medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Tom Izbicki <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>A glance at the province tables in the back of:
Hierarchia catholica medii aevi, sive Summorum pontificum,
>shows how different the suppositions were in the Middle Ages. Modern
capital cities just were not important in many cases.
absolutely.
at least as far as France was concerned.
the only place i know anything about.
early/high middlevil French kingship --like all kingship, i presume, and,
indeed, all of the "nobility"-- was relentlessly peripatetic. the king was in
constant motion, from one "capital" to another, visiting all his various
domains and holdings, quenching hotspots, delivering Justice, kicking some
recalcitrant Noble Butt here and there, just plain ole "showing the flag" (as
it were).
"use it or loose it" was the order of the day, and the failure to constantly
exercise one's rights and customs over property and people could --and did--
result in a Dead Right, subject to usurpation by others, which could only be
revived by a perhaps inordinate expenditure of Effort.
ditto for all the for the French "nobility," great and small.
they all had certain "seats" of power which were, more or less, "capitals" and
which they preferred to hold Court at on statigically important feast days;
but there was no single "capital" for any of them until relatively late (13th
c.).
for the King, this meant hitting his favorite places, from Laon, Soisson,
Senlis in the North to Bourges in the south, everywhere in between and, where
he could, beyond.
it also meant having a bunch of lesser "stong points" to which the Royal Ost
could retire in time of great need (cf. Suger's account of Louis VI's
thoroughly humiliating defeat before the tiny, wooden _castrum_ of LePuiset
and his ignominious retreat all the way to Etampes).
as i mentioned before, the itineraries worked out from the Royal Charters and
to be found in the various publications of the royal _Acta_ show the extent of
this travel (most recently, for Louis VI, there is the quite excellent :
Recueil des actes de Louis VI, roi de France (1108-1137) / publié sous la
direction de Robert-Henri Bautier, par Jean Dufour. Paris : Académie des
inscriptions et belles-lettres, 1992-1994).
the same could be done for all the Magnates, great and small, with
(relatively) similar results.
Paris --perhaps because of its central position geographically within the
"royal domain" [itself not a concept which should be understood in purely
geographic terms], among other reasons-- started to gain a favored place by
the reign of Louis VII, but really seems to have done so in the final decades
of the 12th c., under Philip Augustus.
which is not to say that the King "settled down" there --he just couldn't
afford to.
but rather that he at last had something like a stable base, somewhere his
Bureaucrats could call Home, where his chancery could be centered, his records
kept (August Phil lost his treasure wagons --also containing his copies of
royal charters-- in a battlefield defeat in the 1180s or so, which may have
influenced his desire for more stability; *that* must have hurt).
and, Paris fit the bill.
Newly encircled within enlarged walls sprawling on both sides of the river
(including the vast, new, hi-tech tower of the Louvre, on the Right bank),
with expansions to the old palais on the Ile (including a proper _chambre des
comtes_, i believe), and, just as important, enhanced by the prestige of being
given an enhanced royal favor, Paris --as a "capital"-- really dates from his
reign.
i *think.*
his sucessors just followed suit, and the whole thing Snowballed.
E.g., Louis IX *really* made a splash with a spiffy new Chapel added to the
palais on the Ile :
http://www.ariadne.org/centrechartraine/branner/branner56-65.html
(interesting to note, in this context, that he built very similar --albeit
smaller-- chapels at several of his residences; Branner talks about them as
well.)
>I do not know of any study of how Paris or Madrid got promoted over older
metropolitan sees like Sens & Toledo.
nor do i (for Paris).
worth looking at to get some kind of handle on the problem might be :
Newman, William Mendel, _Le domaine royal sous les premiers Capétiens
(987-1180)._ Paris, Librairie du Recueil Sirey, 1937. (which more or less
destroys the idea of the R.D. being a *purely* geographic entity : the
"domain" consisted of Rights & Customs which the King could exercise.)
and another oldie :
Fawtier, Robert, _The Capetian kings of France; monarchy & nation, 987-1328._
London, Macmillan; New York, St. Martin's Press, 1960 [orig. published in
194x, i believe.)
more recent (and therefore not read by me) :
Baldwin, John W., _The government of Philip Augustus : foundations of French
royal power in the Middle Ages._ Berkeley : University of California Press,
c1986.
there is a very nice study of "Paris a l'époque Gallo-romaine," published at
the beginning of the last century, which, now that I.U. has *thrown away* its
card catalogue, i cannot find.
interesting because it shows the shear *extent* of the place in Roman Times
(the great baths at the Hotel de Cluny give one an idea of this as well, of
course).
>Arguments over Primacy also are instructive.
not so much for France, i believe, though i have come across some rumblings
between the various metropolitans from time to time.
perhaps because, unlike England, France was not a political unity until
relatively late, and, even then, retained much of its regional independances
until very recent times.
thanks, Tom.
best from here,
christopher
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