Chapter 2 - The Law, the Fief, and the Heiress

Summary

WHILE SCHOLARS OVER the last thirty years have convincingly demonstrated that later eleventh- and early twelfth-century elite women routinely acted as lords, the prevailing interpretation is that after 1150, countesses and their noble peers were increasingly excluded from the direct exercise of power by the extension of administrative kingship and feudalism, and, for some scholars, the development of patrilineage and primogeniture. Thus, three entwined developments—feudalism, the growth of administration, and inheritance practices—are key to understanding if noblewomen exercised lordship in the period of ca. 1150 to ca. 1260. While I reject that power resides solely in offices (traditionally gendered male), noblewomen’s access to power stemmed in part from official duties and authority that resided in inherited lands and fiefs. Thus, like noblemen, noblewomen’s dynastic and official power derived from their inheritance of land and fiefs. There is considerable scholarly debate over the existence of feudalism, and, if it existed, when it arose.1 My own position is that prior to the early twelfth century, feudalism was not a coherent system of land tenure; however, by the thirteenth century, fiefs, dependent tenures, and feudal practices were increasingly critical ele-ments of governance. The growth of administrative kingship in France, including feudal rights, takes off under Philip II (1180–1223). As such, it is necessary to establish the impact of feudal practices on elite women and their lands, and thus its effects on their governmental power.

Prior to Philip II’s reign, there is little evidence that the Capetian kings asserted their authority over the magnates through fealty, homage, marriage, wardship, or knight service. As early as 1180, Philip II began recording the obligations of all his vassals and including a list of pledges in order to enforce these obligations. Royal administration became increasingly bureaucratized in the wake of his preparations to depart on crusade in 1189. In 1202, Philip moved from theoretical to enforceable rights when he imposed the judgment of his court over John, duke of Normandy and king of England, in the matter of his marriage to Isabelle of Angoulême. After the acquisition of Normandy (ca. 1204), Philip and his closest advisors worked to record and supervise the royal rights of suzerainty in the royal registers. In addition, by the late twelfth century, kings and lords were increasing their control over heiresses’ marriages, and inheritance practices were coming under limited statutory elucidations.