Conclusion

THIS essay has traced the history of the three great states of western Europe from the tenth through the thirteenth centuries. The three stories have certain common characteristics. Each state started as a Germanic monarchy and eventually became a feudal monarchy. In each state the kings struggled vigorously to develop a strong royal government against the opposition of the baronage. But in each state different circumstances affected this contest and hence the results varied greatly. It is true that superficially the political structures of France and England seemed much alike at the close of the thirteenth century. Each had a strong monarchy that combined the ancient kingly rights with the prerogatives of feudal suzerainty. Each had a highly developed royal government with financial and judicial organs. In each state there existed a representative assembly, an estates of the realm. There were, however, striking differences between the two countries. England was comparatively small in area and population. The members of its feudal class were closely bound together by long years of intermarriage and by their common efforts both in serving and opposing their kings. Although there were great lords and small lords, all held much the same position in

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relation to the government and had common interests. English kings had quarreled with their vassals, but with the possible exception of John no monarch had ever thought of ruling without their full cooperation. And by the end of the thirteenth century most English barons had given up trying to develop local independence-their aim was rather to control the royal government. The bureaucracy that served the English king was extremely small: some dozen judges and a few financial officers aided by a staff of clerks. The local royal government was carried on by sheriffs and other officers who were in general members of the feudal class. When Edward I negotiated with his people, it was with the "community of the realm": the peers and representatives of shires and towns assembled in Parliament. The barons of England might quarrel with the king but not with the royal government, for of this they were themselves an integral part. The French state was molded in a different pattern. It was still an alliance of feudal principalities, some of which were almost sovereign. The duchy of Brittany and the appanages of the Capetian princes were bound to the kingdom only by the fact that their lords were the king's vassals. In short, the true kingdom of France was the royal demesne. By the close of the thirteenth century this demesne was large and its administration well centralized. The French kings governed through a large and complicated bureaucracy. In addition to the Parlement, the chambre des

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comptes, and other central organs of government there were the baillis, the seneschals, and a host of minor officials scattered over the demesne. These men were the king's servants who lived on his pay. The Estates General was summoned by Philip the Fair to give him the support of his people in his struggle with the papacy, but it was not an integral part of the royal government. The government of France was effective and well organized, but it was something apart from the people.

Nevertheless, despite the divergencies in the political structure of the states, the kings of France and England had succeeded in developing strong monarchies. In this they had been aided by both ability and good fortune. The dynasties that ruled these two states during this period produced a remarkable number of very able men. Moreover, there was little to divert their attention from building up their power. Although the kings of France and England waged fairly continuous war against each other, they had no other dangerous foes. Neither monarchy embarked on large scale adventures that seriously strained its resources. Neither was ever faced with the necessity of buying the support of its baronage with destructive concessions. Furthermore, they had extremely good fortune in one important respect-serious disputes over the throne were very few. From Hugh Capet to Philip IV the French crown descended from father to son without serious question. In all that long period there were but two minorities and in each of these an able and

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effective regent ruled with a firm hand. The French monarchy never suffered from the anarchy of a disputed succession and no opportunity was given for a revival of the theory of elective monarchy. The English dynasty was almost equally fortunate. Except for the reign of Stephen there was no period when the English crown was in dispute in any practical form. Duke Robert of Normandy advanced his claims against his younger brothers, William II and Henry 1, and Arthur had a reasonable claim against John, but neither of these claimants was taken very seriously in England. There is little doubt that the French and English monarchies owed much of their success to their good fortune in producing male heirs. The serious decline in the power of the English crown during Stephen's reign shows clearly to what end a succession of such disputes might have led. The German monarchy was far less fortunate than its western neighbors. Only the Hohenstaufens can be charged with deliberately neglecting their interests in Germany in order to develop their power in Italy, but many German monarchs used in Italy time, energy, and resources that might better have been spent at home. Moreover, possession of Italy meant close relations with the papacy. When the popes began their great effort to free the church from secular control, it was but natural that they should first devote their attention to the monarchs nearest at hand. It seems quite doubtful that Gregory VII would have waged so fierce a war against Henry IV merely to free

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the German church from royal control. What really troubled him was Henry's dominance over the bishops of Lombardy. In short, it seems clear that directly and indirectly the Italian interests of the German kings did much to prevent them from building a strong monarchy at home. But in Germany also the question of succession to the throne played a large part. None of the dynasties that ruled Germany were able to produce sons for more than four generations. Had the line of Henry the Fowler been able to pass the crown from father to son from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries as did the Capetian house, it seems likely that the elective principle would have been forgotten as completely in Germany as in France. And every break in the royal line meant a dispersion of the demesnes and a weakening of the monarchy. Whatever the causes may have been, the result was decisive. The death of Frederick 11 left the German monarchy destitute of resources and authority. The king of Germany depended for his power on his own resources as a prince, and the electors who chose the monarch were usually careful to see that no very powerful prince received the office. Thus at the close of the thirteenth century Germany was in reality a loose coalition of practically independent states, ranging from important duchies like Bavaria, through small counties such as Wurttemberg and proud free cities like Hamburg and Bremen, to the tiny fiefs of imperial knights. There was no royal demesne, no royal government, and no king except in title. .

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In closing, a few words seem in order about the standards of royal living and the scale of royal activity in the era of the feudal monarchy. One striking feature was the peripatetic character of the kings and their courts. In the early part of the period the monarch and his entire administration roamed continuously from one demesne manor to another. In England King Henry I fixed his treasury at Winchester, and Henry 11 established a court to sit at Westminster where the royal treasury had been placed by that time. By the reign of Edward I there were considerable numbers of officials permanently in residence at Westminster, but the king and his court continued to travel about. In France there was no fixed center of the government until after the time of Philip Augustus. That monarch had his treasury in Paris, but it was located in the house of the Knights Templars and served by them. Only under St. Louis can one begin to call Paris the capital of France in any true sense, and the king himself was rarely there. Henry IV built a royal palace at Goslar and apparently planned a permanent capital, but the scheme was forgotten, and the German kings remained ambulatory. The fact that the courts were continually moving prevented them from being very complex. King John of England rarely stayed more than a week in one place. His court was transported by from one to three carts and perhaps a dozen pack horses. He was usually accompanied by several hundred hunting dogs and their attendants. The king had his household seneschal or steward, sev

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eral chamberlains, several wardrobe servants, a few chancery clerks, a small body of knights and crossbowmen, and a miscellaneous collection of bath masters, cooks, wash women, huntsmen, and grooms. There is some reason for believing that the lines between the washerwomen and prostitutes was not too finely drawn. When the queen accompanied the king, she had her own group of household officials and servants. But the kings were inclined to leave their queens in one place and wander about without them. The royal residences were like those of the great lords. In the early period they would consist essentially of two rooms-a hall and a chamber. Later somewhat more spacious dwellings appeared. But by and large royal life was extremely simple.

It is impossible to give figures for mediaeval incomes that have any meaning today. Royal and noble incomes are peculiarly deceptive because they covered the cost of government as well as private expenses. King John's income from England ranged from L24, 000 to L100, 000 the variations being the result of special taxes. John's richest vassals may have had incomes as high as L2, 500 or even more. But it seems quite likely that a number of great English lords may have had as much to spend on their personal and household expenses, as did the king. John believed that his archbishop of Canterbury had more. In short, most of the royal income went into the costs of government. In the time of John, Normandy yielded about the same -revenue as England. The demesne of the

French

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kings before the conquest of Normandy seems to have brought in about the same amount. Thus Normandy, England, and the Capetian royal demesne were of about equal value.

Except in regard to residences and mistresses, all the operations of the feudal monarchs were on a small scale. King John had seventy-two castles and a dozen or so hunting lodges. Although one cannot give an exact estimate of his mistresses, he was clearly supplied with them on a scale that would satisfy a western monarch of any age. But his armies were quite small. When he invaded Ireland in 1210, he seems to have led about 1,200 knights and probably half as many crossbowmen. At the battle of Lincoln in 1217, one side had 40o knights and 300 crossbowmen while the other had 6oo knights and some 1,000 miscellaneous infantry. By the latter part of the thirteenth century the English kings were using infantry drafted from the shires, and armies grew rather larger. Edward I seems to have had at times as many as 15,000 infantry and 3,000 horsemen.

Compared to the Byzantine emperors, the Moslem caliphs, and their own successors after the Renaissance, the feudal monarchs of Europe lived simply and with few of the trappings of majesty. But one gets the impression that a remarkably high proportion of them were able and vigorous rulers. Certainly the kings of France and England laid firmly the foundations for the future greatness of those states.