Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c47g7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T02:30:55.761Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Autonomy, integration and marginalization in the construction of medieval states: A comparison of Gwynedd and Languedoc under outside rule

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Get access

Extract

One of the major developments in the history of western Europe between 1100 and 1300 was the construction of large-scale political organizations. Before 1100 political life had often been intensely local, its horizons limited to the village, parish, or county. But in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the old local communities of post-Carolingian Europe were aggregated into the kingdoms and city-states that formed such a prominent feature of European life in the high Middle Ages. This essay is concerned with one aspect of this process of political construction: the factors that determined the possible pathways that a local community could follow as it was incorporated into a larger political organization.

Type
Regional Autonomy: Marginalization, Integration & Democracy
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

(1) For more information on the effects of outside rule on Gwynedd and Languedoc, see Given, James, State and Society in Medieval Europe: Gwynedd and Languedoc under outside rule (Ithaca Cornell University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

(2) On ‘stateness’, see Nettl, J.P., The State as a conceptual variable, World Politics, XX (1968), 559592CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Tilly, Charles (ed.), The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton 1975), pp. 3435.Google Scholar

(3) See Ignatius Burns, Robert, Islam under the Crusaders: colonial survival in the thirteenth-century kingdom of Valencia (Princeton 1973)Google Scholar, especially pp. 21–24, 118–19, 137, 352, 373; and Medieval Colonialism: postcrusade exploitation of Islamic Valencia (Princeton 1975), especially pp. 21, 120Google Scholar: Brown, Judith C., In the Shadow of Florence: provincial society in Renaissance Pescia (New York 1982), especially pp. 19, 186, 202Google Scholar; and Musset, Lucien, Quelques problèmes posés par l'an nexion de la Normandie au domaine royal français, in La France de Philippe-Auguste: le temps des mutations (Paris 1982), especially pp. 291307.Google Scholar

(4) Strayer, Joseph R., On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State (Princeton 1970), pp. 5053Google Scholar; 1D., The Historical Experience Nation-Building in Europe, in Strayer, Joseph R., Medieval Statecraft and the Perspectives of History (Princeton 1971), pp. 346347.Google Scholar

(5) On the dues collected by Languedocian seigneurs, see Auguste Molinier, Étude sur l'administration féodale dans le Languedoc (900–1250), in Devic, Claude and Vaissète, Joseph, Histoire générate du Languedoc, ed. by Molinier, Auguste, 16 vols. (Toulouse 18721904), VII, pp. 156157, 163–65, 172–80, 185–90, 196–99 [hereafter cited as HL]Google Scholar; Élisabeth Magnou-Nortier, La Société laïque et l'Église dans la province de Narbonne: (Zone cispyrénéenne) de la fin du VIIIe à la fin du XIe siècle (Toulouse 1974), pp. 137–41, 223–24; Id., À propos de la villa et du manse dans les sources méridionales du haut Moyen Ȃge, Annales du Midi, XCVI (1984), p. 89Google Scholar; Partak, Joëlle, Structures foncières et prélèvement seigneurial dans un terroir du Lauragais: Caignac dans la seconde moitié du XIIIe siècle, Annales du Midi, XCVII (1985), pp. 2022Google Scholar; and Dupont, André, L'Exploitation du sel sur les étangs du Languedoc, IXe-XIIIe siècles, Annales du Midi, LXX (1958), pp. 725.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

(6) It should be noted that some medievalists think it is inappropriate to label Languedoc a ‘feudal’ social formation. For their arguments, see Ourliac, Paul, Réalité ou imaginaire: la féodalité toulousaine, in Religion, société et politique: Mélanges en hommage à Jacques Ellul (Paris 1983), pp. 331334Google Scholar, and Ourliac, Paul, La Féodalité méridionale, in Les Pays de la Méditerranée occidentale au Moyen Ȃge: études et recherches (Paris 1983), pp. 711Google Scholar. These medievalists, however, regard feudalism not as a mode of production but as a set of relations binding a lord to a vassal and involving the granting of a service tenement, the fief.

(7) See, for example, Bisson, Thomas N., Mediterranean territorial power in the twelfth century, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, CXXIII (1979), 143150.Google Scholar

(8) Léonard, Émile-G. (ed.), Catalogue des actes de Raymond V de Toulouse (Nîmes 1932), pp. xlilvi, lxxiiGoogle Scholar; Auguste Molinier, De quelques registres du Trésor des Chartes relatifs au Midi de la France, in HL, VII, pp. 272–73; Molinier, Étude sur l'administration féodale, pp. 166, 196–200. See also Ourliac, Paul, Les villages de la région toulousaine au XIIe siècle, Annales: économies, sociétés, civilisations, IV (1949), 272276.Google Scholar

(9) Jones, G.R.J., The tribal system in Wales: a re-assessment in the light of settlement studies, Welsh History Review, I (19601963), 111132.Google Scholar

(10) Wolf, Eric R., Europe and the People without History (Berkeley 1982), p. 91.Google ScholarPubMed

(11) Davies, R. R., Conquest, Coexistence, and Change: Wales, 1063–1415 (Oxford 1987), pp. 122127.Google Scholar

(12) Ellis, T. P., Welsh Tribal Law and Custom in the Middle Ages, 2 vols. (Oxford 1926), 1, pp. 29, 82–83, 440–51. 456 n. 5.Google Scholar

(13) Davies, R. R., Lordship and Society in the March of Wales, 1282–1400 (Oxford 1978), pp. 358360.Google Scholar

(14) See Pierce, T. Jones, The Laws of Wales—The Kindred and the Bloodfeud, in Pierce, T. Jones, Medieval Welsh Society: selected essays (Cardiff 1972), pp. 289308Google Scholar, and Davies, R. R., The survival of the blood-feud in medieval Wales, History, LIV (1969), 338357.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

(15) Wolf, Europe, p. 94.

(16) For descriptions of some of these maerdrefi, see Pierce, T. Jones, Aber Gwyn Gregin, Transactions of the Caernarvonshire Historical Society, XXIII (1962), 3743Google Scholar, and Jones, G. R. J., Rural Settlement in Anglesey, in Eyre, S. R. and Jones, G. R. J. (eds), Geography as Human Ecology: methodology by example (New York 1966), p. 212.Google Scholar

(17) On the government of the princes of Gwynedd, see Stephenson, David, The Governance of Gwynedd (Cardiff 1984)Google Scholar.

(18) A direct comparison with Languedoc is very difficult, but there is evidence available which allows us to compare the distribution of wealth in certain areas of Gwynedd with that in certain areas of England. The returns of lay subsidy imposed on the county of Merioneth by the English in 1292–3, when compared with those of the subsidy levied on the English county of Bedford in 1297, reveal a more asymmetric distribution of wealth in the English than in the Welsh county. In Bedfordshire the wealthiest one percent of taxpayers owned 16.4% of all movable wealth whereas the poorest 10% possessed only 3·3%, a ratio of 5 to 1. In Merioneth the wealthiest one percent of taxpayers possessed 7·5% of all taxable chattels while the poorest 10% owned 3·1%, a ratio of 2.4 to 1.—These figures are derived from: Williams-Jones, Keith (ed.), The Merioneth Lay Subsidy Roll, 1292–3 (Cardiff 1976)Google Scholar, and Gaydon, A. T. (ed.), The Taxation of 1297: a translation of the local Rolls of Assessment for Barford, Biggleswade and Flitt Hundreds, and for Bedford, Dunstable, Leighton Buzzard and Luton (Publications of the Bedfordshire fordshire Historical Record Society, XXXIX (1959)).Google Scholar

(19) Davies, Lordship, pp. 37, 257–67.

(20) Edwards, J. G., The Principality of Wales, 1267–1967: a study in constitutional history (Denbigh 1969), p. 13.Google Scholar

(21) For English criticism of Welsh law, see the comments of Peckham, John, archbishop of Canterbury (1279–92), in Registrum epistolarum, 3 vols., ed. by Trice Martin, Charles (London 18821885), I, pp. 77, 136Google Scholar; II, pp. 475–76.

(22) Conway Davies, James, Felony in Edwardian Wales, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (19161917), pp. 145196Google Scholar, and Waters, W. H., The Edwardian Settlement of North Wales in Its Administrative and Legal Aspects (1284–1343) (Cardiff 1935), pp. 134144.Google Scholar

(23) Davies, Survival, pp. 346–47, 353; Davies, R. R., The Twilight of Welsh Law, History, LI (1966), pp. 154158.Google Scholar

(24) Davies, Conquest, pp. 368–69.

(25) Timbal, Pierre, Un Conflit d'annexion au Moyen Ȃge: I'application de la coutume de Paris au pays albigeois (Toulouse 1950), p. 26.Google Scholar

(26) Timbal, Conflit, pp. 144–48; HL, X: Preuves, cc. 723–34.

(27) Wallerstein, Immanuel, The Modern World-System. I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in Sixteenth Century (Orlando 1974), pp. 67129.Google Scholar

(28) The information for this statement is derived from Great Britain, Record Commission, Registrum vulgariter nuncupatum ‘The Record of Caernarvon’, ed. by Ellis, Henry (London 1838), pp. 133205.Google Scholar

(29) Hine Mundy, John, Liberty and Political Power in Toulouse, 1050–1230 (New York 1954), p. 136Google Scholar; Wolff, Philippe, Histoire de Toulouse (Toulouse 1958), pp. 125, 138Google Scholar; Charles Ramière de Fortanier, Charles de franchises de Lauragais (Toul 1939), pp. 17–18; Saint-Blanquat, Odon de, Comment se sont créées les bastides du Sud-Ouest de la France, Annales: économies, sociétés, civilisations, IV (1949), p. 280.Google Scholar

(30) Tucoo-Chala, Pierre, Gaston Phœbus et la vicomté de Béarn, 1343–1391 (Bordeaux 1960), pp. 1314, 125, 161–64Google Scholar; Lot, Ferdinand and Fawtier, Robert, Histoire des institutions françaises au Moyen Ȃge, 3 vols. (Paris 19571962), I, pp. 331332Google Scholar; de Dufau de Maluquer, A., Le Pays de Foix sous Gaston Phœbus: rôle des feux du comté de Foix en 1390, Bulletin de la Société des sciences, lettres & arts de Pau, 2nd ser., XXVIII (18981899), pp. 35Google Scholar; HL, IX, p. 464 n. 1.

(31) The consolidation of some other Languedocian lordships can be studied in the following: bishopric of Toulouse (Mundy, Liberty, pp. 164–65, 390 n. 14); bishopric of Lodève (Martin, Ernest, Histoire de la ville de Lodève, depuis ses origines jusqu'a la Révolution, 2 vols. (Montpellier 1900), I, pp. 46, 64)Google Scholar; bishopric of Albi (Auguste Molinier, Étude sur les démêlés entre l'évêque d'Albi & la cour de France au XIIIe siècle, in HL, VII, pp. 132–213; Biget, Jean-Louis, Un procès d'inquisition à Albi en 1300, Cahiers de Fanjeaux, VI (1971), pp. 273341Google Scholar; Id., La Restitution des dîmes par les laïcs dans le diocèse d'Albi à la fin du XIIIe siècle: contribution a l'étude des revenus de l'évêché et du chapitre de la cathédrale, Cahiers de Fanjeaux, VII (1972), pp. 211283)Google Scholar; and county of Comminges (Higounet, Charles, Le Comté de Comminges, de ses origines à son annexion à la couronne, 2 vols. (Toulouse 1949), pp. 215, 224).Google Scholar

(32) Ramière de Fortanier, Chartes, pp. 40–46.

(33) For a more detailed discussion of mechanisms by which the English sought to exploit the economic resources of their new subjects, see Given, James, The economic consequences of the English conquest of Gwynedd, Speculum, LXIV (1989), 1145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

(34) Ibid. pp. 24–25.

(35) Ibid. p. 29.

(36) Williams-Jones, Merioneth Lay Subsidy, p. xxvi.

(37) Given, Economic consequences, pp. 29–31.

(38) Ibid. pp. 34–36.

(39) Strayer, Joseph R., Consent to Taxation under Philip the Fair, in Studies in Early French Taxation, by Joseph R. Strayer and Charles Taylor (Cambridge, MA, 1939), pp. 5155.Google Scholar

(40) HL, IX, p. 164: Castillon, H., Histoire du comté de Foix, depuis les temps anciens jusqu'à nos jours, 2 vols. (Toulouse 1852), I, pp. 362363Google Scholar; Strayer, Consent, p. 53.

(41) Gabriel de Llobet, Foix médiéval: recherches d'histoire urbaine (Foix, n.d.), pp. 54–56; Bibliothèque Nationale, Collection Doat, XCVI, fols. 40r–52v.

(42) For some examples, see HL, VIII, cc. 1423, 1506–9; Teulet, Alexandre et al. (eds), Layettes du Trésor des Chartes, 5 vols. (Paris 18631902), III, no. 4208Google Scholar; Contamine, Philippe, Guerre, état et société à la fin du Moyen Ȃge: études sur les armées des rois de France, 1337–1494 (Paris 1972), pp. 5354Google Scholar; Collection Doat, CVIII, fols. 37r–39V.

(43) Cabié, Edmond (ed.), Droits et possessions du comte de Toulouse dans l'Albigeois au milieu du XIIIe siècle (Paris 1900), pp. 7677.Google Scholar

(44) For an example, see HL, IX, p. III.

(45) See Appendix.

(46) Williams, W. R., The Parliamentary History of the Principality of Wales (Brecknock 1895), p. 1.Google Scholar

(47) Great Britain, Public Record Office, Register of Edward the Black Prince, 4 vols. (London 19301933), I, pp. 159160Google Scholar; Great Britain, Public Record Office, Calendar of the Close Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office: Edward II, 4 vols. (London 18921898), 13071313, pp. 88–89.Google Scholar

(48) Waters, W. H., Account of the Sheriff of Caernarvon for 1303–1304, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, VII (19331935), pp. 147149.Google Scholar

(49) Roll of Fealty and Presentments on the Accession of Edward the Black Prince to the Principality of Wales: Ministers' Accounts, Early Series, 16 and 17 Edw. III, No. 16, Archaeologia Cambrensis, Original Documents, 1 (1877), pp. cliii, clvi, clxviii-clxix.

(50) Figures derived from Waters, Edwardian Settlement, pp. 168–70.

(51) Lewis, Edward A., The Mediaeval Boroughs of Snowdonia (London 1912), p. 149 n. 4Google Scholar; Griffiths, Ralph A., The Principality of Wales in the Later Middle Ages: The Structure and Personnel of Government, I: South Wales, 1277–1536 (Cardiff 1972), p. 112Google Scholar; Tout, T. F., Chapters in the Administrative History of Medieval England, 6 vols. (Manchester 19281937), VI, pp. 60, 63.Google Scholar

(52) Waters, Edwardian Settlement, pp. 171–73.

(53) Williams, Glanmor, Owen Glendower (Oxford 1966), p. 15Google Scholar; Id. The Welsh Church from Conquest to Reformation (Cardiff 1962), 137Google Scholar; Carr, A. D., Medieval Anglesey (Llangefni 1982), pp. 279282.Google Scholar

(54) HL, X: Preuves, cc. 587–89; Fawtier, Robert et al. (eds), Registres du Trésor des Chartes, 3 vols. (Paris 19581978), II, no. 1543.Google Scholar

(55) Dognon, Paul, Les Institutions politiques et administratives du pays de Languedoc du XIIIe siècle aux Guerres de Religion (Toulouse 1895), pp. 202203.Google Scholar

(56) On Nogaret, one can consult Favier, Jean, Philippe le Bel (Paris 1978), pp. 2935Google Scholar; Pegues, Franklin J., The Lawyers of the Last Capetians (Princeton 1962), pp. 99101Google Scholar; and Holtzmann, Robert, Wilhelm von Nogaret: Rat und Grossiegelbewahrer Philips des Schönen von Frankreich (Freiburg i.B. 1898).Google Scholar

(57) Cazelles, Raymond, La Société politique et la crise de la royauté sous Philippe de Valois (Paris 1958), pp. 267268Google Scholar; Fawtier, Registres, II, no. 3469; III/I, nos. 1152, 1439; Bouquet, Martin et al. (eds), Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, 24 vols. (Paris 17381904), XXIV, p. 195*.Google Scholar

(58) This figure does not include royal notaries.

(59) Printed in Fawtier, Robert and Maillard, François (eds), Comptes royaux (1285–1314), 3 vols. (Paris 19531956), I, pp. 432495.Google Scholar

(60) Printed ibid. I, pp. 524–92.

(61) Strayer, Joseph R., The Reign of Philip the Fair (Princeton 1980), p. 44.Google Scholar

(62) Figures derived from Strayer, Joseph R., Les Gens de justice du Languedoc sous Philippe le Bel (Toulouse 1970), pp. 4953, 99–101, 106–7.Google Scholar

(63) Joseph R. Strayer, Viscounts and Viguiers under Philip the Fair, in Medieval Statecraft, p. 220.

(64) For examples, see Tucoo-Chala, Gaston Phœbus, pp. 122–26; Collection Doat, XXVIII fol. 129r; Douais, Célestin, Guillaume Garric, de Carcassonne, professeur de droit, et le tribunal de l'Inquisition (1285–1329), Annales du Midi, X (1898), p. 7Google Scholar; HL, X: Preuves, cc. 370–75; Strayeh, Gens, pp. 21, 55, 59–61, 83–84, 171–72, 175–76.

(65) See Guillemain, Bernard, Les Français du Midi à la cour pontificale d'Avignon, Annales du Midi, LXXIV (1962), pp. 2930CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Id. La Cour pontificate d'Avignon (1309–1376): étude d'une société (Paris 1962), pp. 187, 454–75.Google Scholar

(66) For an example, see T. Jones Pierce, The Age of the Princes, in Medieval Welsh Society, pp. 19–38.

(67) See Beverley Smith, Llinos, The Gravamina of the Community of Gwynedd against Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, XXXI (1984), 158176Google Scholar; Lloyd, J. E., A History of Wales: from the earliest times to the Edwardian conquest2, 2 vols. (London 1912), II, pp. 748750Google Scholar; and Stephenson, David, The politics of Powys Wenwynwyn in the thirteenth century, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies, VII (1984), pp. 4649.Google Scholar

(68) Roberts, Glyn, The Dominican Friary of Bangor, in Id., Aspects of Welsh History (Cardiff 1969), pp. 221223Google Scholar; Id. Wales and England: antipathy and sympathy, Welsh History Review, I (1960–63), p. 381; Stephenson, Governance, pp. 104–5, 126–27; and Lloyd, J. E., The death of Llywelyn ap. Gruffydd, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, V (19291931), p. 350.Google Scholar

(69) The question of medieval Wales's ‘colonial’ status has attracted the attention of Welsh historians. See Roberts, Wales and England, pp. 375–96; Davies, R. R., Colonial Wales, Past and Present, LXV 65 (1974): 323CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Davies, R. R., Race relations in postconquest Wales: confrontation and compromise, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (19741975), 3256.Google Scholar