1 - France in the 1580s and 1590s

Summary

To many historians, and especially to Fernand Braudel, the part French towns played in the religious civil wars, and in particular their support of the Catholic League, marked a return to the age of medieval urban independence. French medieval towns had exhibited a republican spirit that included pride in their urban autonomy, but increasingly during the sixteenth century their hallowed liberties and privileges came under attack. Louis XI, Charles VIII, Louis XII, Francis I, Henry II, Charles IX, and Henry III all interfered in municipal elections on a sporadic basis and passed a variety of laws designed to increase royal involvement in town politics and finances. Francis I's Edict of Crémieu ordered bailiffs from the local royal courts to observe all municipal general assemblies and elections while Charles IX's Ordonnance of Orléans instructed all towns to submit their financial records to royal officials for auditing. In 1547 Henry II enacted legislation that made municipal offices incompatible with royal ones and ordered municipal offices on town councils reserved for merchants and bourgeois notables. In 1566 Charles IX passed the Ordonnance of Moulins which restricted municipal jurisdiction to criminal affairs and matters of police and delegated all civil suits to royal judges. What these laws had in common was that they threatened municipal independence, although they were operated for the Crown more as fiscal expedients but were rarely enforced. Towns with healthy treasuries and wealthy citizens paid fees to buy exemptions from their restrictions.