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French Field Administration: The Beginnings*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

James W. Fesler
James W. Fesler
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Extract

The economic, social, and political development of newly independent nations depends upon the prior or concurrent strengthening of public administration. To be sure, the path of national development is a circular one as it traces a spiral ascent in which a step forward in one kind of development makes possible the next step in another. The administrative arc of this circle is here emphasized not because it is more basic than the others, but because it has often been slighted. New governments, often on the recommendation of technical-assistance advisors, adopt excellent programs in health, agriculture, education, and industry, but then fail to translate these programs from paper to action. The fault is not lack of earnest intent but the burden of an unresponsive and weak administrative system.

Type
Research Article
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , October 1962 , pp. 76 - 111
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1962

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References

1 Among the products of the project are: Jacob, Herbert, Field Administration in Germany, 1871–1959, and Robert C. Fried, The Italian Prefects, both scheduled for publication by the Yale University Press in 1963; and James W. Fesler, “The Political Role of Field Administration”, in a forthcoming volume on comparative public administration, edited by Ferrel Heady and Sybil L. Stokes. American field administration is treated in Fesler, Area and Administration (University, Ala., 1949) and 'Field Organization', in Fritz Morstein Marx (ed.), Elements of Public Administration (Englewood Cliffs, NJ., 2nd ed., 1959), pp. 246–273.Google Scholar

2 The most notable exception is Leonard D. White's work: The Federalists (1948), The Jeffersonians (1951), The Jacksonians (1954), and The Republican Era: 1869–1901 (1958) (all New York: The Macmillan Co.).

3 The principal work in English is Brian Chapman, The Prefects and Provincial France (London, 1955), but a valuable account of the erosion of the prefect's role is Alfred Diamant, “The Department, the Prefect, and Dual Supervision in French Administration: A Comparative Study”, Journal of Politics, 16 (August 1954), pp. 472–490. A brilliant analysis of the erosion is Robert de Caumont, “Actualité et rajeunissement de l'Administration départementale”, La Revue Administrative, 10 (1957), pp. 221–231, 338–347. More recent developments are described in Roger Bonnaud-Delamare, “Le Problème de la région en tant que circonscription administrative”, International Review of Administrative Sciences, 26 (1960), pp. 269–278, with English summary after p. 292 at iii-vi, and “Le préfet dans le cadre de la Constitution frangaise de 1958”, Ibid., 27 (1961), pp. 5–15, with English summary after p. 70 at ii-iii. The Napoleonic system is described in Jacques Godechot, Les Institutions de la France sous la Révolution et l'Empire (Paris, 1951), esp. pp. 508–520; and Pierre-Henry, , Histoire des 'Préfets (Paris, 1950), pp. 9–87.Google Scholar

4 Area and population estimates stem from the French Chamber of Accounts' important état des paroisses et des feux of 1328, as interpreted by historians most recently: e.g. Lot, Ferdinand and Fawtier, Robert, Histoire des Institutions Franfaises au Moyen Age, vol. II (Paris, 1958), p. 117Google Scholar; and René Labande, “La France Feodale (1204–1392)”, in Reinhard, Marcel (ed.), Histoire de France, vol. I (Paris, 1954), p. 252. Royal expenditure estimates rest on figures given in Lot and Fawter, op. cit., p. 191, showing 1202–3 annual expenditures as 95,445 livres and those of 1292 as 687,443. But the data available are incomplete and difficult to evaluate; Lot and Fawtier show on the same page a somewhat differing tabulation, and I have encountered such discrepant statements, in other but less definitive sources, as that royal revenue increased perhaps tenfold between the time of Saint Louis and that of Philip the Fair, and that the royal machinery was six times more expensive under Philip the Fair than under Philip Augustus. My textual statement does not take account of the fact that some inflation had occurred during the century.Google Scholar

5 The description of pre-Capetian field administration is based on Bancal, Jean, Les Circonscriptions Administratives de la France (Paris, 1945), pp. 61–63Google Scholar; Guy, Marc, La Dé-centralisation Administrative (Paris, 1916), p. 25Google Scholar; Mirot, Léon, Manuel de Geographie Historique de la France, (Paris), vol. I, L'Uniti Fran¸aise (1947), pp. 97–99, and vol. II, Les divisions Religieuses et Administratives de la France (1950), pp. 350 f; Jean Devisse, “La France Carolingienne”, in Marcel Reinhard (ed.), op. cit., vol. I, pp. 150 f, 157–159; Ferdinand Lot and Robert Fawtier, op. cit., vol. II, p. 305.Google Scholar

Feudalism further found roots in the field administration system because the king often rewarded (or sought) loyal field service with gifts of land and because the count might induce submission of small landowners to vassalage by imposing extortionate demands in his official capacity while offering “protection” against these demands to those who would become his vassals.

6 The discussion of provosts relies principally on Luchaire, Achille, Histoire des Institutions Monarchiques de la France sous les Premiers Capétiens (987–1180), (Paris, 1883), vol. I. pp. 201–235; Jean Bancal, op. cit., pp. 72–81; Lot and Fawtier, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 141–144. At the beginning of the 13th century there were about fifty provosts administering 67 provostship areas (some provosts administered from two to five such areas); Lot and Fawtier, op. cit., p. 143. At the time of Philip the Fair a hundred years later, there were perhaps over a hundred areas administered by provosts; Bancal, op. cit., pp. 74–79. Cf. an estimate, for 1190 to an indeterminate date, that the number of provosts increased from 38 to 94 to keep pace with expansion of the domain. René Labande, in Marcel Reinhard (ed.), op. cit., vol. I, p. 228.Google Scholar

7 Michel, Robert, L'Administration Royale dans la Séníchaussée de Beaucaire au Temps de Saint Louis, (paris 1910), p. 23. “Seneschal” here, of course, is not to be confused with either the Great Seneschal of the king's central entourage, or comparable high officials of some great duchies and provinces before their union with the Crown (e.g. Champagne). One reason for the monarchy's use of “seneschal” in western and southern France was that “bailiff” was a title already held by a lower ranking field agent. The term “bailiff” throughout France meant merely agent or administrator, and acquired specific meaning for field administration only in the latter part of the 12th century. Even regional distinctions in terminology are not clear-cut. In a field area in Languedoc in southern France the first royal agent was called “bailiff” in 1226 and the same individual in 1247 is called “seneschal”.Google Scholar

8 Differentiation of the curia regis was to be an important development of the later 13th century, with the Parlement (a judicial body) and the Court of Accounts—on the financial side-acquiring distinct status.

9 Letters from Philip Augustus between 1184 and 1190 are interpreted in this way by Petit-Dutaillis, Ch., The Feudal Monarchy in France and England (London, 1936), p. 185.Google Scholar

10 But Prussia used the collegial arrangement for these very functions in the 17th century.

11 Lot and Fawtier, op. cit., vol. II, p. 145. A number of authors have emphasized the judicial function as primary in explaining the origins of the system of bailiffs, but they are often more attentive to the defects of the provosts and the corrective role of the bailiffs than to the motivation of the king vis-à-vis the feudal lords.

12 Delaborde, H.-François (ed.), Recueil des Actes de Philippe Auguste, I (Paris, 1916), pp. 416 ff;Google Scholar and Isambert, , et al. , Recueil Général des Anciennes Lois Françaises, vol. I (Paris, 1822), pp. 177–182. The Latin text, given in Delaborde and Isambert, has been variously translated into French, and the meaning of several key passages is much debated. I have consulted several French versions of the portions of the “Testament” that I have put into English here, but I have followed none exactly as filtration of the Latin through the French into English is likely to be doubly distorting, and especially where, as here, there is no agreement on the French.Google Scholar

13 Historians' views on the hypothesis of imitation and their descriptions of the individual offices may be pursued in: Lyon, Bryce, A Constitutional and Legal History of Medieval England (New York, 1960), pp. 170ff,Google Scholar 274f, 283f; Ch. Petit-Dutaillis, op. cit., pp. 126f, 135, 186; Lot and Fawtier, op. cit., vol. II, p. 145; Fawtier, Robert, The Capetian Kings of France (London, 1960), pp. 176f;CrossRefGoogle ScholarHaskins, Charles H., Norman Institutions (Cambridge, Mass., 1918),CrossRefGoogle Scholarpassim; Strayer, Joseph R., The Administration of Normandy under Saint Louis (Cambridge, Mass., 1932), pp. 7f,Google Scholar 106f; deBouard, Michel, “Le Duché de Normandie”, in Lot and Fawtier, op. cit., vol. I (1957), pp. 1–33, esp. p. 11, 18f, 32; Jacques Boussard, “Les Institutions de l'Empire Plantagenet”Google Scholar, in Ibid., pp. 35–69, esp. 59ff.

14 King John of England lost Normandy, Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and a part of Aquitaine, the combined result of legal action by the French Court in 1201 declaring John's lands forfeited (on appeal by certain French vassals of John's to the French king, as John was himself a vassal of the French king in regard to his possessions in France), and of military conquest.

15 Bancal, Jean, op. cit., p. 83.Google Scholar

16 The influence of these tasks on individuating of bailiffs and stationing of them in the field is stressed by deSerres, Borelli, Recherches sur Divers Services Publics du XIlle au XVIle Siècle (Paris, 1895–1900), vol. I (1895), p. 205.Google Scholar

17 Michel, Robert, op. cit., pp. 136–161Google Scholar. Not all newly annexed provinces resisted subjugation so vigorously, once the king had acquired title. In Normandy, for example, acquired in 1204 from King John of England, the introduction of royal bailiffs was accomplished without much difficulty and their administration aroused no substantial complaints. Sttrayer, Joseph R., op. cit., pp. 7, 98, 107f.Google Scholar

18 Single bailiffs with fixed districts are cited for 1234 and 1236 by Petit-Dutaillis, Ch., op. cit., p. 247Google Scholar, but he noted that for their judicial functions bailiffs often served with one or two other bailiffs as late as Louis VIII (1223–1226) and the regency of Blanche of Castile (1226–1234). Borrelli de Serres notes that bailiffs' localization was completed only under Saint Louis (1226–1270), and cites collegial bailiffs' judicial assizes in 1227, op. cit., p. 206. Collegial exercise of judicial functions did not cease in Vermandois and the Senlis area until about the middle of the 13th century, which can be taken as the approximate time of general use of a single judge, conclude Lot, and Fawtier, , op. cit., vol. II, pp. 146–147.Google Scholar

19 Estimates by French authors are strikingly different, partly, of course, because of the shifting of areas into and out of the royal domain, partly because of differing concepts, above all because the documentary evidence of the period is so inadequate. Léon Mirot found that at the beginning of the 13th century there were 12 bailiffs and at the end of the 13th century 23 bailiwicks and seneschalates, plus throughout the century the provostship of Paris (a post fully equivalent to a bailiffship but, because of the special problem of capital cities, not to be treated in the present study). Mirot, Léon, op. cit., vol. II, p. 353Google Scholar. Charles-Victor Langlois lists 25 bailiwicks and seneschalates (plus Paris) for the beginning of the 14th century: in Lavisse, Ernest (ed.), Histoire de France, vol. III, Part II (Paris, 1901), p. 341Google Scholar. Three authors' counts for about the year 1328 are: 14, 36, and 30: respectively, Brun, Maurice, Départements et Régions (Paris, 1938), p. 33Google Scholar; Dupont-Ferrier, Gustave, Les Officiers Royaux des Bailliages et Sénéchaussées et les Institutions Monarchiques Locales en France á la Fin du Moyen Age (Paris, 1902), p. 14Google Scholar; Mirot, Léon, op. cit., vol. II, p. 355Google Scholar. A detailed listing of “Subdivisions of the Bailiwicks and Seneschalates” from 1202 to 1328 is given in deSerres, Borrelli, op. cit., vol. II (1904)Google Scholar, Appendix B. following p. 497. The most complete listing of bailiffs and seneschals for a later period is the remarkable work of Dupont-Ferrier, Gustave, Gallia Regia ou Etat des Officiers Royaux des Bailliages et des Sénéchaussées de 1328 á 1515, five volumes (Paris, 1942–1958).Google Scholar

20 Mirot, Léon, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 353Google Scholarf. Again, one must warn that the appearance of exactness is deceiving. Details on the changing number of subdivisions are available in special studies of particular bailiwicks and provinces. E.g., Michel, Robert, op. cit., pp. 52–78Google Scholar; Strayer, Joseph R., op. cit., pp. 9fGoogle Scholar; Waquet, Henri, Le Bailliage de Vermandois aux XIlle et XlVe Siècles (Paris, 1919), pp. 13–18. See also Borrelli de Serres, loc. cit. These figures should not be taken as indicative of the variation in size of bailiwicks or of the variation in duties of bailiffs. In some cases, for instance, a bailiffs function as a royal communication channel to the lords of fiefs adjoining his bailiwick might be onerous, but this of course would have slight or no relation to the size of his bailiwick and the number of its subdivisions.Google Scholar

21 “Les ‘Enseignements’ de Louis IX”, in Charles-Victor Langlois, La Vie en France au Moyen Age de la fin du XIIe au Milieu du XIVe Siècle, vol. IV (Paris, 1928), p. 40.Google Scholar

22 deBeaumanoir, Philippe, Coutumes de Beauvaisis, edited by Salmon, Am., vol. I (Paris, 1899), pp. 16–27. The work was written between 1280 and 1290 (See Salmon's introduction in Vol. II (1900), pp. i-xiv, at p. xvi). The passages quoted here are my translation, aided not a little by M. Salmon's “Glossary” of a number of Beaumanoir's medieval French terms. I have accepted the virtues as appropriate to a royal bailiff (as do Lot and Fawtier), although the author perhaps had in mind the bailiffship in the appanage county of Clermont-en-Beauvaisis, which he himself had filled.Google Scholar

23 Information on specific practices is of ten lacking, while the formal prescriptions in royal ordinances are too easily taken as reality. Even historians aware of a general disparity between prescription and practice in this period are sometimes content with exploding a generalization by citation of a few contrary instances; what remains unsettled, though, is whether specific formal prescriptions were widely or only exceptionally violated. The common position is that variety of practice is characteristic of the period. Though this is a safe position not only for this period but for the whole ancien régime, it also evades a central issue—to what extent the variety of a fragmented feudal economic, legal, and political ‘system’ was being transformed into a more unified, and so ‘generalized’, economic, legal, and political nation.

24 In 1248, in providing for the regency of the kingdom during his absence on Crusade, Saint Louis authorized his mother to appoint and remove bailiffs and other officers. In 1302, however, Philip the Fair's major ordinance on reformation of the kingdom provides that bailiffs are to be “chosen and designated out of the deliberation [ex deliberatione] of our Great Council,”—Isambert, , op. cit., vol. I, pp. 253f, and vol. II, pp. 759780, at 769.Google Scholar

25 The first royal bailiffs in Normandy were veterans of the war of conquest, but were replaced by civil servants as the danger of revolt receded. Strayer, Joseph R., op. cit., p. 108Google Scholar. An ordinance of 1287 required that all bailiffs exercising temporal jurisdiction be of the laity: Isambert, , op. cit., vol. II, p. 678.Google Scholar

26 The clergy, if otherwise available, would have offered the further advantage of lack of legitimate offspring—a not inconsiderable merit in an age when public office had only recently cast off its quasi-hereditary character.

27 Multiple office-holding, of course, was possible and eventually was to convert many a bailiffship into a sinecure whose title-holder rarely appeared in his bailiwick. The 1302 ordinance forbade a bailiff or seneschal to hold membership in the king's council, a practice which had been fairly common in the 13th century. Isambert, , op. cit., Vol. II, p. 769.Google Scholar

28 De L'Esprit des Lois (Paris: Ernest Flammarion, using the 1758 edition), vol. II (1932), p. 211.Google Scholar

29 Some bailiffs also achieved knighthood on the basis of their loyal service in the field.

30 Ordinances of 1254 and 1302, Isambert, , op. cit., Vol. I, p. 269 and Vol. II, pp. 778f.Google Scholar

31 Ordinance of 1302, Isambert, , op. cit., Vol. II, p. 773.Google Scholar

32 In the northern border bailiwick of Vermandois, a number of bailiffs appear to have been northerners by birth, and some to have been of Vermandois families: Waquet, Henri, op. cit., pp. 22ffGoogle Scholar. In Normandy, all bailiffs were non-Normans until late in the 13th century, but even then the choice of a Norman was exceptional; Strayer, Joseph R., op. cit., pp. 95ffGoogle Scholar. In the Southern seneschalate of Beaucaire, the seneschals were almost always knights from the North; Michel, Robert, op. cit., pp. 26f.Google Scholar

33 Charles-Victor Langlois (in Ernest Lavisse, op. cit., Vol. III, part II, p. 343) states that it was ordained in the 13th century that jurisdictions should be changed every three years. I have been unable to locate such an ordinance. Jean Bancal (op. cit., p. 84) refers to a three-year principle, and Dupont-Ferrier, Gustave (op. cit., p. 99) to a three-year maximum.Google Scholar

34 Langlois, Charles-Victor in Ernest Lavisse, op. cit., Vol. III, part II, p. 343.Google Scholar

35 Strayer, Joseph R., op. cit., p. 95.Google Scholar

36 Waquet, Henri, op. cit., pp. 24fGoogle Scholar; Michel, Robert, op. cit., pp. 50f.Google Scholar

37 The point is specifically made by both Strayer and Waquet, loc. cit. Waquet notes that Vermandois had 11 bailiffs in 50 years of the 13th century and 32 in the hundred years of the 14th century. While in the former period one bailiff served 18 and subsequently 4 years in Vermandois and another bailiff 10 consecutive years, the longest tenure in the 14th century was 6 years and the average of the rest a little over two years. However, the 14th century had characteristics likely to promote turnover of bailiffs; the Hundred Years' War began in 1338, France had eight kings during the century, and unrest among both noble and common people at times reached chaotic proportions.

38 Salmon, Am., “Introduction”, in Philippe de Beaumanoir, op. cit., Vol. II (1900), pp. i–xiiGoogle Scholar; Charles-Victor Langlois in Lavisse, Ernest, op. cit., Vol. III, Part II, pp. 361Google Scholarf; Waquet, Henri, op. cit., pp. 94, 176. His service in any one post never exceeded three years, a further confirmation of the principle of short tenure in individual bailiwicks.Google Scholar

39 Waquet, Henri, op. cit., pp. 175–177Google Scholar. Strayer reports that of the bailiffs in Normandy “more than twenty had second or third appointments in other Norman bailliages.” Strayer, Joseph R., op. cit., p. 95; detailed listings are given on pages 110–112.Google Scholar

40 Strayer, Joseph R., op. cit., p. 97Google Scholar. The text's characterization of the salaries as generous rests on Strayer's appraisal noted above, and on Fawtier's acknowledgement that these field agents were about as well treated as central officials of high status. My inference is that salaries in the early 14th century were at least adequate since Waquet reports no complaints in the Vermandois area earlier than the late 14th century and the latter complaints rest on diminution of buying power of the fixed salaries, a result of expansion and devaluation of the currency. Over against this is Petit-Dutaillis's charge that abuses by the bailiffs reflected the inadequacy of their salaries and Fawtier's declaration that “in modern terms their pay was modest”. Strayer, loc. cit.; Fawtier, Robert, The Capetian Kings of France (London, 1960), pp. 182CrossRefGoogle Scholarf; Waquet, Henri, op. cit., pp. 29fGoogle Scholar; Petit-Dutaillis, Charles, op. cit., p. 296. Professor Strayer has further clarified the point in a 1961 comment to me: “Compared to other officials (e.g. viscounts and members of the royal household) the salaries were high. Many knights had incomes of less than 100 livres a year. For men of the classes from which bailiffs were drawn, 300 to 500 livres a year was very attractive.”Google Scholar

41 Strayer, Joseph R., op. cit., pp. 119fGoogle Scholar; Dupont-Ferrier, Gustave, Les Officiers Royaux des Bailliages et Sénéchaussées …, p. 88.Google Scholar

42 Isambert, , op. cit., Vol. III, p. 313.Google Scholar

43 Ordinance on the Reformation of the Kingdom, 1302, in Isambert, , op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 759–780Google Scholar; the provisions noted in the text are summarized on p. 763. Cf.. Saint Louis' Etablissement for the Reformation of Customs in le Languedoïc and le Languedoil, 1254, in Ibid., vol. I, pp. 264–274.

44 Waquet, Henri, op. cit., p. 31.Google Scholar

45 However, designated members of the royal Parlement did hold sessions in the southern part of France during the period at least of 1278–1290; in 1303 Philip the Fair authorized a Parlement to be held each year at Toulouse with final decision-making power, but litigants seemed to prefer to come to Paris, despite the distance. Only in the 15th century did a series of regional parlements, including one at Toulouse, come into being as continuing rivals of the Parlement of Paris. See Lot, and Fawtier, , op. cit., vol. II, pp. 469–505.Google Scholar

46 It will not escape the student of American federalism that these 13th century opportunities for resort to the French royal courts have resemblances to the 19th and 20th century opportunities in the United States for invoking of Federal courts' jurisdiction, and that the purpose and consequence of each of these sets of opportunities were to strengthen national unity at the expense of local autonomy.

47 Montesquieu, , op. cit., vol. II (1932), pp. 189Google Scholarf. For the ordinance of 1260, see Isambert, , op. cit., vol. I, pp. 283–299. The ordinance, issued by the king without seeking the concurrence of the nobles at the Court, was made applicable only to the king's proprietary domain and not to the lands held by feudal lords; however, the latter could individually elect to follow the king's example, and, of course, the king's ordinance applied to cases appealed from the lord's courts to the royal courts.Google Scholar

48 Op. cit., vol. II, p. 508. My treatment of adjudication and the Parlement draws particularly on Lot's and Fawtier's extended discussion of these topics.Google Scholar

49 The problem was somewhat different in the case of the feudal lords' courts. Because the feudal lords found adjudication of cases was profitable financially, and because they wished to protract the process of reaching the royal courts (thus discouraging such appeals), the lords often elaborated their court systems and required that cases move through the many levels of tribunals. In 1298 the Parlement reduced the number of such echelons to three.

50 Lot, and Fawtier, , op. cit., vol. II, p. 197.Google Scholar

51 Lot and Fawtier place the financial subordination of the provosts in “France proper” as late as the beginning of the 14th century, in contrast to the considerably earlier subordination achieved in the South and West. Ibid., p. 195.

52 Ibid. pp. 194–196, 202; deSerres, Borrelli, Recherches …, Vol. II (1904), pp. 379–381, 386–388, 399.Google Scholar

53 Lot, and Fawtier, , op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 241Google Scholar, 242. See also, deSerres, Borelli, op. cit., Vol. I (1895), pp. 366–368. The quotation takes account of the Chamber's oversight of extraordinary revenues, which were collected by others than bailiffs.Google Scholar

54 Lot and Fawtier, loc. cit.

55 The most concise and informative treatment I have found is in Lot, and Fawtier, , op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 252–255Google Scholar, and I draw heavily on their description. A chapter is devoted to “The Administration of the Forests” in Normandy, in Strayer, Joseph R., op. cit., pp. 69–80.Google Scholar

56 See deSerres, Borrelli, op. cit., Vol. I (1895), pp. 383–464, and, particularly regarding Normandy, Joseph R. Strayer, loc. cit.Google Scholar

57 Ordinance of 1302, in Isambert, , op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 759–782, at p. 769.Google Scholar

58 Strayer, Joseph R., op. cit., p. 69.Google Scholar

59 The substantial dissociation of bailiffs from the extraordinary revenues is fully supported by generalizing statements in Lot, and Fawtier, , op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 187ff, 239Google Scholar. Other sources cite instructions to bailiffs regarding collection of extraordinary revenue or instructions to men (including bailiffs) especially designated as commissioners for a particular tax. E.g., Strayer, Joseph R. and Taylor, Charles H., Studies in Early French Taxation (Cambridge, Mass., 1939), pp. 75, 79, 116Google Scholar, and even Lot, and Fawtier, , op. cit., pp. 194f, 221. Part of tthe confusion arises from an early distinction between the provost's responsibility for ordinary dominial revenue and the bailiff's responsibility for the more irregular (or ‘extraordinary’) collections for specific occasions (e.g. knighting of the king's son, marriage of his daughter, and other regalian rights). Part of the confusion arises also from the bailiffs responsibility for assuring the assembly of a military force in accord with the king's right to demand military service under the 'host' or 'ban' call to his direct vassals and, eventually, the arriére-ban call to sub-vassals; the principal extraordinary revenue measure operated at first as a substitute for military service and communities differed in whether they opted for the service itself or for the substitute ‘subsidy.’Google Scholar

60 The text of the ordinance of March 1320, though listed as of March 1319, is in Isambert, , op. cit., Vol. III, pp. 239–241, esp. p. 240.Google Scholar

61 deSerres, Borrelli, op. cit., Vol. I (1895), pp. 221Google Scholarf. A useful brief account of the development of the Collector's role, especially in the bailiwick of Vermandois, is given in Waquet, Henri, op. cit., pp. 107–114.Google Scholar

62 Ordinance of May 27, 1320, in Isambert, , op. cit., Vol. III, pp. 242–245Google Scholar. Langlois, Ch. V. in Lavisse, op. cit., p. 345.Google Scholar

63 Dawson, John P., A History of Lay Judges (Cambridge, Mass., 1960), pp. 44–48. Dawson credits “the breakup of the medieval popular courts—the transfer of their powers to functionaries appointed by the crown and the feudal lords” with the failure of representative government in France and the ultimate fate of the French monarchy, p. 94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

64 Ibid., p. 52. Practices varied, however, among individual bailiwicks and seneschalates. Use of local citizens as members of the local council and the personal performance of the judicial function by the bailiff persisted beyond the 13th and 14th centuries (even though Dawson says that “the whole apparatus of canonist methods of proof … at the end of the [14th] century had won the whole field, in civil and criminal actions of every type, in feudal as well as royal courts.” pp. 52f). Gustave Dupont-Ferrier reports that prud'- hommes were occasionally associated with the Council and at assizes as late as the early 16th century, though the general tendency was to convert councillorships into royal offices. (Dupont-Ferrier, , op. cit., pp. 252–256, 323), that in the latter half of the 15th century juges mages were to be found in some bailiwicks and seneschalates but not in others (pp. 111–113), and that the absence of the bailiff or seneschal at the assize became common from the mid-15th century (p. 321).Google Scholar

65 Michel, Robert, op. cit., pp. 47f, 93f.Google Scholar

66 Lot, and Fawtier, , op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 364f.Google Scholar

67 Ibid., pp. 367ff.

68 Lot, and Fawtier, , op. cit., Vol. II, p. 342.Google Scholar

69 Ordinance of December 1320. In Isambert, , op. cit., Vol. III, pp. 254–257, at pp. 255f. The ordinance groups together “bailiffs, seneschals, and procureurs,” thus reflecting the rise of the procureur to a status of essentiality to his local bailiwick and of sufficient distinction to be frequently before the Parlement in Paris.Google Scholar

70 The more legitimate complaints concerned the behavior of provosts, sergeants, and other minor local officials.

71 Letter to the Chancellor of Bourges and Pierre de Sainte-Croix, knight, as quoted by Langlois, Ch.-V. in Lavisse, op. cit., p. 348.Google Scholar

72 Léopold Delisle, in Preface to Léopold Delisle (ed.), Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, Vol. 24, Part I (Paris, 1904), pp. 11f.

73 Op. cit., Vol. II, p. 152.