law. Although chosen by the consuls, members of the council did not depend on the town fathers for their income and they valued their good name with the town’s lords and the provincial government. The law faculty was normally represented, for example, as were other wealthy property owners consulted by the local courts and the council of the sénechaussée.'’? While the secret council undoubtedly served the function of legitimizing the exactions of the consuls, one cannot assume that its consent was merely pro forma or always immediately forthcoming. The consuls had to demonstrate evident necessity to men whose families paid municipal taxes. Concern for their own welfare as well as their professional reputations made it imperative that they examine the legality and accuracy of the evidence mandating a new faille. Although the traditional tolls and taxes on sales were not opposed by the populares and continued to be levied, resistance to taxation and the

new procedures adopted during the 1330s fostered reliance upon the taille based on public assessment to provide for military defense and

1272 and 1283 regulating the government of Nimes established a council of twentyseven chosen by the nobility of the arena, p/aciers, and merchant guilds; an ordinance

of 1355 reduced its membership to twenty-four: Dupont, “Evolution sociale,” pp. 297-305; Dognon, Jnstitutions politiques, pp. 88-89; Elizabeth Brown, “Assemblies of French towns in 1316,” Speculum 46 (1971), p. 284, n. 12, for Ales. Fixed bodies of councillors (who on some occasions received salaries) were also elected

Or appointed in northern Europe from the fourteenth century: Mollat and Wolff, Ongles bleus, pp. 29-30; Edouard Maugis, Recherches sur les transformations du régime politique et social de la ville d’Amiens (Paris, 1906), pp. 25-26. Compare the evolution of the council of the sénéchaussée and its constitution as a formal institution of government in the 1330s (Chapter V, above).

17. GC, no. 1968, provides an unusually complete list of those attending the council meeting of 23 April 1327; among those present were Pierre Séguier, Bernard Sabors, and Thomas de Sauteyrargues, three influential legists discussed in Appendix II.

Community and Privilege 121 other common needs. In an era of inflation and rapid fluctuations in the value of the currency, indirect taxes fixed at a set rate often could not meet the needs for which they had been established,!® and the principle of

specificity forbade the transfer of funds when other revenues did provide a surplus. The litigation arising from the increase in milling charges in 1327 showed that a rapid increase in customary rates might well be challenged before the royal courts, which were more likely to enforce a taille that was approved by the town council and general assembly. Once formal lists of property values were compiled, it was easier and usually less expensive to levy a taille than a sales tax, and the rate was more

readily adjusted to changing circumstances. Since most families of wealth, including those with mercantile interests, invested a major part of their assets in real property, the proportional tai/le mandated by the

agreement of 1331 thus provided the consuls with an efficient and relatively equitable means of raising the taxes needed for the defense of the province after 1340.

In contrast to several other cities in Upper and Lower Languedoc, Montpellier did enjoy relative social tranquility during the Hundred Years’ War.'9 A heavier burden of direct and indirect taxes weighing ona

reduced population multiplied individual efforts to achieve exemption

but did not lead to coordinated collective resistance. Opposition to taxation seems to have been directed against the exactions of the king’s lieutenants in Languedoc rather than the communal administration that collected these levies. The most serious of these incidents took place in October 1379 when a mob killed five officials of high rank in the government of the duke of Anjou together with a large number of their staff and servants. A common enemy seems to have united the consuls and inhabitants on this occasion even if the latter did not personally lead the attack as Anjou charged.?° In 1418 the people are said to have compelled

18. In December 1346 (GC, no. 2365), a sales tax was transformed into an impost on property and revenues because the cost of collection exceeded receipts. 19. Some cities in the Midi, most notably Toulouse and Cahors, apparently achieved a kind of equilibrium by 1300 and witnessed only minor disturbances; others, such as Foix, Narbonne, Béziers, Carcassonne, and Lyons, suffered long periods of popular unrest marked by serious violence: Wolff, “Luttes sociales,” p. 449; Fédou, “Révoltes lyon-

naises,” p. 235; Dognon, Institutions politiques, pp. 168-169; Mollat and Wolff, Ongles bleus, pp. 180-185, 220-225; Wolff, Commerces et marchands, pp. 54-55. 20. The sources are mixed and self-serving. Letters of remission issued by the duke of Anjou state that the consuls planned and led the attack (the bodies of the ducal officials

122 Community and Privilege the consuls to adhere to the Burgundian party, which was considered favorable to reform and the lower classes, but the main target of popular

disfavor was again the extortions of the late duke of Berry.?! This appearance of relative harmony is perhaps misleading, and there may

well have been profound grievances that never found an outlet or malcontents who lacked a leader. It is not unlikely, however, that the modest reforms achieved in 1331 and more frequent consultation with representative bodies during the fourteenth century facilitated acceptance of increased taxation during years of economic decline.

The Urban Elite and the Roman Law in the Service of Communal Unity Prosopographical and linguistic analysis have made it clear that resistance to taxation warranted the attention paid to it by the citizenry and the crown — much more was at stake than merely dishonest administration and peculation. If these were indeed the proximate cause of their ac-

tion, the refusal of the populares to pay certain charges raised more important issues: the legitimacy of all communal and royal taxes collected by the municipality, the conflicting claims of the community and the privileged, and the relationship between the recently constituted institutions of royal power and the older institutions of the city-state. Tax avoidance in Montpellier was not simply a mindless reaction to fiscal oppression and real or imagined governmental chicanery, nor can it be ex-

plained away as a consequence of temporary economic or political circumstances. Popular and individual resistance could not be ended for are said to have been mistreated and even eaten by the mob): GC, no. 2746; Germain, Commune, 2:180, 392; cf. HL, 9:873. The Petit thalamus (p. 398) simply attributes it to “alcus populars,” and another local chronicle indicates that the riot was set off by the imprisonment of the consuls: Delachenal, Charles V, 5:302. This wave of violence against ducal officials apparently began in Le Puy in May 1378 and spread to Alés and Clermont-l’Hérault in December 1379. Anjou’s letters of remission for Alés and Le Puy blamed the disturbances on the people and “workers and vagabonds”; the lord of Clermont stated that it had been necessary to violate jurisdiction and safeguard in suppressing the uprising in that city because popular hatred was widespread and would break out elsewhere unless an example was set: HL, 10, nos. 636, 647-648; cf. Mollat and Wolff, Ongles bleus, p. 182. 21. See in general Paul Dognon, “Les Armagnacs et les Bourguignons, le comte de Foix et le Dauphin en Languedoc (1416-1420),” Annales du Midi 1 (1889), 433-509; ef. Perroy, Hundred Years War, pp. 232-244, 259.

Community and Privilege 123 two decades and involved a large portion of the political elite of this province because it was occasioned by fundamental changes in the structure of society and government, changes that prompted an examination of the correct ordering of the community and the reciprocal obligations

of the individual and the state. If the importance of the issues is sometimes concealed from us by the language of the documents that report this debate, the Roman law provided not only dilatory procedures and arcane jargon but also a medium for the analysis and discussion of substantive political and constitutional questions. Although it affected the nature of the social order and thus the lives of every inhabitant of the province, political conflict in Montpellier took place among the members of the urban elite, and it did not involve the ninety percent of the population living in the smaller villages and towns nor those within the city without property and full rights of citizenship. Those concerned were among the class of provincial notables standing beneath — albeit far beneath — the great nobles who intervened for them before the crown. By the fourteenth century this group was largely urban rather than rural; nobles and burgenses may have had extensive rights in the countryside, but their first concern was the configurations of political power in the town that formed their principal residence.22 Within this provincial elite there was to be found a hierarchy of property and standing, and a society that treasured minor degrees of precedence undoubtedly saw significant differences between the three dozen families that gave a member to the consulate in any given decade and the families of the

people, which could not boast of a continuing tradition of municipal leadership or comprised cadet branches no longer enjoying entry into the government. But these differences appear minor when compared to those

separating the urban elite as a whole from the great majority of the populace. If neither the consuls nor the populares can be placed among the highest ranks of late medieval society, their families had an important share in the economic life of the region, and the leaders of both fac-

tions associated easily with the perhaps wealthier and more highly educated men who made up the ruling councils of the sénéchaussée. The royal officers who became concerned with this dispute as judges or commissioners of conciliation came from substantially the same level of society. It is true that several of the officials attached to the seneschal’s 22. It is, of course, impossible to provide exact statistics as to what portions of landed and commercial wealth were in the hands of the great nobility, these provincial notables, and the village gentry and peasantry.

124 Community and Privilege court in Nimes during the 1320s and 1330s were northern clerics; the representatives of the crown in the localities, as well as the seneschal’s councillors and the king’s advocates, continued, however, to be chosen from among the urban elite of the province, and those not native to the region formed close ties with the governed during long terms of office and sometimes acquired property in the sénéchaussée. The title of noble or knight given to many viguiers, several councillors, and more than a third of the ordinary judges should not mislead us. Their families were in fact among the citizenry of Montpellier, Nimes, or the smaller towns, and several had held municipal office.23 When it became necessary to send in commissioners of conciliation, the crown was careful to name men who would have some understanding of the issues, and those chosen thus came from the same urban elite in other southern provinces and had profited from a similar education in Roman law. When they were not personally acquainted with its citizenry, those who took part in initiating

or resolving tax resistance in Montpellier came from similar familial backgrounds and shared the same concerns. The populares and the “natriciate” did not form two well-defined and opposing classes, and governmental officials did not form a third force rigidly separated from the other participants in urban unrest. Partially because the people, consuls, and royal officials did not constitute separate classes, they cannot easily be assigned to distinct political groupings with relation to royal power, and it is erroneous to assume that members of the bureaucracy necessarily worked to expand the authority of the crown at the expense of local interests. The king’s service was ap23. See Chapter V and Appendix VII. We have already seen that some Roman lawyers argued that the doctorate conferred knighthood. In southern France the law apparently was also considered to be a suitable profession for those already noble by birth. Noble status is attributed to a relatively large number of those holding the doctorate in comparison with the probable distribution of nobles among the entire population, and this affinity between law and nobility is recognizable from the founding of the southern faculties. Gens just., p. 34, identifies eighteen nobles among the 131 judges serving in the five southern sénéchaussées during the reign of Philip IV. Cf. also Gouron, “Role sociale,” p. 64. The legal profession may have been especially attractive to the lesser nobility of Lower Languedoc and Provence; at the end of the fourteenth century, six to seven percent of the students at Montpellier and Avignon were called noble as compared to slightly more than three percent at Toulouse: Jacques Verger, “Noblesse et savoir: Etudiants nobles aux universités d’Avignon, Cahors, Montpellier et Toulouse,” La noblesse au moyen dge, ed. Philippe Contamine (Paris, 1976), pp. 293-295. As Verger indicates, however (p. 291), his study may underestimate the number of nobles; it depends on the papal registers of supplications, which often do not mention the noble status of students soliciting papal favors.

Community and Privilege 125 parently unattractive to the vast majority of lawyers in fourteenthcentury Occitania, and many who entered it had previously represented or been officers of municipal and seignorial governments. There were few national institutions to draw the ambitious away from their pays, and provincial officials almost never went on to hold office with the administration in Paris. No one from this sénéchaussée did so after 1303.24 Some men did remain in office for long periods, but the interests of their families continued to be linked with those of the urban elite from which they had risen. As yet there was no “robe” as a class, and the descendents of royal viguiers and judges often preferred to invest in land or commerce the monies gained through royal service. Although royal officers might render decisions that would increase the income of their own offices, it is difficult to believe that they invariably worked to destroy the authority of the members of their families who served as municipal and seignorial councillors or sought to weaken the influence of the lay and ecclesiastical lords who were the natural conduit of royal favors. In fourteenth-century Montpellier, conflict did not result from the existence of parties reflecting economic or political differences; litigation and violence were the work of groupings within the same economic and political elite, whose members shared, moreover, a common intellectual heritage and language. If there was no class-consciousness or religion of monarchy, there remained an abiding consciousness of the community as the larger unit that facilitated the prosperity of the individual and the family. All factions and their legal representatives operated in terms of a universally accepted tradition that stressed the unity of the urban corporation, the legal equality of its members, and the overriding authority of

the communal government. The various functional, charitable, and familial associations were thought to form one body with one head; all individuals and subordinate corporations were bound by one public law, and none was allowed private rights that derogated from that common law.” For this reason, those who challenged the communal government 24. Cf. Gens just., pp. 20-24, 32-33. Guillaume de Nogaret and Guillaume de Plaisians were both major judge of this sénéchaussée, and the latter from 1300 to 1303, before receiving high offices with the central administration; Pons d’Aumelas, who was from 1304 to 1311 judge of Rouergue and then of the Toulousain, subsequently served as a member of the Parlement and as enquéteur-réformateur: Gens just., pp. 22, 149-150, 169-170.

25. See Chapter VII at nn. 28-30. A very strong sense of communal solidarity is character-

istic of southern France from an early date. In Toulouse as in Montpellier, it is expressed in consular claims to jurisdiction over all acts affecting a citizen of any

126 Community and Privilege were obliged to do so in the name of the whole community. The populares thus accused the consuls of having set themselves apart and

established a kind of hereditary privilege through manipulation of electoral procedures and the assessment of taxes; the consuls in turn charged the people with seeking their own interest or that of certain classes at the expense of the common good. There was perhaps some

truth on both sides, and private desires are often confounded with general needs. Whether or not they were true, these allegations appealed to principles of philosophy and jurisprudence that were recognized by the crown and, indeed, provided the only language in which demands might be formulated.

An awareness of mutual concerns and the intermingling of ties between the provincial officials and the disputants precluded the use of force to end resistance to taxation. Instead, the parties resolved their conflict through compromise facilitated by the availability of a wide variety of arbitrational techniques. The use of arbitration served as the normal means of settling social conflict and individual quarrels, but it did not exclude recourse to other legal and extralegal maneuvers. Until a

compromise could be found, the various procedural and substantive aspects of taxation gave rise to separate suits before the provincial courts and the Parlement, and these evoked a complicated medley of arguments and counterarguments. Since the courts could not compel lasting obedience, these suits were, like violence, largely a way of bringing pressure to bear during the negotiations leading up to compromise, and the final settlement was reached by lawyers who were residents of the city, with the aid of royal mediators. Although their decrees, like those of ordinary courts, ran in the name of the lords of the city and were backed by royal sanction, arbitrators were not imposed by the crown but chosen. by all the parties to the quarrel. Lawyers attached to the royal administration were class: see Mundy, Liberty and Political Power; Philippe Wolff, “La noblesse toulousain,” La noblesse au moyen age, ed. Contamine, pp. 160-174. If belief in the value of unity was strengthened in the former case by the events of the Albigensian crusade, it is

already ascertainable from the tenth century: Wolff, pp. 160, 166-168; Elisabeth Magnou-Nortier, La société laique et l’église dans la province ecclésiastique de Narbonne (Toulouse, 1974). The informal assemblies that met from the end of the tenth century to discuss questions affecting the public order have been associated with the failure of attempts to create enduring principalities (Lewis, Development of Southern French and Catalan Society, pp. 364-373); they may well have been a natural consequence of this tradition of social solidarity among the members of village and urban communities.

Community and Privilege 127 nevertheless almost always among those comprising panels of conciliation or arbitration since their presence would suggest that some consideration had been given to the effect of the compromise on the rights of the crown. The peaceful resolution of conflict between the citizens of Montpellier

was facilitated by the acceptance of the Roman law as the universal custom of Languedoc. Several complementary systems of justice incorporating the different procedures of the written law supplied a wealth of remedies not only in commercial and familial matters but also in disputes touching corporate rights or the obligations of the community and its lords. If the ordinary courts were ineffective when men of substance challenged the communal government that appointed the judges of these courts, arbitration made possible a solution acceptable to the factions in the form of a judgment behind which the crown might put the weight of

its authority. Since those seeking to escape taxation had available to them the services of learned counsel, the penetration of Roman forms did not always favor the consuls. When, indeed, one follows for several decades these cases before the seignorial and royal courts, it becomes apparent that the complex procedures mandated by the written law could easily be manipulated to prevent a solution, just as the use of arbitra-

tional techniques derived from the learned law facilitated the rapid achievement of a judgment when compromise was possible.

By the 1320s southern custom had incorporated not only specific techniques of arbitration but also many of the substantive precepts of written law, which furnished, moreover, a juridical language and philos-

ophy that could be made compatible with the traditions of the region. The “common law” thus created could be called upon when questions arose that were not touched on by the communal charter or when the constitution and mechanisms of governance came under challenge, and it

was to this common law rather than custom or royal grant that the attorneys for the consuls and people appealed at every stage of their struggle. If a law formed by judicial precedents is more easily adaptable

to changing circumstances than are statutory enactments, this is especially the case when attorneys and judges base their decisions on a store of maxims and principles consonant with accepted beliefs and administrative habits. We have seen that the reception of the learned law

did not necessarily advance the authority of the crown or serve the religion of monarchy, since most lawyers and especially the members of the law faculty used their learning to maintain the customary rights of

‘128 Community and Privilege individuals and corporations. It is, indeed, unlikely that the law faculty would have so rapidly risen to eminence or that the province would have supported so numerous a bar had the Roman law been foreign to customary patterns of thought or inimical to established privileges. Given the long-standing acceptance of the equality of the citizenry under one unified urban law, principles such as evident necessity and specificity that legitimized the prerogatives of the crown could easily be advanced

both to justify the autonomy of the communal government and to discredit existing forms of taxation. The universal reliance on litigation to provide a solution to every kind of administrative as well as familial, commercial, and industrial problem perhaps ultimately weakened the

authority of the courts by overburdening them with more work than could effectively be handled. In the short run, the existence of an authoritative code that could be read as a common text by consuls, people, and provincial officials may well have helped to secure the relative tranquility under which was worked out a fundamental disagreement within the urban elite over the assessment of the burden posed by the increasing needs of municipal and royal governments.

“Taxes are the Price We Pay for Civilization” Verbal and physical violence was endemic in medieval society, as in

all European societies, and the cities often were the locus of strife because they were the residence of an economic, political, and intellectual elite. Conflict between different groups or sets of individuals living in one locality was perhaps not more frequent in the later Middle Ages than in earlier centuries, nor were the means of coping with it entirely unprecedented. What was new were the issues provoking conflict. In the twelfth century, Montpellier, like many other cities, witnessed a struggle

for political dominance between the citizenry and its putative lord; although it escaped the religious wars of the thirteenth century, it suffered greatly during the sixteenth century from the violence arising out of religious disagreements among the gentry and bourgeoisie. In the fourteenth century, taxation provided the occasion of litigation and violence among the members of the middling classes not only because permanent taxation was very new but also because the forms and incidence of taxation served to focus controversy over the nature of social relations. Con-

Community and Privilege 129 flict was thus essentially social and factional rather than political or religious in its motivations. At issue were the rights and duties of different families within an accepted social order and not the demands of the territorial prince or the nature of God’s will. Complaints of fiscal chicanery may well have been at least partially accurate; dishonest administrators existed then as now. But popular allegations also reflected a belief that the legitimate functions of government

could be carried out with much less money than was demanded. If the state 1s defined in modern terms as a collection of self-sufficient institutions enjoying legal sovereignty and a monopoly of force in a welldefined geographical area, then the state did not exist prior to the French Revolution. The state does not, indeed, exist today. It lived and has lived only as embodied in a corps of functionaries who can act in its name ~ because their subjects have faith in the legitimacy of the bureaucracy and thus are willing to pass along the funds that finance its activities.26 With the striking exception of permanent departments of war and diplomacy,

virtually all the governmental institutions that characterize the French state were created during the later Middle Ages, and many of the administrative, judicial, and fiscal organs of the state were already in place in this province by the 1320s.?” Because of the more frequent exercise of royal authority and the greater degree of public order, the thirteenth century is said to have been marked by a shift in allegiance from the local community or the universal church to the crown.?® It is also argued that official documents and legal thought present a theory according to which the state is a novel entity deserving loyalty greater than or at least different from that demanded by an immediate lord or community.?? Born by 1300, already adolescent by 1400, the French state endured a troubled childhood during the reigns of the last Capetians and the first Valois. The years around 1300 did witness a remarkable increase in the 26. Cf. Post, “Status, id est, Magistratus: L’Etat, C’est Moi,” Studies, pp. 333-367; Kantorowicz, King’s Two Bodies, chapter 5, esp. 203-205. 27. Above, Chapter V, and, for the failure to create departments of war and diplomacy, Joseph Strayer, On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State (Princeton, 1970), pp. 72-80.

28. Thus Strayer, “Normandy and Languedoc”; “France: The Holy Land”; “The Laicization of French and English Society.” These are now collected in Medieval Statecraft. Cf. Mundy, High Middle Ages, pp. 26, 394-400. 29. For the voluminous literature on public law and theories of the state, see especially the immensely learned studies of Kantorowicz and Post cited above, n. 26, as well Post’s work now printed as chapters 10 and 11 of Studies in Medieval Legal Thought.

130 Community and Privilege instruments of state power, but these new institutions, evolving out of immediate needs and not according to any consistent plan, did not coordinate their acts; and their members sometimes worked to increase their own influence at the expense of other elements of the bureaucracy. A larger number of functionaries does not automatically increase the direct authority of the central government; indeed, the creation of new levels of administration between the king and his subjects seems to have made immediate, forceful action more difficult. Popular resistance could not be suppressed partially because of administrative confusion. Officials in Paris did not consult the officers of the crown in this sénéchaussée, issued contradictory orders at different times and to different commissioners, and made little attempt to see that their mandates were carried out. The inadequacy of the royal government is perhaps both cause and consequence of the incomplete acceptance of theories appealing to nationalistic sentiment or to the unity of the mystical body of the state. Allegiance to the crown there was by the 1320s, but it remained a tenuous allegiance that in some regions could tolerate even the intervention of a

foreign prince. Local notables accepted the royal administration and sometimes welcomed the offices it could provide, but they did not yet tolerate abridgement of their liberties and could still be swayed by older loyalties. The history of popular resistance makes it clear, above all, that the beneficiaries of the royal peace would not admit the necessity of pay-

ing for the judges, sergeants, and army that ensured that peace. The number of functionaries and the rate of taxation were insignificant compared to modern times or even the sixteenth century; both were, however, much higher than fifty years earlier, and the increase was not seen as an Improvement. Permanent taxation for the defense of the realm was regarded as unacceptable, and the need for permanent levies to pay of-

ficial salaries was perhaps apparent only to the recipients of those salaries. It is surely significant that the courts could not, in the 1330s and 1340s, discuss the legitimacy of communal charges without first arriving

at a definition of taxation, and since taxation is nothing other than money taken by the state by virtue of its monopoly of force, it is not easily defined when neither the state nor its fiscal demands are seen as inevitable. Under these circumstances, the people may have believed that previous levies had been squandered even when they had in fact been disbursed for the specific ends for which they had been raised.

Community and Privilege 131 The assessment of municipal taxes served as the occasion for debate over the correct ordering of society, the validity of class privilege, and the utility of state power. It is not merely coincidental that in the very years when people refused to pay taxes regarded as illicit or unfairly apportioned, there was also an increase in individual resistance and lawsuits

demanding exemption. Nor is it coincidental that, thanks to the machinations of one of these litigants, the issues of individual privilege and municipal autonomy became intermingled in the legal pleadings before the highest courts. The allegations of the consuls and the people had focused throughout this dispute on the conflicting demands of communal unity and familial privilege, and the attorneys for both had denied the validity of immunity and had maintained that all citizens ought to be affected equally by laws made for the good or the necessity of the whole community. The populares thus accused the consuls of violating the principles of uniform justice and equity by granting informal or tacit exemption to their own families and adherents, while it was to the same princi-

ple that the consuls appealed when, denying such duplicity, they defended against the populares, individual delinquents, and royal intervention their right to raise from the whole people taxes granted de consensu populi.

The reforms called for by the compromise of 1331 were meant to ensure greater uniformity of assessment, and they may indeed have had this effect. The arbitrator’s sentence — confirmed by the Parlement and the chambre des comptes — specifically required that the taille fall equal-

ly on all property, and written registration and public assessment of property rights undoubtedly made it more difficult to conceal informal or illegal exemption, which would more easily be caught by an audit of

town finances of the sort forced through in 1326. Any irregularities would invite renewed intervention by the provincial authorities, impugn the legitimacy of consular authority over the urban corporation, and invalidate royal recognition of the right to levy general taxes. Popular opposition to taxation in the name of the whole community may have had the ironical consequence of increasing social differentiation through the confirmation in written law and precedent of formerly

tacit privileges. Despite their criticism of individual immunity, the populares sometimes demanded special treatment; their very success in avoiding taxation for more than a decade and in forcing through a compromise that took into consideration their wishes would, moreover, en-

132 Community and Privilege courage individual applications for exemption by suggesting that tenacity

and influence might ultimately win out. Perhaps because informal arrangements were now more difficult, the number of those seeking to escape the indiction or public evaluation of property substantially increased after 1331. Among those seeking relief were members of the urban gentry, and their suits provide some of the first examples of the principle, later among the most cherished rights of the French nobility, that noble birth, rather than seignorial right or feudal service, was in itself sufficient to bring exemption. The courts and the crown normally held nobles liable for municipal taxes on their urban property.®° The very frequency with which such claims were denied indicates, however, that

many would continue to press their demands until at least partial immunity was achieved. Other groups within the urban elite also sought to escape municipal taxation because they enjoyed clerical status, were affiliated with the royal or seignorial administrations, or exercised some learned profession. The diversity and ingenuity of their arguments, often thought eccentric by later commentators, testifies to the novelty of the entire exercise. Many of the nobles and burgenses who demanded favorable treatment were lawyers by trade or owed their wealth to the law, and Opponents and defenders of privilege sometimes alternated in a curious

kind of interchange. Brémond Guiraud, one of the leaders of the 30. Chapter III above. As war taxes became increasingly frequent after 1300, the crown Oc-

casionally acceded to demands that nobles should be treated differently than nonnobles. The collection of such subsidies from the servile or quasi-servile subjects of territorial lords was sometimes (but not always) forbidden, and some nobles were allowed to serve with the army, and thus pay a kind of “blood tax,” rather than contribute to war subsidies for particular campaigns especially when they were obliged to service or payment by the custom governing fiefs. What was not recognized during the fourteenth century was the principle that nobles were exempt merely as a consequence of their

membership in the second estate. Because the two regions came to use divergent systems of taxation, the debate over privilege took different forms in northern and southern France. Most taxes for war in Languedoc (see Appendices I, X, XI) were collected from the towns in the form of fouages; in the North the fouage was far less common and the crown usually derived revenue from the aides, indirect taxes on consumer goods. In either case, however, noble exemption was resisted until the end of the fourteenth century. The seneschal of Beaucaire and Nimes thus reissued in 1400 a royal letter of 1372 obligating nobles (and other privileged persons) to pay taxes on their urban property even when they escaped taxes on fiefs through personal service; not until 1393 were nobles exempted from the aides and then only under certain prescribed conditions: Ordonnances, 5:484 (cf. 5:430-431); 7:524-527. These rulings and the political circumstances that influenced royal policies towards the nobles will be discussed by

Professor John Henneman in a forthcoming study of the political origins of noble fiscal exemption.

Community and Privilege 133 populares, had thus represented the guild of notaries a few years earlier when it sought to obtain exemption as a legal right, and close relatives of the jurists who testified to the legitimacy of popular allegations were to

be found among those soliciting a special status in law for their families.*!

Since the necessity of permanent taxation had not been demonstrated, its introduction even at a relatively low level incited a wave of tax avoid-

ance, much litigation, and violent manifestations of hostility, to the detriment of social unity. If taxation of the whole community apparently could not be prevented, many men possessing political influence thought it desirable to alleviate at least their own burden. Since, however, royal taxes in Languedoc increasingly took the form of lump-sum payments apportioned among the districts on the basis of custom or the number of taxable hearths, opposition to royal taxation required resistance to communal levies, including charges that had previously been paid without protest. Payment or avoidance of any tax might be regarded, moreover, as a precedent governing participation in other levies. The nature and in-

cidence of taxation was determined by local custom, the crown consistently ruling that the practices of each town decided the obligations of

the various individuals or groups within its walls. Enrollment on an assessment list could thus compel payment of future levies on “those

customarily so obligated.” Given the intermingling of royal and municipal taxes, exemption from any charge could be cited as recognition of immunity from all taxation. When the fact of participation might irrevocably bind or free an individual and his descendents, any test of ex-

emption took on enormous weight. Many people went to law over charges that would not have taken a tenth of their income and willingly spent on litigation sums far exceeding the amount at issue. The importance of the issues at stake also explains why even minor disputes might exacerbate social tension. Freedom from taxation not only increases the burden on those not favored but also concedes to those exempted an enormous economic (and therefore political) advantage whose value only 31. See above, Chapter IV, n. 11, and Chapter V, n. 44. Although Jacques Marc was active as a merchant (AM Montp., BB 1, nos. 647-648), he and his brother Jean Marc unsuccessfully sued in Parlement for exemption as the nephews and heirs of the Jean Marc who had been ennobled while major judge of this sénéchaussée as a reward for his daring duplicity as communal representative in Paris; the court’s rejection of their suit was cited in 1343 as a precedent unfavorable to the pretensions of Célestin Séguier: GC, nos. 3235 (1334), 3689 (1343); AP, nos. 3974, 4494 (1342).

134 Community and Privilege increases over time. Any grant of immunity or informal exemption could provoke factional dispute as those left out, like the populares of Montpellier, sought either to restore equality or to gain for themselves compensating advantages.

Toward a Society of Orders: Popular Resistance and the Juridical Codification of Class Privileges The introduction of permanent taxation had as a consequence a large increase in demands for exemption that occasioned litigation and violence. Inevitably it became necessary, moreover, to seek a rigorous definition in written law of the characteristics that might excuse a citizen from participation in communal obligations. At stake in each case was not only the amount that might be lost on this occasion but the very existence of the community and consular authority. The consuls advanced against every claim to privilege the argument that all men enjoying the common rights and immunities brought by membership in the commu-

nity should contribute to the common charges that guaranteed communal liberties, according to their property, income, or expenses. When special treatment could not be avoided, they sought to restrict its benefits severely. Privilege normally is sought on the basis of some characteristic

of birth or social function that is shared by others; in permitting the exemption of someone who possesses that characteristic, the consuls rightly feared the extension of immunity to every individual or family that might claim the same justification. When a group could make a convincing case or could exercise sufficient influence to gain exemption, which might entail freedom from all taxes, it was essential to define with some precision the criteria restricting and limiting membership in that

group lest the town be left without revenues by the promiscuous inclusion of every citizen among the privileged. The exemption of nobles posed perhaps the greatest threat to municipal solvency, since there was no generally accepted test of nobility. Precisely because they were intended to affect the whole community without

distinction, oral and written custom rarely used the word noble as a

noun, and there were no authentic lists of nobles available to tax assessors or the courts.32 When the exemption of one noble from any levy 32. See Chapter III and Appendix XI. The concept of nobility was still extremely vague at

the end of the fourteenth century: Verger, “Noblesse,” p. 291; Wolff, “Noblesse,” pp. 172-174, who notes (p. 158) that the very word nobilis is not found in Toulouse until 1222.

Community and Privilege 135 might entail the immunity of all nobles, some statement was needed of the characteristics that conferred this quality. The consuls could not

escape the admission that certain “great barons” had customarily neglected to pay the taxes on property they owned in the city, but they insisted that exemption had never been allowed to nobles of “lesser

condition.” Even if the crown were to reject this rather ambiguous distinction, other reasons were provided for refusing the exemption of Célestin Séguier and others protesting their nobility. If nobility were a hereditary status, then it was passed along only under specific circumstances not present in these cases. The applicants did not live up to what-

ever standards might be held consonant with a noble style of life. Ennoblement by provincial magnates was not valid since only the crown could interfere with recognized corporate rights by modifying the legal status of the corporation’s members.

The town fathers attempted in the same way to place limits on any grant of privilege. The exemption of some royal officials had not been

intended to benefit all of those holding royal office, nor did the immunity of the clergy extend to those who did not presently live in a clerical manner. The principle was the same in each case. When the erection of private laws could not be prevented, public law needed to delineate carefully and selectively the applicability of privilege. The libelli of the consuls and the populares ultimately appealed to the same ideology or theory of society and government. When individuals attempted to avoid taxation or demanded exemption because of their birth or the social utility of their professional activities, they expressed a belief

that nobility, royal office, or the possession of a doctorate in law conferred a quality that segregated its bearers from the remainder of the

community. When the consuls opposed such demands or when the people refused to pay taxes unless these were divided equally among all

citizens in proportion to their income, property, or expenditures, they also were making a social statement —that the community ought to remain a united whole. Conflict over taxation was both consequence and cause of contemporary changes in the nature of social stratification. If social status remained largely a matter of tacit acceptance by one’s peers as late as the reign of Saint Louis, there were by the sixteenth century already many volumes of laws regulating membership in the higher orders, conferring on them valuable privileges and demanding in turn, through the doctrine of dérogeance, certain standards of behavior. The traditional argument that the nobility and bourgeoisie became closed classes in the later Mid-

136 Community and Privilege dle Ages has a degree of validity if we refine our terminology. None of the modern senses of the word class have any relevance prior to the nineteenth century. What was coming into existence was the estate system characteristic of the ancien régime as differentiations of caste were being

imposed upon the territorial unities of town and village. Social differences obviously existed within these territorial unities prior to the fourteenth century, but their formulation in written law made the rules and boundaries of status more rigid. Popular secession and the acceptance of reforms that made chicanery more difficult ironically may have contributed to the erection of class divisions: the threat of higher taxes honestly collected led many to push for exemption as a legal right, and the consuls in turn sought to limit the number of the privileged through a careful definition of the characteristics conferring exemption. Social peace and new forms of caste privilege were not, however, im-

posed by the crown, which had neither the military force to maintain order against the wishes of influential groups nor the moral authority to determine the direction of social change. Of necessity the crown had to staff a rapidly developing bureaucracy with men belonging to the urban nobility and bourgeoisie, whose concerns were not always identical to those of administrators in Paris. Members of the local elite decided as judges and councillors which families among the nobility and gentry should enjoy exemption and settled as arbitrators conflicts between organized factions. Perhaps because the judges came from the same level of society as those party to such conflicts, their sentences were normally accepted as binding, and overt violence was largely avoided. In striving

to maintain public harmony, they had to make the difficult decisions balancing the older claims of communal unity against new demands for private immunities. These decisions, reflecting the political strength of families and groupings as well as their own beliefs concerning the right order of society, set binding precedents regulating the rights and duties of individuals and corporations. The resolution of social conflict was thus facilitated by the careful choice and skillful manipulation of substantive principles and procedural forms borrowed from the Roman law. The ready availability of counsel who could provide remedies suitable to the factions made it possible to resolve competing demands and to incorporate with a minimum of overt violence profound changes in the relationship between different groups and between the community and the state. The codification in written law of these changes sometimes bound future generations to compro-

Community and Privilege 137 mises arising from the circumstances of a particular time and place.*° Because the Roman law was not imposed on the Midi but penetrated its custom through the decisions of judges and arbitrators who shared the common concerns and needs of the urban elite, the reception of the learned law in this region did not necessarily favor an oligarchical organization of society nor did it, as has traditionally been argued, enhance the authority and power of the crown. The ancient texts could be interpreted in accordance with traditional faith in the necessity of communal unity, and the consuls were able to retain substantial autonomy and limit concessions of privilege. The court decisions and royal charters responding to popular and individual resistance had the effect of defining the reciprocal obligations of the crown and its subjects as well as those of the

municipal government and the citizenry, and such clarification could

place limits on the initiative of royal servants. Recognition by the Parlement and the chambre des comptes of the consular right to levy general taxes would not prevent in later years interference by the provincial authorities, but it did make their intervention more difficult. The first judgment to be drawn from this history of popular unrest is negative: traditional interpretations of social conflict and governmental practices do not apply to fourteenth-century Montpellier and are probably not relevant to other cities in Languedoc. Extrapolating from more dramatic incidents in northern France and northern Italy, historians have

traditionally portrayed social unrest in the later Middle Ages as the natural consequence of upper-class exploitation during years of economic decline. We have found, however, that the populares were not men of low condition but respectable members of the urban elite who carried on an expensive campaign of litigation and violence for more

33. Georges Duby, “Les sociétés médiévales,” AESC 26 (1971), 4: “Considérons, a titre d’exemples, les régles juridiques. Elles évoluent difficilement lorsqu’elles sont fixées par les termes d’une loi écrite, avec beaucoup plus d’aisance lorsque seule la mémoire collective les conserve.” Cf. also Roland Mousnier, Les hiérarchies sociales de 1450 a nos jours (Paris, 1969), p. 20: “Donc, toute société d’Ordres repose sur un consensus, un accord tacite, qui provient des circonstances ou s’est trouvée un jour placée la société. . . . Ensuite, le principle de classement subsiste, et peut subsister pendant des siécles ou des millénaires, en dehors des circonstances qui lui ont donné naissance.” Mousnier does not assign a year to the wn bel di that saw the consensus upon which the ancien regime reposed; the transition from a “feudal” society to a “society of orders” apparently occurred, however, between 1250 and 1610 when Loysseau published the Traité des Ordres et simples dignitez. See Mousnier, pp. 60, 81.

138 Community and Privilege than a decade. The consuls of Montpellier did not form a closed caste, and fiscal irregularities, although present, did not involve large sums of money. Royal officials did not brutally repress popular demonstrations, and they gave the allegations of the protesters a full hearing. If popular

agitation did not lead to more “democratic” forms of government, perhaps because these were not the People of Marx or Michelet, popular

wishes were taken into consideration by the courts and no fewer than eight commissions of conciliation; the fiscal dealings of the town government were reformed and the influence of consultative bodies was at least temporarily enhanced. The history of the populares of Montpellier suggests the desirability of a new paradigm or model for understanding and describing social unrest.

During the later Middle Ages many cities in this sénéchaussée and throughout France witnessed conflict among factions or between lords and communities arising out of attempts to avoid taxation. Although the records of local courts and provincial archives have largely been lost or — as in Nimes — were deliberately destroyed,** the participants often had copies made for their own use, and municipal and departmental archives

thus contain numerous transcripts of legal pleadings and court hearings that have escaped examination, perhaps because they take up hundreds of pages or fill parchment rolls many meters in length. Documents preserved by those party to a quarrel present a partial or one-sided description of events, but a suitably skeptical analysis can often arrive at the

chronology of events and the social standing of those involved. Nor would it be impossible to compare the arguments used in these cases in order to ascertain, as has been done for marital and testamentary law, the extent to which they drew on the learned law or followed independent lines of reasoning furnished by regional custom. In each case, the city must be set in the context of the economy of the region and internal politics related to the configurations of power in the province; the strident 34. Chapter VII, n. 58. I may someday prepare for separate publication an analysis of other legal cases from the sénéchaussée that deal with social conflict and violence. See Chapter V, nn. 14, 25-26, for the provincial archives, which were transferred from Nimes to the chambre des comptes of Montpellier in 1690 and deliberately burned during the revolution of 1789: Martin-Chabot, Cour des comptes, pp. vii, xxili; Marcel Gouron, “Archives et archivistes de la sénéchaussée de Beaucaire et Nimes,” Mélanges Brunel, 2 vols. (Paris, 1957), 1:532. For a partial listing of the successors of Hugues Betti (Appendix II, no. 7) until the suppression of the office of archivist in 1690, see Gouron, pp. 528-529; Gallia Regia, 1:307.

Community and Privilege 139 accusations of chroniclers must be understood in terms of an analysis that follows the maneuvers of the parties, the intellectual justifications of their demands, and the means through which conflict might be resolved and overt violence checked or avoided. The way is long, but it can afford more nearly accurate ways of perceiving social unrest and the complex and often obscure interaction between law and society. Conflict was not merely a function of transient economic and political circumstances. Agitation, violence and the more recondite forms of legal pressure were called upon by those capable of resisting the demands of the state and the privileged, and their resistance

might affect the operations of fiscal and administrative bodies and significantly influence the customs and laws regulating the etiquette of social differentiation. Analogies between our own situation and that ina town of forty-thousand souls are tenuous. Perhaps the least unreasonable comparison Is to present-day labor relations where strikes, boycotts, and sabotage find their place as traditional strategems that do not rule out other tactics in a game played within the limits of community survival. The threat of violence is always unpleasant, but it can sometimes

make a point. If the people did not take control of the institutions of municipal and national government, they did make themselves heard. Far from being the pointless expression of frustration with patrician abuses, urban unrest accompanied and played an integral role in the creation of a state and society that functioned, for better or for worse, °° during more than four centuries.

35. Cf. Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, “L’histoire immobile,” AESC 29 (1975), 673-692.

BLANK PAGE

Appendices

142

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II Notes on the Careers of Selected Individuals 1. Pons Alamandin may have been involved in the manipulation of the communal currency, since he was among the wealthiest members of the bourgeoisie of Montpellier (in the technical sense of that term). His family held land in fief from the bishop of Maguelonne; without being tied to any one guild, they acted as money changers throughout Europe and traded in spices and cloth.'! 2. Jean d’Arrabloy was seneschal of Beaucaire and Nimes from 1296 to October 1302 and ended a long career in the royal service as seneschal from 1303 to 1313 of his wife’s native province of Périgord and Quercy.? After retiring as seneschal, he was frequently empowered as ambassador and as enquéteur, often investigating criminal charges, and he was again consulted in 1322 concerning the kingdom of Majorca.* To Delisle’s catalogue, we may add that he acted as enquéteur in Bourges in 1316 and in Carcassonne in 1317, where he was again joined by Beaujeu.* In October 1317, he was apparently in Nemours when a bailiff for Amiens was appointed at his direction. In the following year, an agent sold for 1,320 livres tournois some lands Arrabloy had received from the crown.® In 1318

he inquired into charges brought by the consuls of Montpellier against Jean Marc, major judge of Beaucaire and Nimes.® He is cited as governor (gubernator) in Nimes in 1321, perhaps during the absence or incapacity of the seneschal.’ As Delisle indicates, these acts must be assigned to the elder Jean d’Arrabloy and not to his son, seneschal of Périgord and Quercy from 1315 to 1319, who is normally cited during these years as Johannes junior.®

3. Arnaud de Balsenq, one of the two commissioners who, by an order in Parlement of 22 June 1331 (GC, no. 3540), replaced Raymund Saquet in the investigation of municipal accounts at Montpellier, was /egum professor (GC, no. 3554). He was also called advocatus while royal enquéteur in the Rouergue in

1. Combes, “Quelques remarques,” pp. 105-106; AP, ed. Furgeot, no. 1171; AN x! 8847, fol. 244. 2. Rogozinski, “Counsellors,” p. 424. 3. Léopold Delisle, “Chronologie des baillis et des sénéchaux royaux,” Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, 24, 1 (Paris, 1904), 216-217. 4. Delisle, loc. cit., n. 21; Reg. Ph. V, nos. 1458, 2400; HL, 10, no. 203. 5. Reg. Ph. V, nos. 2316, 3326.

6. AN X** 2, fol. 49v (AP, ed. Boutaric, no. 5157). ,

7. AN X~ 2, fol. 52.

8. See, e.g., Reg. Ph. V, nos. 335-336, 339-340, 342-344, 346-348, 1434, 2004, 2854, 3026. 146

Appendix IT 147 1332 and in Nimes in 1335; he was removed from office in the latter year and fined 3,000 pounds for illegally killing a defendant by torture (AP, ed. Furgeot, nos. 582, 896). Balsenq owned land at Figeac (AP, no. 580). For the mission at Montpellier in 1331, Balseng and his colleagues were at the town by 9 July and halted their inquiry when an accord between the consuls and the people was announced. He may have remained in Montpellier until the accord was approved by the crown in March 1332 (he was in Paris on 4 June, according to GC, no. 3550). He was active in seeing that the agreement was carried out; a letter of November 1332 describes him as collaborating with the rector (GC, no. 3552). He requested reimbursement for a total of 270 days at the daily rate of two gold royaux, plus five shillings a day for his notary. The consuls, responsible for the popular share of his expenses as well as their own, responded by asking that he be removed from

the case (GC, nos. 3556-58, April and May 1333; cf. no. 3560). Two royaux theoretically were equivalent to forty shillings (R7F, p. 333), and the latter was the usual daily stipend to enquéteurs sent from or deputized by the Parlement during most of the fourteenth century; the notarial fee of five shillings is corroborated by a reference in Boutillier’s Somme rural (a legal handbook published in several early editions).° Unlike parlementary enquéteurs, those serving on special commissions of reform apparently did not receive a fixed amount for their expenses, which seem to have been paid by the crown and not by the parties to the case.!°

4. Armand de Baume was judge of the court of the rector of Montpellier from February 1320 to August 1323.!! As witness to an act of the royal court at Nimes in 1293, de Baume is called citizen of Uzes as well as clericus and jurisperitus; he was legum doctor by 1307 when he acted as lieutenant of the judge of Nimes.!? His son, Michael de Baume, was an attorney in Uzes in the 1320s according to a document in AM Uzés FF 1.'3

5. Pierre de Beaujeu, prior of La Charité-sur-Loire (a Cluniac house in the Nivernais), carried out a number of missions for the crown, all of them in Languedoc. He joined Jean d’Arrabloy and Pierre de Chalon on a mission to Aragon in 1317.'4 The same year he served with Arrabloy and Guillaume Arrenard as “inquisitores deputos in senescallia Carcassone super plures excessus factos ibi,” according to an undated account (Mignon, no. 2733). Their duties ap9. See Lot and Fawtier, /nstitutions francaises, 2:338; Aubert, Histoire du Parlement,

1342. | 1:23, 111.

10. Glénisson, “Enquéteurs-réformateurs,” p. 88. 11. Cart. Mag., nos. 1447, 1450, 1488, 1504; GC, no. 1491; Arch. de Montp., 6:68, AM Aimargues FF 6 (AD Gard, E-Supplément, no. 535). 12. AD Gard G 1631, G 1203; cf. Gens just., pp. 80, 83 (but read MS 1203 for 1631 at p. 83). 13. See, however, Chapter V above for Pierre de Baume, merchant of Montpellier before

14. Reg. Ph. V, no. 1469; AL, 10:570.

148 Appendix II parently included reform of the local administration and presumably occupied the latter months of 1317. In January 1318, the crown conferred an office in the diocese of Agde granted by Arrenard and d’Arrabloy “de consilio dilecti et fidelis P. prioris de Caritate” (HL, 10, no. 203); a royal letter of May 1318 similarly mentions Beaujeu’s oral and written testimony on behalf of Frisco Ricomanni, king’s advocate for the sénéchaussée of Carcassonne.'> But they also took part in an ongoing investigation of crimes allegedly committed by followers of the count of Comminges (replacing two lawyers, Aimeri de Cros and Pons d’Aumelas).'° In July 1319, Beaujeu, Thomas de Marfontaine, and Jean de Forgettes were present in Lyon as commissioners pro reformatione patrie (apparently at the request of its citizenry) and issued an ordinance regulating the local courts.'? Both Marfontaine and Forgettes had served as members of Parlement, and the former was named president of the Grand’ Chambre in 1320.'8 At Montpellier in October 1325, Beaujeu is described as deputized with the seneschal to act against usurers and to raise the fines for acquisitions of fiefs and rear fiefs (GC, nos. 1216, 2081).'° 6. Pons Bérenger, a citizen of Montpellier and judge there in the 1330s, owned property in the town (AM Montpellier BB 3, no. 709) and was the bishop’s proctor before the rector’s court while Jean Ricard was its judge. It is tempting to conclude that he owed the post to Ricard’s endorsement.?°

7. Hugues Betti, the chief fiscal advisor to the seneschal of Beaucaire and Nimes, was custos cartulariorum et scripturarum regiarum et archivi publici from at least 1325.2! He relied on the “antiquis registris que in archivo publico custu-

diuntur” in 1328 when he reduced the faille due from the inhabitants of Nava Celle, citing in their behalf the taxes collected from that small village since 1288.?? Betti may have come to this French sénéchaussée from Italy. During an inquest in 1332, his nephew André Guiraud was described as a Florentine living in Nimes,

15. Cited by Brown, “Fiscality and Reform.” 16. Olim, 3,2, no. 71 (4 July 1318). 17. Cartulaire municipale de la ville de Lyon, ed. Marie-Claude Guigue (Lyon, 1876), nos. 40-42, 83, 143; Claude-Francois Ménestrier, Histoire civile ou consulaire de la ville de Lyon (Lyon, 1696), preuves, pp. 103-105.

18. Paul Lehugeur, Philippe le Long, roi de France 1316-1322: Le mécanisme du gouvernement (Paris, 1931), Index, s.v. 19. This mission is mentioned by Henneman, “Enquéteurs-Réformateurs,” pp. 324-327, whose inclusion of GC, nos. 1941-1946, among his citations gives the misleading impression that Beaujeu was also investigating the property of Jews. 20. See Cart. Mag., nos. 1591-92, 1596, 1622, 1635-36; mentioned nos. 1562 and 1585 as episcopal proctor before other courts. On Bérenger’s career as judge, see Arch. de Montp., 12, nos. 29-30, 26, 55, 424, 426, 606, 791; HL, 10:365; AP, ed. Furgeot, nos. 3136, 3674; Gallia Regia, 4, no. 15929; GC, no. 235; Ménard, Nismes, 2, preuves, no. 67; AM Montpellier BB 3, no. 610. 21. Ménard, Nismes, 2:48, preuve 27. 22. See Rogozinski, “First French Archives,” p. 115 and passim. For Betti’s work as a fiscal commissioner, see Rogozinski, “Counsellors,” p. 437.

Appendix II 149 and Betti deputized Jean Nuti, also a Florentine, to collect for him the revenues from the royal weight.23 If he was of Florentine origin, Betti was already resident in Nimes in 1309 when he was commissioned by the treasurer to raise a subsidy in Velay (Comptes 1285-1314, no. 21451); he was specifically called civis Nemausi in 1320 and 1329.74

8. Rostang de Béziers was royal judge of Montpellier, Aigues-Mortes, and Sommieres, holding these offices until 1329.25 The son or nephew of Pierre de Béziers, king’s procurator from 1288 to 1302,?© Rostang acquired as a student a prebend under royal control and was associated with the seneschal’s council from 1307; he was noble and lord in part of Saint-Etienne-de-Sort.?’ 9. Jean Bon held Anduze, not yet definitely combined with Uzes, from 1321 to 1328,28 and Beaucaire from March 1330 to October 1342 (and possibly through July 1345).29 He acted as rector of Montpellier in March 1324.°° In August 1342, Bon asked that his long service as judge be rewarded with a benefice in the diocese

of Nimes, although he possessed an office in Le Puy conferred by the pope’s predecessor.3! If this request suggests some sort of clerical status, he was nevertheless a member of the town council of Ales in 1328; in 1336 he witnessed an ap-

peal to the seignorial court by the consuls (among them Bertrand Bon).?? Members of the Bon family frequently served as consul during the fourteenth cen-

tury; although noble and bourgeois they were at times involved in the cloth trade.*?

10. Benoit Brossart was in 1322 commissarius super facto Judeorum et Templariorum in Lingua Occitana.** He raised franc-fief fines in Carcassonne in 23. AM Nimes HH 2, fols. 150, 239v (I am indebted to Raphael de Soigne for these references).

24. Reg. Ph. V, no. 3212; AM Nimes NN | (perhaps André Guiraud was the son of a sister who had married an Italian?). 25. GC, no. 2355; Cart. Mag., nos. 1567, 1570, 1572, 1592; AD Herault D 2, no. 4. 26. Rogozinski, “Counsellors,” p. 432. 27. Martin-Chabot, Archives de la cour des comptes, nos. 74, 308 (but cf. Reg. Ph. le Bel, ed. Fawtier, no. 1414); Cartulaire de loeuvre des église, maison, pont et hépitaux du Saint-Esprit, ed. L. Brugrier-Roure as separately paginated Annexes to Mémoires de l’ Academie de Nimes 13-15, 17 (1889-92, 1894), no. 16; Reg. Ph. V, no. 3477.

28. Gens just., p. 71; cf. Ménard, Nismes, 7, preuve 8. 29. AD Gard E 1424; Ménard, Nismes, 2, preuves 40, 68, 70; AP, ed. Furgeot, nos. 3415, 4057.

30. Arch. de Montp., 12, no. 355. 31. ASV, RS 1, fol. 208; cf. Gallia Regia, 1, no. 3529. 32. AM Ales 1S-12, no., 10; 1S-16, no. 11. 33. Bardon, Histoire d’Alais, Index, s.v. 34. Journaux du trésor de Charles IV, ed. Viard, no. 5909; Mignon, no. 2733 (Carcassonne); Comptes royaux (1314-1328), ed. Maillard, no. 1483 (Toulouse); cf. Les journaux du trésor de Philippe VI de Valois, ed. Jules Viard (Paris, 1899), no. 971.

150 Appendix II 1327 and in the bailiwicks of Tours and Anjou from 1327 to 1329,35 and was com-

missarius super facto Lombardi in Macon in the early 1330s.2* Brossart was

ordered to raise the fines of /franc-fief and amortissement due in the sénéchaussées of Beaucaire and Carcassonne from the preceding fifty-four years,

using force if necessary; he is found in the Midi from February 1334 through August 1336 (his powers were briefly revoked in April 1335).3” In 1337 he was possibly also responsible in Carcassonne for the collection of debts owed to Jews (Mignon, no. 2174).

11. Etienne de Cabanes was king’s procurator from April 1328 to September 132938 and succeeded Jean Ricard as judge of crimes from May 1332 to May 1339.29 In the 1340s, although still a member of the council of this sénéchaussée (Ménard, Nismmes, 2:123), he reviewed the administration of the port at AiguesMortes and investigated as enquéteur-réformateur abuses by royal officials in the Rouergue and Carcassonne.*®° De Cabanes had an unusually checkered career. Pursued by the church in April 1336 and suspended from office for hanging a member of the clergy, he was reinstated in 1337; he was declared unfit to hold royal office in 1348 because he had brought false witness against the lieutenant of the seneschal of Carcassonne.*! Legum doctor, he studied and perhaps taught law in Montpellier, where he was lieutenant of the royal judge in 1327; he was also royal judge of Lunel prior to receiving the office of judge of crimes.*? The sources give de Cabanes the title of knight; he was the son of a merchant (mercerius) who

owned valuable urban property. In 1336, he and three brothers divided this heritage, in the absence of a will, through an amicable agreement that is of some

interest as an example of fourteenth-century notarial practices.*? Arch. de Montp., 12, no. 689, mentions a rural holding of de Cabanes. It is not impossible that he was still alive in 1358 and acting as counsellor and advocate of the town and the queen of Majorca (GC, no. 3331).

12. Pierre Calvel was a member of the law faculty at Montpellier from 1333 and perhaps earlier.*+ A citizen of Montpellier, he was sent with Jean Ricard in 1317 to gain confirmation of communal privileges, and is recorded subsequently as present at many public acts and as an arbitrator in three civil disputes.*5 He was 35. Mignon, nos. 1835, 1882, 2174. 36. Journ. trés. Ph. VI, no. 2284; cf. Henneman, “Taxation of Italians,” p. 31. 37. HL, 9:472, 10:750; Henneman, “Enquéteurs-Réformateurs,” p. 335. 38. AM Uzeés FF 1; cf. Cart. Mag., no. 1596. 39. Ménard, Nismes, 2:73, 78 (1332); Cart. Mag., nos. 1656, 1677, 1684, 1693, 1701; AP, ed. Furgeot, nos. 2063, 2207, 2624 (1339). 40. GC, no. 3764; AP, ed. Furgeot, nos. 2924, 2961, 7282. 41. Gallia Regia, 1, no. 3131; AP, ed. Furgeot, nos. 2166, 8655. 42. Gouron, “Enseignement,” p. 11; AD Hérault D 2, no. 4; AP, ed. Furgeot, no. 8655. 43. See de Charrin, Testaments, p. 177; Hilaire, “Exercise de style,” pp. 283-299; idem, “Pratique notariale,” p. 177; idem, “Patria potestas,” p. 432. 44. GC, no. 3554; Meijers, Etudes, 3:207; Statuts et privileges, ed. Fournier, 2:88. 45. AM Montpellier BB 3, nos. 649, 669, 699.

Appendix II 15] judge of the communal court in 1333 and served as bayle in 1347 according to Fabre (“Quaestiones,” p. 35), who prints one of his comments on the laws.

13. Jesseline de Cassagnes was a member of the rural gentry who used the Roman law to protect seignorial interests; a canon of the cathedral church of Maguelonne and arrested by the seneschal while episcopal advisor, he was also appointed to the communal office of assessor of the bayle’s court in 1317. He was most famed as a canonist but taught both laws from 1292 and has left glosses on the civil law.** Although he received a chaplaincy in Avignon in 1318 (Fournier, p. 351), it is possible that Cassagnes remained in or returned to Montpellier; he is still given title of professor of both laws in June 1318*’ and again in June 1322 when he witnessed an act of homage to the bishop of Maguelonne.*?

14. Bertrand Castel took the oath of office as judge of Nimes in May 1313; suspended and imprisoned for crimes against the state toward the end of 1322 or the beginning of 1323, he was freed by Parlement in May 1323 and probably remained in office until 1326, when he assumed the judgeship of Béziers.*? Prior to taking royal office, he had represented the lieutenant of Majorca and the bishop of Maguelonne.*° He had been vice-judge of the bayle’s court in 1296 and 1304 and assessor in 1310.5! He was royal judge of Anduze, Meyrueis, and Le Vigan in 1312.52 For his urban property, see Arch. de Montp., 12, no. 630 (September 1306). Called surisperitus in acts prior to 1310 and /egum doctor, juris utriusque doctor, or legum professor in all subsequent documents, he may have attended the law faculty in the early 1300s with the popular syndic Brémond Grimaud; he almost certainly studied under and possibly obtained a royal judgeship through the intercession of Clément de Fraissé, who was related to the popular leader Jean de Fraissé.

15. Guillaume Cervier had been royal procurator in the sénéchaussée of Beaucaire and Nimes since 1317.53 He remained in the king’s service considerably longer than Strayer believed, holding the office of procurator for at least another decade.°* These sources give Cervier only the title of maitre, but he was called 46. Paul Fournier, “Jesselin de Cassagnes, canoniste,” Hist. litt. de la France, 35 (Paris, 1921), 348-350; Meijers, Etudes, 3:207. 47. Olim, 3,2:1273; AP, ed. Boutaric, no. 5540. 48. Cart. Mag., no. 1541; this act also refers to him as noble. 49. Gens just., p. 84; GC, no. 1598 (1318); Am Nimes GG | (1318), MM 20 (November 1322). For his judgeship of Béziers to 1333: Gallia Regia, 1, no. 5327 bis; Gouron, “Enseignement,” n. 62. 50. GC, nos. 704 (1295), 1121 (1310); Cart. Mag., no. 1177 (1303). 51. Germain, Commune, 3, preuve 25; Arch. de Montp., 12, nos. 635, 677. 52. Gens just., p. 71; AM Nimes, MM 15. On his legal practice, see also Cart. Mag., no. 1047 (1297); AM Montpellier BB 2, no. 468 (1301). 53. Gens just., pp. 97-98. 54. Reg. Ph. V, no. 3210; GC, no. 3512 (December 1325); Arch de Montp., 6 (Inventaire de Joffre), p. 68 (the context of this undated document and the titles assigned to Pierre Jean and Bernard de Saint-Quentin suggest 1318); Cart. Mag., no. 1563.

152 Appendix II Jurisperitus as judge of the common court of Le Puy in April 1308.°° He was already present in Nimes in October 1310.°°

16. Pierre de Chalon came from the Maconnais and had been the king’s procurator in Macon before taking responsibility for the customs service in 1311.°’ He raised tenths from the clergy of the province of Lyon in 1307-1308, 1310, and possibly again in 1318.58 As royal procurator, he tried in January 1308 to persuade an assembly of notables in Lyon to accept a treaty made with the cathedral chapter in 1307, and he was also present in Paris in 1310 at a meeting between Guillaume de Nogaret and the archbishop of Lyon concerning this treaty.°9 Chalon rendered his first account as collector of customs dues in 1297 and his last in 1335, although he was named president of Parlement in 1333 (not 1332 as stated by Strayer).°° His work in reforming the operations of the customs service places him among the most important of the royal councillors who created the essential framework of the French bureaucracy during the first half of the fourteenth century. He stands alone, however, in avoiding the fiscal scandals and palace intrigues that ended or tainted the careers of many of those given broad powers.®! Chalon’s authority was augmented considerably in February 1318 bya remarkable delegation of royal powers. During the previous year, at the request of the cloth manufacturers of the sénéchaussée of Carcassonne, he had inquired | into and accepted for the crown an agreement (19 and 20 September, confirmed 24 February 1318) modifying earlier ordinances forbidding the export of wool and ~woolen cloth.®? According to HL, 9:337, this agreement confirmed an earlier treaty of 1303 negotiated by Chalon and Geoffroi Coquatrix.®? General ordinances of 1272 and 1321 prohibited export of many kinds of goods.** On 25 February 1318, Chalon was appointed guardian and conservator of this agreement for life, at the princely salary of forty shillings a day (raised to sixty in 1322!).6 He was told to 55. Documents rélatifs aux états généraux, ed. Picot, no. 172. 56. Ménard, Mismes, 1, preuve 38. 57. Joseph Strayer, “Pierre de Chalon and the Origins of the French Customs Service,” Medieval Statecraft and the Perspectives of History (Princeton, 1971), p. 235. 58. Reg. Ph. V, no. 1555 bis, has him substituting for Henri de Salins in 1318, but the latter accounted for this subvention according to Mignon, no. 878. 59. Strayer, /oc. cit.; Pierre Bonnassieux, De la réunion de la Lyon a la France (Lyon, 1875), pp. 105, 115. 60. Mignon, no. 2013 (cf. no. 2021, dated 1298); Soc. politique, p. 114, n. 1}. 61. For these, see Pegues, Lawyers, pp. 83-86, 137-138, 193. 62. Ordonnances, 11:447-458; Reg. Ph. V, no. 1775; Joseph Petit et al., Essa! de restitution des plus anciens mémoriaux de la chambre des comptes de Paris (Paris, 1899), no. 695 (cf. nos. 698-700). 63. See also Mignon, nos. 2034-2035. 64. See Strayer, “Pierre de Chalon,” p. 232; and Lehugeur, Mécanisme, p. 295. See now the recent work of Guy Romestan, “La gabelle des draps en Languedoc,” Homage a André Dupont. (Montpellier, 1974). 65. Petit, Essai de restitution, nos. 42, 704 (ed. pp. 122-124, Documents, no. 1); confirmed 19 June 1322, nos. 695, 703, 705.

Appendix II 153 take whatever steps were needed to enforce the agreement, and was given royal authority to name an unlimited number of subordinates at whatever salary he thought best. All his deputies were to be treated as if they held a mandate from the king, and royal officials in nine sénéchaussées and eight bailiwicks (including Normandy and the eastern frontier as weil as all of Languedoc) were ordered to execute their commands as they would execute royal commands. Although royal

enquéteurs and military captains sometimes received broad authority in one region for a limited period,®* I know of no other commission of this period that conferred such extensive powers. Chalon’s initiative was much less restricted than that of a seneschal or bailiff. He apparently carried out this mandate to the satisfaction of the crown and seems to have retained it until he retired in the 1330s, even though he did incur the anger of the king as an enquéteur in the Rouergue in 1319. From motives that have never been satisfactorily explained, Philip V revoked the power of all royal commissioners (with a few exceptions) in August 1318 and ordered them to submit their records to the chamber of accounts in Paris. Perhaps because this order had not been executed in the Midi, it was renewed on

27 October 1319, and the royal letter to the seneschal of Rouergue indicated displeasure with Chalon and the abbot of Sainte-Seine, who had been accused of appropriating large salaries and incurring unnecessary expenses.*”? Henneman ex-

plains the recall of the commissioners in terms of current fiscal politics, but mistakenly cites the order of 27 October 1319 as a revocation of the earlier one.*®®

In any case, Chalon retained his commission as guardian of the ordinances on wool; a letter of July 1320 (Reg. Ph. V, no. 2713) specifically excepted this commission from the general revocation.

Although Strayer has indicated that Chalon’s “outside activities fell off sharply” after he became responsible for the customs service in 1308, he continued to be active as a collector of revenues and an enquéteur in financial matters. A memorandum drawn up at the beginning of the reign of Charles IV, probably in 1322, shows that he had the final say in a wide variety of investigations and treaties with lords and communities throughout southeastern France and especially in the sénéchaussée of Carcassonne; the document thus orders the seneschals and bailiffs to inform Chalon of the amounts collected through taxes or fines punishing violations of fiscal ordinances.®? In 1325, when he raised a war

subsidy in the districts of Carcassonne and Toulouse, he may also have investigated such violations.’° In 1318, the bishop of Laon and the count of Forez submitted a list of questions to the chamber of accounts regarding their duties as enquéteurs in the Midi; 66. Henneman, “Enquéteurs-Réformateurs,” p. 316, n. 8.

67. HL, 10:606, no. 216; Reg. Ph. V, nos. 1152 (the original order) and 2691 (its renewal).

68. “Enquéteurs-Réformateurs,” pp. 321-322. 69. Petit, Essai de restitution, pp. 124-125. 70. Henneman, “Enquéteurs-Réformateurs,” p. 325; RTF, p. 46. See also Mignon, no. 1881: the collector of finances for fiefs turned over to the chamber of accounts a roll of fines that he had received from Chalon.

154 Appendix IT with reference to Montpellier, they were told to consult Pierre de Chalon, who was with them in the field.”! 17. Guy Chevrier probably came from the Maconnais; seneschal since November 1321, he had previously served as viguier of Lyon, seneschal of Saintonge, and seneschal of the Rouergue.”?

18. Hugues Fabreforte was jurisperitus and is cited as advocatus in the Stilus parlamenti of Guillaume du Brueil, written in 1330, and also in acts of 1332 (GC, no. 3550) and 1335. He was ennobled in June 1331 almost simultaneously with his commission of inquiry and conciliation at Montpellier in collaboration with Arnaud de Balseng.’* Like Balsenq, he owned land in the Rouergue.’*

19. Enguerrand de Fieffes, a native of Picardy and provost of a church in Utrecht (GC, no. 3506) was appointed major judge toward the end of 1317 or the beginning of 1318, and retained that office until November 1323.75 20. Jean de Mandevilain came from Clermont in the Auvergne; his family was associated with the Gayte, who dominated the fiscal administration under Philip V. He was in 1327 first among the clerical members of the chambre des enquétes, which he had joined in 1319; “familiar” and councillor of Charles IV, he was promoted to the Grand’ Chambre by Philip VI in 1328 and was successively bishop of

Nevers (in 1333), Arras, and Chalons (Soc. politique, pp. 69, 108). In 1326,

Cahors.’® |

Mandevilain was a royal commissioner at Montpellier, investigating municipal ac-

counts in collaboration (initially) with Jean de Chatele, ordinary judge of 21. Etienne de Molton was royal judge of Nimes in August 1328 (AM Nimes NN 1) and from May 1332 through June 1343.’’ He is called noble, /eguin doctor, and king’s clerk. Gouron (/oc. cit.) speculates that he was of English or Italian

71. Bibliotheque municipale de Rouen, MS 3405 (Collection Leber, MS 5870: Ménant, vol. 8), fols 26-29, cited by Elizabeth Brown in the forthcoming study, “Fiscality and Reform in Philip V’s France: The Reformatores Patrie Generales of 1318-1319.” On the mission of Laon and Forez, see also Henneman, “Enquéteurs-Réformateurs,” p. 317; Lehugeur, Mécanisme, pp. 307-310; HL, 9:379-383. 72. Rogozinski, “Counsellors,” pp. 424-425; Francois Maillard, “Les mouvements administratifs des baillis et des sénéchaux,” Bulletin philologique et historique, année 1963 (Paris, 1966), 2:901, 904, 906.

73. Roland Delachenal, Alistoire des advocats au Parlement du Paris (Paris, 1885), p. 350.

74. At Aspieres: Reg. Ph. V, no. 1965. 75. Gens just., p. 60; Rogozinski, “Counsellors,” p. 433. 76. Journ. trés. Ch. IV, ed. Viard, nos. 815, 1364, 1524. 77. Cart. Mag., nos. 1656, 1709; Ménard, Nismes, 2, preuves 40, 44; Gouron, “Enseignement,” p. 11; AM Marsillargues AA 1, vol. 1, no. 48; AM Nimes MM 18, MM 20 (fol. 3), NN 1; AN X!4 8847, fol. 247; AP, ed. Furgeot, no. 4995.

Appenaix II 155 descent; papal records state that he came from the Limousin (where he requested

a prebend for a familiar in 1342) and was deacon of a church in Bourges by 1343.78 Although this would probably place him in his eighties in 1343, it is not

impossible that he studied in Toulouse, where an Etienne de Multone doctor novus in decretis gave his initial lecture in October 1292 during an impressive ceremony.’?

22. Jean de Montarnaud was a citizen of Montpellier who inherited extensive property from his father (AM Montpellier BB 2, no. 42); a member of the law faculty from 1304 (AM Aimargues FF 3, FF 8), he was procurator for the lieutenant of Majorca in 1295, consular procurator in 1294, and communal judge in 1314, 1315, 1321, 1325, and 1328.°°

23. Brémond de Montferrier taught civil law for some twenty years and has been called the “fondateur de l’enseignement du droit civil a l’universite de Montpellier.” A number of his glosses are extant, and he influenced later jurisprudence through the work of students such as Pierre Jayme, who reproduces his opinions _at length.?! Brémond probably joined the faculty toward the end of the 1280s. He is given the title of /ezum doctor from 1282.8? From 1289 to 1305, the sources normally refer to him as /egum professor or juris civilis professor.®> As major judge of this sénéchaussée from November 1286 through December 1290 (and probably to February 1291), he was responsible for important reforms in the administration of royal justice.8* He presumably preferred, however, to represent the king of Majorca and also acted for the bishop of Maguelonne. Lieutenant of Majorca

in 1285 and 1286, he again served as the king of Majorca’s lieutenant or procurator on numerous occasions between 1291 and 1305, vigorously opposing on behalf of the community or its lord his colleagues who had remained with the royal administration.® 24. Hugues de la Porte was king’s procurator from 1293 to 1317; his diligence in advancing roya! interests brought him the very unusual honor of ennoblement without, apparently, offending the consuls.*® 78. ASV, RS 1, fol. 46; 4, fol. 137. 79. Henri Gilles, “Enseignement,” pp. 223. 80. GC, nos. 1121, 1379, 1580, 1996; Arch. de Montp., 12, nos. 560, 815. 81. Meijers, Etudes, 3:205; Fournier, “Pierre Jame,” pp. 483-484. 82. AN P 1353, no. 753; Thomas Millerot, Histoire de la ville de Lunel (Montpellier, 1882), preuve 4 (1283); BN MS lat. 9173, fols. 127-128 (1287). 83. See the references from 1292, 1294, and 1304, below, Appendix III; AM Aimargues DD 1 (1289); Cart. Mag., nos. 809 (1289), 1082 (1299). 84. Rogozinski, “Ordinary and Major,” p. 597; idem, “Counsellors,” p. 430; Gens just., p. 55; AN J 318, no. 73 (November 1286); BN nouv. acq. fr. 7430, fol. 141 (October

1290). |

85. Gens just., pp. 41, 55; Rogozinski, “Counsellors,” p. 430; BN Languedoc (Bénédictins) 81, fol. 111 (1285). 86. Gens just., pp. 67, 76, 87; Rogozinski, “Ennoblement,” pp. 277-278.

156 Appendix II 25. Pierre de Prouville, whose surname suggests that he may have come from

Picardy, became canon of the cathedral church of Chartres in 1335 by royal grant.8’ By 1341 he had also acquired an archdeaconry in Evreux and solicited other prebends in Paris and Chartres for himself and his nephew.*® For his service in the Parlement, see Journ. trés. Ch. IV, nos. 1266, 3702, 8491. Although the exact nature of his responsibilities in Languedoc is sometimes uncertain, Prouville seems to have been regarded as an expert on fiscal matters, especially in southern France. Judging by the complaints of the consuls of Montpellier, he searched out franc-fief infractions with great diligence during the latter months of 1330 and 1331; a royal letter of March 1333 halting the investigation of such violations possibly refers to him. When his investigation of franc-fief violations in Montpellier was terminated, he was in March 1332 one of four men empowered to collect the large sum of 15,000 pounds due from the sénéchaussée of Carcassonne in return for abolition of the gabelle on salt. He is subsequently found in Saintonge in 1337 presumably collecting the fine of amortissement, as royal delegate in 1338 to the bishop of Léon and the duke of Brabant in Brittany, and as judge in 1339 in a property dispute between the count of Clermont and his brother. In February 1348 Prouville was sent with the bishop of Paris and the seneschal of Beaucaire and Nimes to investigate a dispute arising out of the division of the vicariate of Béziers and ordered to ascertain whether it was profitable to maintain the new courts; in November of the same year, however, he apparently was in Montdidier

in Picardy dealing with a case of theft.°° He raised tenths from the clergy of Chartres diocese in 1344 and 1347. 26. Thomas de Reims was attached to the Parlement as a notary in 1315 and 1316.92 He was rapporteur des enquétes in 1322 (AP, ed. Furgeot, no. 6930), and the royal accounts show him as a lay judge in the same body from 1321 through 1325 and again in 1327.% In 1329, however, he is called clericus regis by an act of arbitration with the murderer of his nephew.** The arbitrator’s sentence awarding

Thomas 200 pounds was disputed in 1341 after his own death. In February 1322, Thomas de Reims and a former mayor of Amiens were commanded to in-

87. Journ. trés. Ch. IV, ed. Viard, no. 3702; AP, ed. Furgeot, nos. 1318, $012. 88. ASV, RS 1, fols. 239v, 241. 89. Ménard, Nismes, 2, preuve 35; GC, nos. 2083-86 (the last of these is published HL, 10:727).

90. See HL, 9:406; Bautier, “Comptes particuliers,” p. 811, no. 216; AP, ed. Furgeot, nos. 2172, 2681, 3543, 7929, 8722. 91. Journ. trés. Ph. VI, ed. Viard, nos. 722, 842, 2014, 2969, 3845. 92. AP, ed. Boutaric, no. 4990B; Comptes du trésor, ed. Robert Fawtier (Paris, 1930), no. 798. 93. Journ. trés. Ch. IV, ed. Viard, Index, s.v.; Journ. trés. Ph. VI, ed. Viard, no. 34. 94. Documents parisiens du régne de Philippe VI de Valois, ed. Jules Viard, 2 vols. (Paris, 1899-1900), 1:51.

95. AP, ed. Furgeot, no. 3009.

Appendix II 157 quire into charges brought before the Parlement; in 1326, he was assisted by the bailiff in taking franc-fief and amortissment in the bailiwick of Touraine.%°

27. Jean Ricard was judex appellationum generalium criminum with a salary of forty pounds from November 1327 to August 1329.°’ Ricard’s appointment in the 1320s is an example of the precocious creation of a formal system of appellate courts, now extended to this district after earlier adoption in the sénéchaussée of Toulouse.’ Beginning his career in 1310 and 1311 as procurator and then judge for the bishop of Maguelonne (Cart. Mag., nos. 1254, 1262, 1264, and 1266-67), Ricard remained on good terms with the bishop and witnessed various of his acts while royal judge of Montpellier (1313) and Lunel (1313-1317) and lieutenant for the judge in Aigues-Mortes (1314-1315).9? He was named guardian of episcopal rights and judge of Sommieres in June 1321 (Cart. Mag., no. 1507) and resided in Montpellier through 1326, frequently acting as lieutenant of the rector.!°° He was in Nimes as acting judge in 1327 and 1328 before receiving the office of criminal judge.'°' He returned to Montpellier from September 1329 to April 1339 as ordinary judge of the royal court for Montpellier, Sommieres, and Aigues-Mortes as well as guardian of the bishop of Maguelonne and the abbot of Aniane.'°®” Ricard’s long tenure as guardian of episcopal rights and possessions is evidence that the royal safeguard was sometimes enforced by provincial officials of much

higher rank than sergeant, contrary to the explanation given by Fredric Cheyette.'°3 Although he preferred the judgeship of Montpellier to higher offices in Nimes, there is no document directly attributing citizenship to Jean Ricard nor is there any evidence specifically tying him to the family with this surname that lived in Montpellier from the early 1200s and acquired nobility during the fifteenth century.'°* In 1317, however, he represented Montpellier before the crown during an acrimonious dispute over payment for municipal privileges (Reg. Ph. V, no. 439). He was joined in this assignment by Pierre Calvel (no. 12 of this ap-

pendix), who clearly was a citizen (GC, no. 296). See above, Chapter III, for Ricard’s decision as royal judge affirming the safeguard for Célestin Séguier. 96. Maugis, Documents inédits concernant Amiens, 1, no. 4; Jean Glénisson, “Les enquéteurs-réformateurs de 1270 a 1328,” (unpublished thesis, Ecole des Chartes, Paris, 1946), p. 304; Joseph Strayer and Charles Taylor, Studies in Early French Taxation (Cambridge, Mass., 1939), p. 198. 97. Rogozinski, “Ordinary and Major,” p. 605; AM Nimes MM 20 (May 1328); Cart. Mag., no. 1637 (August 1329); Viard, “Gages,” p. 254. 98. For this office, see Dupont-Ferrier, Officiers, pp. 217-220. 99. Cart. Mag., nos. 1294, 1424; Gens just., p. 76; AM Marsillargues AA-1, vol. 1, no. 24; AA-4, fols. 51-54. 100. Cart. Mag., nos. 1509, 1533, 1548, 1556, 1562; Arch. de Montp., 6:69; GC, no. 1491. 101. Cart. Mag., no. 1567; AM Nimes SS 22; Gallia Regia, 1, no. 3549. 102. Rogozinski, “Ordinary and Major,” n. 48; AD Gard E 1299; AP, ed. Furgeot, no. 783 (1333); Arch. de Montp., 12, no. 715 (1339). 103. “The Royal Safeguard in Medieval France,” Studia Gratiana 15 (1972), 644-646. 104. See for the latter AM Montpellier, H6pital, B-316; AD Hérault 1E-305.

I58 Appendix II 28. Pierre Ricard became judge of Alés in 1321 (AM Ales 1S-5, no. 2). He acted as lieutenant of the rector until at least March 1329 and was subsequently judge of the court of the small seal (December 1330-October 1332).!°° Called

merely magistri de Montepessulano and jurisperiti, Ricard and Bernard de Caranta received on 12 April 1321 a royal mandate as enquéteurs into a suit be_ tween the consuls and university students concerning the entry of wine.'°* In 1336

he was commissioned by the rector in a dispute between the bishop of Maguelonne and several other major landowners over the tenement of Puechagut.!°? Pierre was presumably a citizen of Montpellier and perhaps related to Jean Ricard, who immediately preceded him as lieutenant of the rector. 29. Guillaume de la Rouviere, who was royal judge from 1312 to 1317,'°8 probably came from Sauve, where he witnessed seignorial acts in 1288 and 1323.'° If so, he may well have been a member of the noble family that held the mas de la Rouviere and other property near Sauve; a Bérenger de la Rouviere of this family was jurisperitus and served as judge and as legal advisor to the seignorial court at the beginning of the fourteenth century.''° 30. Etienne Sabatier, one of the law professors who acted as episcopal advisors in ruling against the consuls of Montpellier in 1326, had also acted as advisor to the town council. He had served four terms since 1310 as judge of the bayle’s courts.!"!

31. Bernard Sabors, another of the episcopal advisors in the action of 1326, was perhaps the most distinguished jurist of the group. He became /egum doctor about 1321 and taught at Montpellier until his death, probably in 1338. He was assessor (legal advisor) to the communal court of the bayle five times between 1316 and 1330; also judge of the same court in 1313, communal ambassador to the king of Majorca (1325), and judge of the seignorial court (the curia palatii) in 1321.'!'2 He was the son of Hugo Sabors, who preceded him on the law faculty

105. GC, nos. 2559 (December 1326), 1493 (October 1332); Cart. Mag., nos. 1586, 1630, 1656; cf. AD Gard CC-1 (July 1331). 106. GC, no. 1608 (Cart. Univ. Montp., 1, no. 49); cf. no. 1609. 107. Cart. Mag., nos. 1720-22. 108. Rogozinski, “Ordinary and Major,” n. 22. 109. Arch. de Montp., 12, no. 716; Achille Bardon, “Liste chronologique des consuls de la ville d’Alais,” Mémoires de l’Académie de Nimes, 7° série, 15 (1892), 27, n. 1. 110. Cart. Mag., nos. 1182, 1220, 1226-28, 1279. See also the references to Bérenger de la Rouviere, miles, as well as those from 1270 and 1293 to Jean and Alsatia: nos. 714, 747, 809, 962. But note the Bérenger and Pierre de la Rouviére who were merchants in Montpellier in the late 1330s and early 1340s: AP, ed. Furgeot, nos. 2028, 4760, 8625.

111. Germain, Commune, 1, preuve 25; Cart. Mag., no. 1509; HL, 10, no. 263. 112. Germain, Commune, 1, preuve 25; GC, no. 1217; AD Hérault 8B11, fol. 51; Statuts, ed. Fournier, no. 928.

Appendix IT 159 about 1300 (Meijers, Etudes, 3:206), as did also noble Pierre Sabors.'!3 Bernard probably also enjoyed noble status; he was knighted by the king of Majorca in 1333 according to “La chronique romane.”!!* Etienne Sabors, also knight, had already acted as procurator and lieutenant of the king of Majorca from 1285 to 1299115

32. Bernard de Saint-Quentin, judge in 1317, taught law at the University of Montpellier from 1292 to 1303 and was judge of the communal court in 1293. Possibly of noble birth, he purchased the castle of Saint-Hilaire and owned valuable urban properties.''® Joining the seneschal’s council about 1290, he took part in its meetings for some thirty years, as well as intermittently acting as judge of Beaucaire and Montpellier and as lieutenant of the seneschal in 1318, but he never sought a permanent position and probably regarded the crown as only one of his clients.!!”

33. Raymund Saquet was the brother of an officer of the count of Foix. He entered Parlement in 1324, then joined the Grand’ Chambre the following year, and became master in the Requétes de l’h6tel in 1331; his part in important diplo-

matic missions during the Hundred Years’ War gained him the bishopric of Thérouanne (1335) and the archbishopric of Lyons (1356).!!8 Perhaps most immediately relevant to his responsibilities in Montpellier were his work as enquéteur and fiscal commissioner in the Maconnais in 1325 and again in 1331.!!9 In

1330 Saquet and the count of Bourbon inquired into complaints about the tax levied on cloth manufactured in Carcassonne in return for enforcement of royal ordinances forbidding the export of wool stuffs; an assembly of the towns of that sénéchaussée granted the crown 150,000 pounds to lift the tax and abolish the laws prohibiting export.!2° Saquet and the count of Bourbon were described as knowledgeable concerning the activities of royal enquéteurs in a reforming ordinance of 1341 (Ordonnances, 2:167-168). 113. AM Aimargues FF 3, FF 6; Documents relatifs aux états généraux, ed. Picot, no. 652; “Le cartulaire montpelliérain des rois d’Aragon et des rois de Majorque,” Arch. de Montp., 3:438. 114. Petit thalamus, ed. Pegat and Thomas, p. 347. 115. Arch. de Montp., 12, no. 18; GC, nos. 1121, 2042, 3107; Arch. de Montp., 3:430;

Germain, Commerce, preuves 54-55, 64; Alphonse de Louvrier, Histoire de la vicomté de Aumelas (Montpellier, 1896), p. 24; cf. also Jacques Sabors, procurator of the king of Majorca in 1288 (GC, no. 702). 116. AM Montpellier BB 1, no. 288; BB 2, no. 571; Comptes (1285-1314), ed. Fawtier, no. 13549. 117. Gens just., pp. 72, 80; Documents relatifs aux états généraux, ed. Picot, no. 125; AD Gard H 165; GC, no. 1598. 118. Soc. politique, pp. 91, 109, 267-268; Guillois, Maitres des requétes, p. 248. 119. Mignon, nos. 1247, 1827, and p. 370; Journ. trés. Ch. IV, ed. Viard, nos. 9902-04; AP, ed. Furgeot, no. 1560; see in general Henneman, “Enquéteurs-Réformateurs,” pp. 324-329. 120. HL, 9:466-467; Romestan, “Gabelle,” pp. 226-228; see also no. 16 of this appendix.

160 Appendix II 34. Thomas de Sauteyrargues was procurator for the bishop of Maguelonne between 1314 and 1329!2! as well as communal judge and assessor, receiving a salary from the consuls until his death in 1343.'22 He was noble and came from Montferrier, while his wife was a citizen of Nimes.'!23 But he acquired extensive property in Montpellier, where his son, Brémond de Sauteyrargues, continued to reside after his death.'!2* It is probable that Thomas de Sauteyrargues, using the name Thomas de Montferrier, took on clerical status about 1340 (after the death of his wife?) and acquired prebends in the churches of Maguelonne, Chartres, and Béziers.!25 Called clericus and consiliarius regis, he was associated with André Auban and Raymund Saynier between 1340 and 1343 in establishing the gabelle and raising other taxes for the war with England.'?6 35. Raymund Saynier was almost certainly related to Bernard Saynier, consul of Nimes in 1337, and he was the brother-in-law of Pons Salvator, whose family was also of consular rank; both the Saynier and Salvator families were enrolled among the mercantile échelles in 1355.'2” Saynier was king’s procurator in June 1328 and from November 1333 through December 1346.'28 He was judge of the common court for the Gévaudan from March 1329 to May 1332.!?9 36. Guillaume Séguier, father of Célestin Séguier, received the doctorate from Bologna. When the king of Aragon granted him the title of professor of civil law

at the new school at Montpellier, he was excommunicated by the bishop of Maguelonne, who claimed exclusive authority to confer the licentia docendi and only backed down under papal pressure.'3° Séguier is also mentioned as a member of the faculty in 1292 and 1303.!*! 121. Cart. Mag., nos. 1298, 1521, 1526, 1582; AM Montpellier, Hopital, B 167. 122. Arch. de Montp., 6:69; GC, nos. 236, 1142, 1217, 1590, 1968; AM Montpellier BB 3, nos. 610, 700; AM Nimes CC 1. 123. Chabrand, Etude sur Gui Pape, p. 229; Gouron, “Estimation,” p. 34; AM Nimes GG 1. 124. AP, ed. Boutaric, no. 7849; AP, ed. Furgeot, nos. 119, 482; AM Montpellier BB 3, nos. 686-688, 700, 702-703; Guiraud, Fondations de Pape Urbain V, 2:xxviu.

125. ASV, RS 1, fol. 239v; AP, ed. Furgeot, no. 4081: “Thomas de Sauteyrargues alias de Montferrier.” 126. HL, 10, no. 339; Ménard, Nismes, 2, preuve 67; GC, nos. 450, 1021, 3880; AM Montpellier BB 3, no. 675. 127. ASV, RS 1, fol. 216v; Ménard, Nismes, 2, preuves SO, 91.

128. AM Montpellier, H6pital, B 167; Cart. Mag., nos. 1582, 1677, 1693, 1709, 1713, 1718, 1721-22; HL, 10, no. 259; ASV, RS 1, fol. 210; AM Montpellier BB 3, no. 610; Ménard, Nismes, 2, preuves 67, 76; GC, no. 4003. 129. AM Uzés FF 1; AM Nimes SS-10; Cart. Mag., nos. 1613, 1615; Ménard, Nismes, 2, preuve 40. 130. Cart. Univ. Montp., 1:201; Alexandre Germain, “L’école de droit de Montpellier,” Mémoires de la section des lettres: Académie des sciences et lettres de Montpellier 6 (1876-1880), 187-188; Tisset, “Placentin,” p. 94. 131. Cart. Univ. Montp., 1, no. 20 (1292); Documents relatifs aux états généraux, ed. Picot, nos. 651-652 (1303).

Appendix II 161 Séguier was judge of the seignorial court (curia palatina) in 1272, as well as serving three terms as judge of the communal court.'3? He was cited as a witness at the seneschal’s court in 1281 and at the court of the count of Foix in 1312.!33 He was knighted by the king of Majorca before 1312 and married into a prosperous family of merchants.!3+ Following his punishment for murder described previously (above, Chapter III, n. 8), he went into exile. He was in Aquitaine in September 1312,135 perhaps en route to Catalonia, but was back in Montpellier in 1316, when he acted as judex datus for the Parlement.'!%°

37. Pierre Séguier joined his brother Guillaume on the law faculty about 1295.13” Pierre was the uncle of Celestin Séguier (GC, no. 3719), who sued for exemption from taxation in 1336 (Chapter III above); he married the daughter of a wealthy merchant.!38 He was communal assessor in 1301 and 1305 and acted as lieutenant for the lieutenant of Majorca in 1316 and 1320,!*° and he is frequently

named between 1305 and 1333 as expert witness to communal and seignorial acts.'*°

132. Germain, Commune, 1:391 and preuve 25 (1288, 1297, 1303); AM Montpellier, Fonds de la commune cloture (H,-Y, C), published by de Charrin, Testaments, p. 232. 133. Arch. de Montp., 6:54; Reg. Ph. le Bel, ed. Fawtier, no. 1948. 134. GC, nos. 1124, 3689; AM Montpellier BB 1, no. 37 (cf. no. 247); BB 2, nos. 444, 582 (for his property rights). 135. Reg. Ph. le Bel, ed. Fawtier, no. 1948. 136. AP, ed. Boutaric, no. 5045. 137. Cart. Univ. Montp., 1, no. 20; Documents relatif aux états généraux, ed. Picot, no. 652. Fabre, “Quaestiones,” pp. 35-36, for an example of his legal opinions. 138. GC, no. 3718; AM Montpellier BB 3, nos. 616-617; AP, ed. Furgeot, no. 95. 139. Germain, Commune, 1, preuve 25; GC, no. 76; AM Montpellier, Hdpital, B 541. 140. GC, nos. 1968, 3396, 3554, 3591; Cart. Mag., no. 1502; Arch. de Montp., 6:69, no. 124.

III The Law Faculty and Legal Profession in Montpellier The bishop of Maguelonne wrote in October 1292 to the faculty of law at Montpellier regarding recently imposed requirements for the degree of /egum doctor; he addressed four of the men as decretorum doctor, two as utriusque juris professor, and nine as legum professor.' Five of those cited (Jacques or Jean de Bernis, Brémond de Montferrier, Guillaume de Nogaret, Jean de Penna, and Pierre de Tornemire) had been among the seven doctors of law present in June 1287 when the king of Majorca acknowledged a grant of 1,000 pounds.? In January

1294, Montferrier, de Penna, and Tornemire were joined by Raymond de Molendario, Guillaume de Saint-Martin, and Bernard de Saint-Quentin as witnesses to the investiture of royal officers for Montpellierette, the section of the city recently purchased from the bishop of Maguelonne.* Bernis, Montferrier, de Penna, and Tornemire were named in 1304 among the twelve professors at Montpellier signing a responsum concerning a dispute between the syndics for the noble inhabitants and those for the populares of Aimargues.? Although the lists of 1292 and 1304 may include for legal or ceremonial purposes those only temporarily resident or not actively engaged in teaching, it is not impossible that the senior faculty was composed of twelve or fifteen jurists, and there was always a core group of some eight men permanently affiliated with the university. Gouron finds that the “nucleus for the teaching of law” was present at Montpellier by 1270.5 The manuscripts cited here show that the school was fully Operative before the 1280s. Many of those named also served as seignorial and royal officials — Pons d’Aumelas, Montferrier, Nogaret, de Penna, and Saint-

Quentin, as well as Clément de Fraissé, Pierre Jean, Jean Marc, and Pierre de Peyrrusse (the latter four signing the opinion of 1304).® The region of Montpellier, with perhaps 500,000 inhabitants,’ had more than

six hundred practicing lawyers who are identifiable from the sources. The registers of the law faculty have disappeared, but the notarial style of the region suggests that by the 1320s most lawyers had some formal education. Although 1. Cart. Univ. Montp., no. 22. 2. BN MS lat. 9173, fols. 127-128. 3. GC, no. 1490. Montferrier signed as lieutenant of Majorca; also present were Jacques de Vincio and Pons d’Aumelas, who had apparently passed the examination mentioned in October 1292. 4. AM Aimargues FF 3, FF 8; Rogozinski, “Ordinary and Major,” p. 603. 5. “Training,” p. 224; “Enseignement,” p. 18.

6. See Rogozinski, “Counsellors,” pp. 430-431; idem, “Ordinary and Major,” pp. 596-598; and Gens just., sub nom. 7. Russell, Medieval Regions, p. 165. 162

Appendix III 163 some may have attended the faculty of arts at the University of Paris, as Celestin Séguier did, or studied law at Bologna, the majority would surely have taken at least part of their legal training in Montpellier. Some ninety men and perhaps fif-

ty royal judges, holding office in most cases before 1314, are assigned no academic title.2 The higher degrees appear rather frequently from the 1280s; over one hundred men, about one-fifth of those honored with a title, are called doctor or professor of one or both laws. But the sources do not specifically indicate the preliminary grades until the second half of the fourteenth century. The rank of bachelor of law first appears in a reference to Guillaume Vigier, judge of Nimes.’ Licentiatus was applied to Pierre de Molceti in September 1332 by a notary in Mende’? and first used at the seneschal’s court of Jean d’Affenadou (d’Affriano) in October 1335.'' Bachelor remained rare, but /icencié became common and was already used of some twenty men in the 1340s and 1350s. The most frequently encountered title, used more than 350 times, 1s jurisperitus or savi en dreg, which replaced the older causidicus or legista in the thirteenth

century.'? Guillaume de Godols, who acted as major judge in the 1240s and

1250s, is called merely jurisperitus although he probably had studied at Bologna.'? Because of the precision with which notaries used these titles and the uniformly high status attributed to that of jurisperitus, it is my contention that jurisperitus does in fact indicate that its bearer had studied civil or canon law. As Jean Hilaire has indicated following an exhaustive study of the extant registers, notaries in Montpellier were familiar with academic grades and used them to designate a “hiérarchie bien précise.”'* In some regions, for example, _legum professor is clearly used as an honorific title, since it refers to men who had ceased to teach and were resident in a city that had no law school.'> Although this may also have been the practice of Occitanian courts in the 1260s, it was no longer the case in the “atmosphere hautement cultivée” of the fourteenth century.'® Notaries in this sénéchaussée almost never use /egum professor of men resident in Nimes or Ales, and the example of Jean Marc (not overnice in his professional

dealings) shows that in Montpellier notaries reserved this title for faculty members and normally applied it to them solely on formal occasions. (Throughout this study, however, I have erred on the conservative side by counting men as teachers at Montpellier only when their affiliation is explicitly stated.) Marc taught at Montpellier from 1292 to 1304, and was styled /egum professor in 8. Gens just., p. 27. 9. Above, Chapter V, n. 33. 10. Mende was loosely attached to this sénéchaussée: Gens just., p. 74; Rogozinski, “Counsellors,” p. 422, n. S. 11. Edouard Bondurand, “Hommage en langue d’Oc a |’évéque de Mende (1332),” Mémoires d l’Académie de Nimes, 7° série, 11 (1888), 79-84; Cart. Mag., no. 1708. 12. For legista, see Gilles, “Enseignement,” p. 209. 13. Rogozinski, “Ennoblement,” p. 508, n. 65; Tisset, “Placentin,” p. 93. 14. “Pratique notariale,” p. 176. 15. Gouron, “Enseignement,” p. 21. 16. Cf. Gens just., pp. 27 and 56, for the late reference to Yvo de Doulas by a notary in

164 Appendix III 1301 and 1302 as lieutenant of the communal judges in the latter’s absence, but the same notary invariably preferred /egum doctor when Marc witnessed six private acts. In one of two documents dealing with Marc’s own affairs the notary perhaps used professor only as a stylistic parellelism to the “professional” title of burgensis applied to the man to whom he loaned money.'’? When Mare became a royal judge in Nimes in 1309, moreover, he was almost always merely doctor in acts recording his decisions.'® Like the higher grades, jurisperitus was employed consciously and exactly to indicate the attainment of a certain level of legal education. If it were merely an honorific appellation, we would, for example, expect jurisperitus to dignify all royal officials, but some men are never given this title; in listing several royal judges, moreover, the same document reserves jurisperitus for those consistently so styled and does not apply it to men of higher social and administrative rank. As Strayer has noted, the same sources use magister only before the names of those called jurisperitus,'9 and this prefix always indicates a certain mastery of the

craft and was later limited to lawyers holding the license.2° From the 1300s magister was almost always employed in ways suggesting that it was considered preliminary to the higher grades, and we have seen that it was used of those who were studying for and later attained the doctorate.?! During the transition to a new notarial style in the 1330s, finally, several of those styled bachelor or licencié are Jurisperitus in subsequent documents. Although Guillaume Vigier was at first bacalarius in legibus, he was jurisperitus in March and December 1329 and in May and December 1330. In the same way, Jean d’Affenadou, /icenciatus in

October 1335 as noted above, is referred to as jurisperitus by documents of November 1335 and January 1336.22 Whatever may have been the case in other provinces, the notaries in this sénéchaussée uniformly used jurisperitus to indicate that a lawyer had received an education, and perhaps an extensive education, in

civil or canon law.

Millau; above, Chapter VII, n. 82, for Jean de Saint-Michel in 1267. 17. AM Montpellier BB-2, nos. 368, 435, 458-463, 499, 508-510, 516-517, 568. 18. Cartulaire Saint-Esprit, ed. Brugrier-Roure, no. 24; Registres Ph. le Bel, ed. Fawtier, nos. 1063, 1761; cf. Gens. just., p. 60. 19. Gens just., pp. 27-28. 20. Guenée, 7ribunaux, p. 411. 21. E.g., Pons d’Aumelas. See above, p. 109 and Chapter VII, n. 81. 22. Above, Chapter V, n. 33; Cart. Mag., nos. 1706, 1718.

IV Representatives of the Populares, 1323-1338 1. Frequency of Citation

Etienne Aymeric 1331 André Bonnenuit 1331, 1333, 1338

Pierre Cambafort 1331 Simon Cambafort 1331

Bernard Cazals 1326

Jean Chuat 1338

Déodat Clavade 1326, 1333 Bernard Columbier 1331

Pierre Corbiere 1333, 1338 Jean de Fraissé 1325, 1327, 1331, 1333, 1338 Bremond Grimaud 1325, 1326, 1327, 1338

Bernard Liborel 1325, 1328 Pierre de Ribe 1324, 1325, 1331, 1333

Bertrand Roger 1331, 1333 Raymond Roger 1338 2. Titles Assigned Reference in

Date Cited Titles Grand Chartrier January 1325 Petrus Ripere procurator No. 3506 omnium popularum

December 1325 Bremundus Grimaudi Nos. 3513-15 Johannes de Fraxino Petrus Ripere Bernardus Liborelli

July 1326 Bremundus Grimaudi syndicipopularum No. 3524 Deodatus Clavade et plebeyorum Bernardus Cazelas universitatis

April 1327 Jean de Fraissé sindicus No. 1968 Brémond Grimaud

December 1327 Bremundus Grimaudi sindici popularum No. 3527 Johannes de Fraxino

September 1328 Bernardus Liborelli procurator No. 3530 165

166 Appendix IV Reference in

Date Cited Titles Grand Chartrier October 1331 Johannes de Fraxino — sindici actores No. 3547

Petrus Cambafortis seu

Bernardus Columberii procuratores

Andreas Bonenoctis popularium Bertrandus Rotgerii Simon Cambafortis Petrus Riperie

Stephanus Aymerici substitutus

March 1333 Deodatus Clavade sindicus No. 3554 Andreas Bonenoctis actores seu

Petrus Corberie procuratores Johannes de Fraxino substituti

Petrus Riperie a sindico

Bertrandus Rotgerii popularium

April 1338 Bremundus Grimaudi _ sindicus No. 3566 Petrus Corberie actores popularium Andreas Bonenoctis ville

Johannes Chuati Montispessulani Raymundus Rotgerii

V Royal Officers for the Sénéchaussée

of Beaucaire and Nimes Judge

Seneschal Major Judge King’s Advocate of Crimes

1315 Pierre Jean 16 (October 130417 Etienne de Enguerrand October 1318) 18 Ceres (3/1318- de Fieffes

19 6/1320) (1317-

1320 Mile de Novers November

21 Guy Chevrier 1323)

22 (11/132123 2/1324)

24 Hugues Quiéret

1325 (March 1324- Jean de Pons Guillaume

26 1332) Parede Alazard 27 (April 1325- (June 1325- Jean Ricard 28 November 1328) March 1327) (November 29 Pierre Maurel Bertrand 13271330 (December Plantier August 31 1329 thru 1336) (March 1327- 1329)

32 May 1332) Etienne 33 Philippe de Pria Baudet de

34 (January 1333- Macarel Cabanes

1335 February 1340) (November (May

36 371333-February 1336) May 13321339) 38

39 André Auban

1340 (March 1339-

41 42September 1340) 43

167

168 Appendix V Archivist and lieutenant

of

King’s Procurator King’s Procurator Treasurer Treasurer

16 Géraud Gayté 17 Guillaume Cervier (1314-1322?)

1315

18 (1317-March

22 Hugues 23 Betti 24 (April 1325 132226 1335) 19 1327) Hugues Malcolhone

1320 (October 1319-

21 May 1326)

27 Jean Privat Marquis 28 Etienne de (June 1327- Scatisse

29 Cabanes March 1329) (September

1330 (April 1328- 1327-1330) 31 September 1329) Robert Lausime

32 Guillaume Bonier (1331)

33 (May 1332- Raymund Saynier

34 July 1336) (June 1328; Thoré du Puy

1335 November 1333- (1334-

36 December 1346) 1343)

37 38 39 1340 41

42 43

| Vi

Ordinary Judges in the Sénéchaussée

of Beaucaire and Nimes

Alés Anduze Beaucaire

1315 Guillaume Pierre Malbosc

16 de la Rouvieére (1314-June 1325)

17 (1312-1317) 18

19 1320

21 Pierre Ricard Jean Bon

22 (September (December

23 1321) 1321-1328) 24

1325 26. 27 28

29 ~Bertrand Guiraud

31 (March 133032 1342 or 1345)

1330 (March 1329) Jean Bon 33 34 1335

36 =[The courts at Ales and Anduze 37 ‘hereafter were often combined

38 with that at Uzes.] 39 1340

41 Jean de Regourd 42 (April 1341) 43 Jean de Galargues 44 (April 1342)

1345

169

170 Appendix VI Montpellier

(court of the rector) Nimes Uzeés 1315 Guillaume de Bertrand Castel Jean Audouard

16 la Rouvieére (May 1313- (1312-1324?)

, (1312-1317) 1323) 17 +Bernard de SaintQuentin (9/1317)

18 Raymund Marc

19 (1318)

1320 Armand de Baume

21 (February 132022 August 1323) 23

24

1325 Raymund d’Albenas Bertrand Guiraud

(June and July (March 1325-

1325) June 1326)

26 Rostang de Béziers

27 (June 1326-

28 June 1329) Guillaume Vigier

29 Jean Ricard (July 1328-

1330 (September 1329 December 1330) Robert l’Enfant

31 1337) (1330-1348) 32 through Etienne de Molton

33 (August 1328; 34 May 13321335 June 1343) 36 37 38

39

1340 Pons Bérenger

41 November 1340-

42 June 1351) 43

VII Judicial Officials Native to the Sénéchaussée of Beaucaire and Nimes Academic Prop-

Citizen Rank erty Social Rank Pons Guillaume Alazard Beaucaire legum doctor rural

Jean Audoard jurisperitus knight

Armand de Baume Uzes legum doctor civis Pons Bérenger Montpellier jurisperitus urban Rostang de Béziers legum doctor rural noble;

seigneur

Jean Bon Ales Jurisperitus of consular family

Etienne de Cabanes Montpellier /egum doctor urban; knight rural

Bertrand Castel Montpellier /egum doctor urban

Jean de Galargues Ales jurisperitus consul of Alés

Bertrand Guiraud Montpellier jurisperitus called civis Pierre Malbosc Beaucaire Jurisperitus urban; rural

Bertrand Plantier legum doctor knight Jean Ricard Montpellier jurisperitus

Guillaume de la Rouviere Bauve jurisperitus rural noble Bernard de Saint-Quentin Montpellier /egum rural; noble; professor urban seigneur

Raymund Saynier Nimes Jurisperitus called civis; of consular family

171

VIII Commissions of Inquiry, Conciliation, and Arbitration Concerned with the Dispute between the Consuls and the People

Date Members Purpose Mandate Source November Pierre de Chalon Arbitration of Self- GC, nos. 35061323 © Guy Chevrier disagreement over appointed 3508 through Enguerrand de Fieffes tax assessment January Bérenger de Pierre

1324 Petruse

March 1325 Pierre de Chalon Inquiry into Crown GC, no. 3510 (replaced by municipal Guillaume Cervier) accounting Pierre Malbosc Bertrand Guiraud

December Pierre Séguier Legitimacy Approached GC, no. 3515 1325 Jean de Montarnaud ~— of popular by parties Etienne Sabatier syndicate Thomas de Sauteyrargues Bernard Sabors

May or Jean de Mandevilain Inquiry into King (in GC, no. 3529 June 1326 Jean de Chatele municipal Parlement?)

(mentioned accounts

May 1327)

June 1326 Hugues de la Porte Audit of Royal GC, no. 3523

Rostang accounts; Lieutenant Hugues de Stacion (confirmed

Antoine de Galiana conciliation in Languedoc

(Seven of the people) by crown) GC, no. 3529 (Seven for the consuls)

February Pierre Ricard Electoral Deputized GC, no. 3525

1327? responding (mentioned royal May 1327) to letter?

through May irregularities by seneschal

172

Appendix VIII 173 Date Members Purpose Mandate Source ~ May 1328 Jean Ricard Increase in Deputized GC, nos. 1969, milling charges by seneschal 1971, 2567,

responding 2570 to royal letter of August 1327 (commission renewed in 1331)

Prior to Raymund Saquet Inquiry into Crown HAL, 10:696 September Raoul de Préaux operations of 1329 (when Jean de Mandevilain consular

mentioned) government and accounting

1329 accounts;

September Raymund Saquet Inquiry into Crown HAL, 10:698 conciliation

June 1331 Hugues Fabreforte Inquiry into King in GC, no. 3540; Arnaud de Balsenq accounts; Parlement conciliation

July 1331 Jean de Chalencon Inquiry into King (in GC, no. 3542; Pierre Dreu appeals before Parlement?) nn. 75, 263 the Parlement

October Jean de Vissec, All matters Elected by GC, nos. 3543,

1331 bishop of Mague- at issue the parties 3547 lonne; Roger de Rovenac, lieutenant of Majorca

IX

Royal Commissioners and the | Investigation of Franc-fef The terms commissioner, reformer, and inquisitor were largely employed as loose

synonyms during the first half of the fourteenth century. The title of réformateurs and its variants (comissarii, conciliarii pro reformatione patrie deputati, reformatores patrie generales) was added about the beginning of the century to that of enquéteurs (inquisitores) assigned to the members of such commissions during the reign of Louis IX.'! Réformateurs-généreaux du royaume empowered to act throughout the kingdom rather than in a designated province first appear about 1320.2 Historians apparently agree that Saint Louis appointed the first enquéteurs in 1247 and 1254 out of a pious desire to protect his subjects, and no one seems to have noticed that the crown profited from the fines levied on dishonest officials. This oversight is the more remarkable since it has been recognized that the king’s brother, Alphonse of Poitiers, raised large sums by extending the institution of inquisitors to the South.’ When royal commissioners were dispatched to levy fines for the acquisition of

noble fiefs, they were enforcing ordinances that regulated such acquisitions through a highly complicated system of fines. This schedule of fines was subject to relatively frequent modification. The fine of franc-fief was perhaps at first in-

tended to prevent loss of services rather than to raise revenues. The laws technically bound only non-nobles acquiring fiefs held more or less directly of the king (no fee was taken in the case of rear fiefs with three or more lords intermediate between the crown and the man disposing of the property); the charge was usually less when the obligations of the fief were not abridged. The first of these

ordinances, that of 1275, called for a fine equivalent to two years of revenues when the services furnished to the crown were diminished and four years of revenues when they were abolished. A new law of 1291 raised the minimum charge to three years’ revenue, adding that it could be augmented “au dire des prud’hommes” when services were abridged.’ The latter clause was presumably not very effective, for ordinances in 1321 apparently reestablished a set schedule: three years’ revenue when some services were still rendered, four when they were

1. Glénisson, “Enquéteurs-réformateurs,” p. 82; HL, 10:606. 2. Cazelles, “Réformation du royaume,” p. 93. 3. Glénisson, “Enquéteurs-réformateurs,” p. 81; HL, 7:480; Edgard Boutaric, Saint Louts et Alfonse de Poitiers (Paris, 1870), pp. 407-412. 4. Ordonnances, 1:303-305; cf. Paul Guilhiermoz, Essai sur les origines de la noblesse en France (Paris, 1902), p. 480. 5. Ordonnances, 1:322-324; cf. Rogozinski, “Ennoblement,” p. 503, n. 27; Henneman, “Enquéteurs-Réformateurs,” p. 313 (who seems, however, to use franc-fief interchangeably with the fines of amortissement taken from the church). 174

Appendix IX 175 lost (these rates were perhaps doubled for Languedoc). In 1326 the fine exacted wa: reduced to a two/three requirement, lower than the tariff set in 1275.6 The same laws also obliged the church to the fine of amortissement on properties purchased or acquired as gifts according to schedules even more complicated than those regulating franc-fief payments but generally somewhat higher (in 1291, for example, the rate varied from two to six years’ revenues according to the circumstances). Amortissement was exceptionally onerous between 1321 and 1326; one law for Languedoc required in the case of nongratuitous acquisition of fiefs held directly of the crown the “juste valeur, ou prix elles ont donné, s’il est plus forte.”” A charter granted to the nobility of Languedoc in 1315 and renewed for this sénéchaussée in 1331 forbade the levy of franc-fief when lands were granted on long-term leases; another of 1316 allowed for these possessing high justice to

make gifts without charge to the church or to their “servitores ignobiles in remuneratione servitionum.”® Individuals or communities might, of course, obtain from the crown a privilege exempting them from any payment.° These charges were usually not exorbitant. Since land normally sold for at least ten times its annual revenue, /franc-fief during the 1320s was a kind of sales tax at a minimum rate of twenty to forty percent. Some historians have argued, however, that a fine paid by the purchaser was offensive to the nobility because it restricted the salability of their property or drove down its price.!° Perhaps more irritating than its weight was the arbitrary and capricious nature of the fine since the criteria conferring nobility were not yet fixed in law. Lists naming noble families or describing noble fiefs existed for only a very few regions; such a catalogue (the feuda Gabalorum) was compiled only with great effort following a pariage in 1307 with the bishop of Mende.'! Before raising the fine, a fiscal commissioner not only had to decide after the fact whether a certain piece of property was attached to a fief (and by what terms); he also had to render a decision concerning the nobility of both the seller and the buyer. Many cases must have been ambiguous, and there undoubtedly were enquéteurs who erred in the king’s favor. Like the related question of noble exemption from taxation, the entire subject of franc-fief investigations thus merits a comprehensive study that would shed light

both on the development of governmental institutions and on the process by which the nobility took on the juridical attributes of a caste or order.

6. See Ordonnances, 1:745-749, 786-787, 797-798, for these laws of 1321 and 1326. 7. Ordonnances, 1:745. 8. Ménard, Nismes, 2:15; Ordonnances, 1:617, 2:68-69. 9. Rogozinski, “Ennoblement,” nn. 57, 111. 10. Edward Miller, “The State and Landed Interests,” Change in Medieval Society, ed. Thrupp, pp. 122-123. 11. Gens just., pp. 31-32.

xX

Royal Commissioners Dealing with Violations of Fiscal Ordinances or Negotiating ‘Taxes, 1325-1340

Date Commissioned Purpose source June 1325 Pierre de Beaujeu. Negotiate subsidy AL, 10:236; for Gascon campaign Mignon, no. 1787

October Pierre de Beaujeu. Enforce ordinances Chapter VI

1325 against usuryfines and collect from non-nobles acquiring fiefs

May through Raynaud de Saint- Goods confiscated from Chapter VI

December Quen and Jean Templars and Jews

1325 d’Alnay (lieutenant)

June 1326 Alphonse Subsidy for Gascon Chapter II

of Spain campaign

1326-1328 Etienne de Villiers Called reformatores Chapter VI and Guillaume (usury violations?) de Mouy

Commissioned Pierre de Prouville; Violations of Chapter VI in 1327; present Thomas de Reims’ monetary ordinances in this séneé-

chaussée in 1328

Summer 1328 Pierre de Beaujeu. Gascon campaign Chapter II]

January 1329 The seneschal Fief fines GC, no. 2082 (Hugues Quieret),

the rector of Montpellierette,

and “other deputies”

March thru Hugues Quieret Subsidy for Chapter VI June 1329 (seneschal Gascon campaign of Beaucaire and Nimes)

176

Appendix X 177 Date Commissioned Purpose Source December Pierre de Prouville; Franc-fief Chapter VI 1330 through Hugues Quiéret fines

June 1331 or March 1333

March 1333 Thoré du Puy Aide for knighting GC, no. 3301

(treasurer of king’s son of sénéechausseée),

deputized by seneschal

Prior to 24 Recovery of Sentence conApril 1333 royal rights firmed AP, ed. and properties Furgeot, no. usurped by royal 717

officers

12 June 1333 Commissarii super GC, no. 1947

Negotia (HL, 10, no.

judeorum 282)

February 1334 Benoit Brossart Franc-fief Chapter VI

1336 fines

through August and amortissement

March 1335 Thoreée du Puy; Enquéteurs into AL, 9:481 Guillaume de condition of

Chauliac port at AiguesMortes

April 1335 Rector of Subsidy for GC, nos. 3115through Montpellierette campaign in the 3228; cf. February 1336 deputized by Dauphiné RTF, p. 109 seneschal

June 1336 Angel Savarel; Debts owed to GC, no. 3564 Jean Panho Italians

June 1337 Bertrand de Franc-fief Ordonnances, Cassagne (de fines; violations 2:130; HL,

la Cassagne?); of monetary 9:498-499

Bertrand de and usury

Béduer ordinances

March through Pilfort de Franc-fief Ménard, Nismes,

August 1338 Rabastens; fines 2, preuves,

R. Ansel pp. 101-102, 107

June 1338 Benoit Brossart Aquisitions by AL, 9:499 the church

Prior to Guillaume de Réformateur Sentence anApril 1341] Mouy in sénéchaussée nulled by the

of Beaucaire and Parlement: AP,

Nimes no. 3415

XI Taxation and Noble Privilege The process by which nobility, largely a matter of social acceptance until the fourteenth century, became a hereditary status with rights and duties defined by writ-

ten laws remains very obscure. Although exemption from the ¢aille and other taxes was later one of the most important and cherished of noble privileges, the , early history of noble exemption has not heretofore been the subject of careful scholarly investigation.! Throughout the later Middle Ages, ordinances initiating a national tax usually specified that nobles were not to be exempted; although the principle of noble exemption seems to have been widely assumed in the sixteenth century, it had not gained universal acceptance as late as the 1590s.2 However, the

crown seldom dealt directly with individuals, and many royal taxes were col-

lected, expecially in southern France, in the form of grants from towns or regions.’ Because of the consequent mingling of royal and municipal taxes, exemption from either or both was governed by the decisions in individual cases (such as that of Séguier) brought before the courts in the localities, the Parlements, or the cour des aides.* I may someday be able to publish a study of noble exemption in the fourteenth century, and John Henneman is completing an article on the political origins of noble fiscal privileges during the last three-quarters of that century. The printed sources show that most municipal authorities, like the consuls of Montpellier, generally succeeded in holding noble residents liable for taxes on urban property.° 1. Marc Bloch, “Sur le passe de la noblesse francaise,” Annales d’histoire économique et sociale 8 (1936), 375. See in general Rogozinski, “Ennoblement,” esp. pp. 286-288; Edouard Perroy, “Social Mobility among the French Noblesse in the Later Middle Ages,” Past and Present, no. 21 (1962), pp. 25-38; Georges Duby, “La noblesse dans la France médiévale: Une enquéte a poursuivre,” Revue historique 226 (1961), 1-22; and the collection of Duby’s articles translated into English as The Chivalrous Society (Berkeley, 1978). For valuable background, see Ronald Witt, “The Landlord and the Economic Revival of the Middle Ages,” American Historical Review 76 (1971), 985-987. 2. Dupont-Ferrier, Jnstitutions financieres, 2:162-163; Davis Bitton, The French Nobility in Crisis, 1560-1640 (Stanford, 1969), pp. 14-23. 3. RIF, pp. 309-310; Rogozinski, “First French Archives,” pp. 114-115. 4. See Dravasa, “Vivre noblement,” passim. 5. In the case of southern France, see HL, 10, no. 709 (1388); Menard, Nismes, 2, preuve 128 (1367), and 3, preuve 23 (1386); Histoire d’Alais de 1341 a 1461, preuve 22 (1354);

Timbal, Guerre de cent ans, p. 397 (1365). For the North, see Timbal, ibid., p. 22 (1367); Guenée, Tribunaux, pp. 411-412; Henneman, “French Estates General and ‘Reference Back’,” pp. 42-45; and Bartier, Légistes, p. 184.

178

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Index of Persons Aimar, G., 59 n.22 Béziers, Pierre de, 149

d’Affenadou, Jean, 163-64 Béziers, Rostang de, 15, 64, 67 n.48, 170,

Alamandin, Pons, 15, 146 171, 172; career of, 149 Alazard, Guillaume, 66 n.42 Bon, Bertrand, 149

Alazard, Pons Guillaume, 65 n.42, 167, Bon, Jean, 63, 149, 169, 171

171 Bonier, Guillaume, 65, 168

d’Albenas, Raymund, 170 Bonnenuit, André, 165-66

d’Alnay, Jean, 79 n.20, 173, 176 Bossones, Agnes del, 70 n.57

Alphonse of Poitiers, 174 Bossones, Arnaud del, 70 n.57 Alphonse of Spain, 14-15, 73 n.3, 78 Bossones, Guiraud del, 70 n.57

n.19, 176 Bossones, Pierre del, 70 n.57

Angoissoles (company of bankers), 20 Bourbon, count of, 159

n.45 Brasfort, Humbert, 2, 5

Anjou, duke of (Louis I), 121 Brasfort, Philippe, 5

Ansel, R., 177 Brossart, Benoit, 79 n.20, 80, 149-50, 177 Aragon, king of, 1, 94n.36, 108n.77, Cabanes, Etienne de, 64, 65n.41, 167,

109 n.82, 160 168, 171; career of, 150

Arpadelle, Arnaud, 110 n.86 Cabrespine, Bernard, 62

d’Arrabloy, Jean, 9 n.3, 146, 147-48 Cabrespine, Jacques, 62 n.30

Arrenard, Guillaume, 147-48 Cabrespine, Pierre, 62 n.30 Atbrand (family name), 39 n.2, 41 n.5 Calvel, Pierre, 21, 110n.84, 157; career

Atbrand, Marie, 41 n.5 of, 150-51

Auban, André, 65 n.40, 160, 167 Cambafort, Pierre, 165, 166 Audoard, Jean, 63 n.34, 170-71 Cambafort, Simon, 165, 166 d’Aumelas, Pons, 69 n.56, 109 n.81, 125 Caranta, Bernard de, 158

n.24, 148, 162 Carsan, Guillaume de, 62 n.27

Aymeric, Etienne, 43, 165, 166 Carsan, Hugues de, 61-62, 67 n.48

Aymeric, Pierre, 43 n.14 Cassagne, Bertrand de, 177

Balseng, Arnaud de, 21, 74, 82, 98, 103, Cassagnes, Jesseline de, 111, 151

154, 173; career of, 146-47 Castel, Bertrand, 63 n.33, 66, 70, 170-71; Baume, Armand de, 24n.62, 64, 147, career of, 151

170, 171 Cazals, Bernard, 42, 165

Baume, Bertrand de, 24 n.62 Ceres, Etienne de, 167

Baume, Michael de, 147 Cervier, Guillaume, 17, 52, 57 n.16,

Baume, Pierre de, 62 n.30, 147 n.13 64-65, 168, 172; career of, 151-52; and Beaujeu, Pierre de, 9 n.3, 18 n.36, 78-79, 1325 tax protest, 1-2, 11, 14

176; career of, 147-48 Chalencon, Hugues de, 21 n.50

Beaumanoir, Philippe de, 1, 99 n.51, 102 Chalengon, Jean de, 21 n.50, 173

nn.60-61 Chalon, Pierre de, 8-9, 11, 73, 147, 172;

Béduer, Bertrand de, 177 career of, 152-54

Bérenger, Pons, 64, 148, 170-71 Charles IV, 143 Bernis, Jacques/ Jean de, 162 Charles of Navarre, 53 n.5

Berry, duke of, 122 Chatele, Jean de, 14 n.20, 154, 172 Betti, Hugues, 56.14, 59.22, 68, 168; Chauliac, Guillaume de, 177

career of, 148-49 Chevrier, Guy, 8-9, 11, 56, 167, 172; career of, 154 195

196 Index of Persons Chuat, Jean, 165, 166 Jean, Pierre, 162, 167

Clavade, Déodat, 42, 165, 166 Lambert (family name), 39 n.2 Clement IV (Pope), 109 n.82 Languissel, Bernard de, 12

Clermont, count of, 156 Laon, bishop of, 78 n.18, 153

Clermont, lord of, 122 n.20 Lausime, Robert, 65, 168

Coliac, Jean de, 41 n.5 Enfant, Robert, 63 nn.32, 34; 170

Columbier, Bernard, 165, 166 Liborel, Bernard, 42, 165

Comminges, count of, 148 Louis IX, 118 n.14 Coquatrix, Geoffroi, 152 Lyon, archbishop of, 152 Corbiére, Pierre, 165, 166 Macarel, Baudet, 65 n.42, 167 Cros, Aimeri de, 148 Maguelonne, bishop of, 151, 155, 158;

Dorna, Bernard de, 109 n.82 and faculty of law at Montpellier, 109

Doulas, Yvo de, 163 n.16 n.82, 160, 162; involved in tax disDreu, Pierre, 21 n.50, 173 putes, 22, 73, 98, 173; as upholder of Durand, Guillaume (nephew), 110 n.85 clerical privileges, 92n.28. See also Durandus, Guillaume (uncle), 103 n.67 Frédol; Frédol, Bérenger Fabreforte, Hugues, 21, 74, 82, 98, 100, Majorca, king of, 161, 162; his juris-

103, 173; career of, 154 diction over Montpellier, 18, 24, 94

Ferriéres, Guillaume de, 111 n.86 n.36; lieutenant of, 97, 98, 103, 151;

Ferriéres, Pierre de, 78 n.18 his representatives in Montpellier,

Fieffes, Enguerrand de, 8, 65, 167, 172; 1n.2, 14, 155, 159; taxes levied by,

career of, 154 118 n.13, 142, 144

Forez, count of, 78 n.18, 153 Malbosc, Pierre, 11, 73, 169, 171, 172

Forgettes, Jean de, 148 Malcolhone, Hugues, 64-65, 168

Fraissé, Clément de, 43 n.13, 151, 162 Mandevilain, Jean de, 14n.20, 154, Fraissé, Jean de, 17 n.30, 42-43, 151, 165, 172-73

166 Marc, Jacques, 133 n.31 Frédol (family name), 13. See also Marc, Jean, 63 n.31, 64 n.36, 78 n.18, 133 Maguelonne, bishop of n, 146, 162-64

Frédol, Bérenger, 13 Marc, Raymund, 62, 64 n.36, 67 n.48, 170 Galargues, Jean de, 169, 171 Marfontaine, Thomas de, 148 Galiana, Antoine de, 15, 172 Marie of Montpellier, 108 n.77

Garnier, Jean, 15 Maurel, Pierre, 65 n.40, 167

Gayté, Géraud, 59 n.20, 168 Mer, Brémond de, 31 n.22 Godols, Guillaume de, 163 Molceti, Pierre de, 163 Grimaud, Bernard, 43 n.11 Molendario, Raymond de, 162 Grimaud, Brémond, 17 n.30, 42-43, 114 Molton, Etienne de, 63 n.33, 66, 170;

n.2, 165, 166 career of, 154-55

Grimaud, Jean, 43 n.11 Montarnaud, Jean de, 13, 155, 172 Grimaud, Pons, 114 n.2 Montferrier, Brémond de, 111, 155, 162 Guillaume, Bertrand, 62, 67 n.48 Montferrier, Thomas de, 160. See also

Guiraud, André, 148 Sauteyrargues, Thomas de 170-71, 172 Montpellierette, rector of, 176, 177

Guiraud, Bertrand, 11, 63 n.33, 73, 169, Montinac, Bernard de, 15

Guiraud, Brémond, 132-33 Mouy, Guillaume de, 79-80, 176, 177 Imbert, Pierre (campsor), 15 n.22 Nogaret, Guillaume de, 125 n.24, 152, 162

Imbert, Pierre (sédier), 15 n.22 Novers, Mile de, 167 Jayme, Pierre, 102 n.61, 110, 155 Nuti, Jean, 149

Index of Persons 197 Panho, Jean, 177 Sabors, Etienne, 159

Pape, Gul, 110 n.84 Sabors, Hugo, 158-59

Parede, Jean de, 12, 65 n.40, 167 Sabors, Pierre (father), 66 n.44, 159

Penna, Jean de, 162 Sabors, Pierre (son), 29 n.12, 66 n.44 Pertot, Bernard, 15 Saint-Amans, Guillaume de, 109 n.80 Peyrrusse, Pierre de, 162 Saint-Seine, abbot of, 153

Philip V, 142 Saint-Martin, Guillaume de, 162

Philip VI, 144 Saint-Michel, Jean de, 109 n.82, 164 n.16 Pierre, Richard, 169 Saint-Ouen, Raynaud de, 79, 173, 176

Pierre Petruse, Bérenger de, 1 n.2, 8-9, Saint-Quentin, Bernard de, 64 n.36, 162,

22, 97, 172 170, 171; career of, 159

Placentinus, 107, 109 n.82 Salins, Henri de, 152 n.58 Plaisians, Guillaume de, 125 n.24 Salvator, Pons, 160

Plantier, Bertrand, 65 n.42, 167, 171 Saquet, Raymund, 14 n.20, 19, 74, 82, 98, Porte, Hugues de la, 15, 81 n.26, 155, 172 100, 146, 173; career of, 159

Préaux, Raoul de, 14 n.20, 173 Sauteyrargues, Brémond de, 160

Pria, Philippe de, 56, 167 Sauteyrargues, Thomas de, 13, 17 n.30, Privat, Jean, 32 n.31, 65, 168 110 n.84, 120 n.17, 160, 172 Prouville, Pierre de, 79-81, 156, 176-77 Savarel, Angel, 177

Puy, Thoré du, 168, 177 Saynier, Bernard, 160

Quiéret, Hugues, 56-57, 167, 176, 177 Saynier, Raymund, 64, 157, 168, 171;

Rabastens, Pilfort de, 177 career of, 160

Regourd, Jean de, 169 Scatisse, Marquis, 59 n.20, 168 Reims, Thomas de, 79, 80, 156-57, 176 Séguier, Ceélestin: claims tax exemption,

Ribe, Jean de, 42 n.8 26-34, 93, 106, 135; family of, 27, 160-

Ribe, Pierre de, 8, 42, 165, 166 61; student at Montpellier and Paris, Ricard, Jean: career of, 157; involved in tax 30, 163 disputes, 18, 20, 173; as judge, 62, 64, Séguier, Guillaume, 27, 28 n.9, 33, 69 n.56,

65 n.41, 148, 150, 167, 170, 171; as 109; career of, 160-61

lieutenant of rector, 158 Séguier, Pierre, 13, 110n.84, 120n.17,

Ricard, Pierre, 18 n.32, 158, 169, 172, 173 161, 172

Ricomanni, Frisco, 148 Stacion, Hugues de, 15, 172 Roger, Bertrand, 165, 166 Tancred, 99 n.51

Roger, Etienne, 43 Tornemire, Pierre de, 162

Roger, Pierre, 43 n.14 Trois-Loups, Bérenger Bernard de, 15 n.22

Roger, Raymond, 43, 165, 166 Vigier, Guillaume, 63 n.33, 163, 164, 170

Rogerius, 108 n.75, 109 n.82 Villiers, Etienne de, 79, 80, 176 Roquefixe, Bernard de, 30 n.16 Vincio, Jacques de, 162 n.3

Rouviere, Alsatia, 158 n.110 Vissec, Jean de, 173

Rouvieére, Bérenger de la, 158 Vitry, Philippe de, 44 n.19 Rouviere, Guillaume de, 64n.36, 158, 169, 170, 171

Rouviere, Jean de, 158 n.110 Rovenac, Roger de, 173 Sabatier, Etienne, 13, 158, 172 Sabors, Bernard, 13, 17 n.30, 66 n.44, 110 n.84, 120 n.17, 172; career of, 158-59

Index of Subjects Advocate, king’s, office of, 58, 65 Bell tower, significance of, 12

Advocates, guild of, 21 Bologna, law school of, 27, 108

Aide, 25 n.65, 144 Bourgeois. See Burgenses Aigues-Mortes, port of, 25, 28, 32, 34 Brassiers, 40 n Ales, court of, 30 Burgenses, 39, 48 n.28, 123 Amicable compositor, 97-98, 102 Canon law, 99-100

Amortissement, 77, 150, 156, 157, 175 Castellans, 58, 61 Appeal system, 31 n.24, 87-88, 96, 104 Chambre des comptes, 31, 51, 59, 131,

Appellate judge of crimes, 65 137

Arbiters: differ from arbitrators, 102, Chambre des enquétes, 14, 21

103; election of, 103 - Chinon, assembly of estates, 36 n.52

Arbitration, 95-97, 126; Beaumanoir’s Citizenship, 34, 38, 67 treatment of, 99; between consuls and Clerical privileges, 26-28, 33, 92 n.28, 94,

populares, 8-10, 21, 51; differs from 135 litigation, 22 n.51, 105; forced, 101; Commissions of inquiry, 11, 21, 51-52, scope of, 99-100; success of, 101, 104-5; 72-73, 75, 172-73. See also Enquéteursin 1320s, 127; virtues of, 96-97; as a way réformateurs

of taking counsel, 98 Common law, 127

Arbitrators, 99; number of, 101-2; powers Compromissum, 97, 102 of, 22 n.51, 104; selection of, 126; tech- Consilia, 87, 91, 106, 110 niques of, 99, 106; welcomed by popu- Consuls, college of, 1 n.2, 38-39; election lace, 72. See also Arbiters; Enquéteurs- of, 38-40; family groupings in, 40-41;

réformateurs powers of, 91, 94

Archival records, 56, 111; poor preserva- Consuls of the sea, 42 n.9, 92 n.29 tion of, 28 n.9, 60 n.25, 61 n.26, 138 Corporations, 10, 13, 92, 105. See also

Assembly, popular, 115, 118-19 Syndicate

Audits of financial records: and Raymund Council, secret, 119-20 Saquet, 74; source of conflict between Cour des aides, 178

, populares and consuls, 9-10, 12, 14-15, Court: of bayle, 53; of rector, 53, 58 19, 73, 115; supervised by secret coun- n.17; of seneschal, 58

cil, 120 Courts: ordinary, 58; royal, 106; seignorial,

Bachelor of law, rank of, 163 106; vicarial, 53, 58 n.17

Bailiwicks, councils of, 60 n.25 Crown: appealed to in local disputes, 3, 16, Barons, their neglect of tax payments, 135 18-19, 24, 82; powers of, 90, 136. See

Barrage, 25 n.65, 115, 142-44 also Royal government, Royal officials, Bayle of Montpellier, 1 n.2, 12, 53 Royal safeguard Beaucaire and Nimes, sénéchaussée of: Curial officials, distinguished from _ proadministrative capital of, 5; archives of, vincial officials, 70 n.S8 56, 111, 138; councils of, 1 n.2, 58, Customary law, 68, 87, 94, 106; gaps in, 15;

60-61, 64, 66, 67-68; court system of, its relation to Roman law, 85, 90-91, 29, 58, 123-24; defined, 1 n.3; king’s 127; taxation determined by, 6, 24, 33, advocate in, 58, 65; king’s procurator 35, 36, 133

for, 1-2, 4, 58, 64 Dérogeance, 33 n.35, 135

Beaucaire and Nimes, seneschal of, 2, 56, Enforcement of court decisions, 53-55 58-59. See also individual seneschals in Enquéteurs-réformateurs, 21, 51, 71-83,

Index of Persons 153; local officials as, 81; scope of their 198

, Index of Subjects 199 investigations, 10, 76, 78-80; success of, Montpellier: government of, 1 n.2, 3-4, 17,

82. See also Arbiters; Arbitration; Arbi- 18 n.32; judicial system of, 1 n.2, 5-6,

trators; Commissions of inquiry 18; law school of, 27, 48, 67, 109-12,

Estates, assembly of, 36 n.52 162-64 (see also Roman law); law stu-

Estate system, 136 dents and faculty, privileges of, 92 n.28;

Estimes, 47 n population of, 47-48; public debts of, Evident necessity, as justification for 23; as a respublica, 33, 35; riots in, 1-2, taxation, 19, 33, 35, 46, 116, 119-20, 128 4, 54, 121-22 (see also Social conflict, in

Exemptions. See Taxation, exemption Montpellier); taxes raised in, 142-45 (see

from also Tax; Taxation). See also Bayle of

Families, power of, 41 Montpellier; Consuls, college of;

Fiefs, 34 Council, secret; Major judges; Ordinary Fouage, 8 n.1, 145 judges; Syndicate Franc-fief, 76, 77, 79, 149-50, 156, 157, Nobility, problem of definition of, 33, 93,

174-75, 177 134-35, 178. See also Dérogeance; Taxa-

Gabelle, 156 tion, exemption from

Grain, charge for grinding, 17, 24, 121. Nobles, as municipal officials, 124

See also Tax, on grain Notarial contracts, 20 n.42, 85-86

Guilds: political power of, 1 n.2, 10, 38-40, Oaths, sanctity of, 104

119; role in defense of city, 54 n.9 Ordinary judges: of Montpellier, 1 n.2, Inheritance, through female line, 41 n.5 58, 63, 66, 103; in sénéchaussée of Judge of appeals, 65. See also Major judges Beaucaire and Nimes, 169-70

Judge of crimes, 58 Parlement, 21, 24, 25, 74n.8, 87, 131; Judicial officials native to Beaucaire and appealed to in case of Célestin Séguier,

Nimes, 171 29; appealed to by consuls, 14, 98, 104;

Jurisperitus, meaning of term, 163-64 appealed to by populares, 6

Knights of the arena, 5, 67 Pavage, 115, 142, 144

121 officials

Languedoc, king’s lieutenants for, 78, 104, Peculation. See Malfeasance by municipal

Lauradors, 39, 40 n Placiers, 39 n.2, 67

Lawyers, as arbitrators, 99, 111-12 Populares: financing of, 6, 20; grievances Legum professor, use of term, 163 of, 3-4; leaders of, 5, 6, 42-43, 165-66;

Libri feudorum, 84n proportion of population, 8n.1. See Litigation: cost of, 6, 20, 26, 31 n.25; also. Syndicate; Taxation, protests

reliance on, 128 against

Magister, use of title, 164 Populus, definition of, 24 n.61, 43-44 _ Maguelonne, court of bishop of, 13 Practica aurea of Pierre Jayme, 110 Majorca, its lordship over Montpellier, Procurator, 1-2, 4, 58, 64

I n.2, 14, 18, 24, 94 n.36 Provincial officials, distinguished from

Major judges, 1 n.2, 4n.11, 8, 58, 65 curial officials, 70 n.58

Malfeasance by municipal officials, 15, Quatorze de la chapelle, 9, 73, 94 n.34

23, 53, 74, 114 Receivers. See Treasurers Marriage law, 85 Réformateur, title of, 174

Marriage contracts, 87, 88 Rectory (section of Montpellier), 1 n.2 Merchants, political power of, 42 n.9 Responsa. See Consilia

Militia, 54 Roman law: of corporations, 13, 35; re-

Money, value of, 23 n.56, 121 garding court costs, 20n.44; and the Moneylenders, Italian, 23-24 Crown, 89-90; as customary law, 101,

200 Index of Subjects 107, 127; importance in everyday prac- on the rich, 37; consular control over, 6,

tice, 65, 85-87, 95, 112, 123; influence 9, 16, 23, 32, 34, 36, 93, 137; court on arbitrational technique, 99, 104; on rulings on, 52-53; deterrnined by custhe inheritability of noble status, 93 tom, 33, 115-16, 133; exemption from, n.33; and marriage contracts, 88; of 26-28, 32-34, 43, 132-34, 178 (see also procedure, 31 n.24; reception of, 107- Clerical privileges); permanent, 7, 130; 13, 137; its relation to customary law, popular consent to, 118; proportional, 90-91, 106, 108; and the resolution of 6, 26; protests against, 1-2, 4-5, 8-11, social conflict, 136; of taxation, 24; 17, 18-19, 26, 73, 120-22, 131, 172; asa teaching of, 84-85, 109; its use ordered royal prerogative, 11, 17, 24-25, 26, 32,

by Parlement, 87-88 35, 93. See also Aide; Aigues-Mortes,

Rouergue, sénéchaussée of, 21 port of; Amortissement; Barrage; EviRoyal government: efficiency of, 96, 130; dent necessity; Fouage; Franc-fief;

supports the consuls, 16. See also Gabelle; Pavage; Quatorze de la

Crown chapelle; Social conflict; Specificity;

Royal officials, 167-68; involved in tax dis- Taille; Vectagalia; War subsidies putes, 54-55, 176-77; powers of, 77, Tax lists, 47 n.26, 115 153; privileges of, 135; term of office, Toulouse, law faculty of, 67

67 | Town charters, and Roman law, 108

Royal safeguard, 28, 30, 32 Treasurers, 58, 59, 115, 117

Salaries, of government officials, 54, 55 Universitas. See Corporations

n.l1, 57 n.16, 114 n.1 Vectagalia, 35 n.46 Sergeants, 53-54, 55 Viguiers, 58, 59, 61, 124, 125

Social conflict: in Europe, 2-3; modern in- War subsidies, 4-5, 11, 18, 73, 130, 142-45

terpretations of, 16-17, 50, 137-39; in Wills, 86 . Montpellier, 38, 123-26, 128-29, 136.

See also Taxation, protests against Specificity, as requirement for taxation, 45, 46, 116, 117, 119-21, 128 State, theories and definition of, 129 Student privileges, 29-30, 92 n.28 Surnames, derivation of, 42 n.8 Syndicate: abolished, 23; as alternative to

consular government, 10, 12, 14-16; legality of, 92

Taille: administration and assessment of, 72, 115, 117, 119-21, 131, 142-44; as a communal obligation, 23, 34 n.43; on

income and capital, 16; on movable property, 8; and noble privilege, 178 (see also Taxation, exemption from); opposition to, 26, 46; as a property tax, 22, 25, 26, 36-37; and specificity, 117 Tax: export, 143-44; on grain, 17, 20, 23, 24, 26, 30 n.16, 34 n.43

Taxation: avoidance of, 29, 122, 135; as burden on the poor, 3, 46-47; as burden