Violence and the State in Languedoc, 1250–1400, by Justine Firnhaber-Baker

This excellent book fits well within an established tradition of Anglo-Saxon scholarship which views the evolution of royal power in medieval France, not as the result of direct military interventions beyond core centres of influence, nor as the inevitable consequence of the ambitions and growth of institutions of government, but rather as one outcome (not even a ‘wholly intentional’ outcome) of processes of ‘engagement, accommodation, negotiation, clemency and arbitration’ (p. 184) between the royal administration and seigneurial and municipal powers at the level of region and locality. The testing ground for the investigation is the theme of violence, and the geographical and chronological framework is Languedoc in the late Capetian and early Valois periods. Although there is nothing linear about the narrative it tells, the book is organised in a straightforwardly chronological order, with five main chapters tracing the Crown’s efforts to control (especially seigneurial) violence in the region, from the immediate aftermath of the Albigensian crusade through the first half of the Hundred Years War. An initial period from 1250 to 1270 saw attempts to convert the Peace of God (this region had been a heartland of the Peace movement) into the king’s peace, not least by means of the implantation of a network of Capetian officiers in the region. But seigneurial warfare remained rife in Languedoc. It was not until the second half of the reign of Philip IV that the Crown’s engagement with the problems posed by violence, in both ideological and juridico-administrative terms, began to produce results. Southern lords ceased waging war on their Capetian monarch, and learned to expect that the king’s men would intervene in any wars they fought among themselves. ‘Royal oversight’ of violence diminished in practical terms thereafter as a result of a recrudescence in seigneurial power and growing problems over Gascony, but the ideals and administrative framework built up under the last Capetians did not disappear. Throughout the difficult second quarter of the fourteenth century, royal officials found ‘less coercive means of engagement with war-makers’, including negotiating peace settlements and the issuing of letters of remission. This flexibility ensured that, despite its inability to intervene in any systematic way, the Crown retained (and in some respects enhanced) its role in peace-keeping. Under John II, the Crown’s problems did deepen immeasurably. Local warfare intensified, thanks to the actions and availability of mercenary companies across southern France. Once again, however, we find a mutation rather than a collapse in the ability of the king’s men to effect peace-keeping—most often in tandem with individuals and communities who took established processes of negotiation and settlement into their own hands. In doing so, of course, the king’s subjects were both appropriating and strengthening the ideals of royal peace-keeping. These developments ensured that the ‘idea of royal authority remained robust’ by the close of the chosen period, by which time instances of seigneurial violence had declined significantly.

Administration (probate law) · Ancient history · Ideology · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Reign · Scholarship · State (computer science) · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Medieval Literature and History