8 - The inadequacy of authority

Summary

The problem of authority is one of the most fascinating aspects of seventeenth-century political society. Authority, which we may define as the respect attached to a person (or institution) which enabled his directives to prevail, was based more on intangible qualities of prestige than on physical means of coercion. Public officials relied on their delegated royal authority which gave them the right to act officially and lent weight to their actions, but unless they also had the intangible crédit based on custom and public approbation, they would not be very successful in making others take notice. For this reason, acts of authority have to be read both as official steps aimed at a certain practical result and at the same time as ritual defenses designed to maintain a certain public image. Quarrels could arise over seemingly petty points of competence or precedence because they had hidden implications for the participants' honor or prestige. By contrast, violent acts were often accepted complacently because they did not have such implications.

THE NATURE OF AUTHORITY

The rulers of Languedoc had at their disposal a slim arsenal of coercive weapons, most of which were subtly indirect. In this society things as they stood (or as they were imagined to stand since many of them were actually changing) had a tremendous force of inertia, and it was easier to make specific exceptions than to modify general rules. The basic tools of governmental action were judicial processes.