Great Ordinance of 1357
The Great Ordinance of 1357 was an
Historical context
Since the year 1000 and the
In England, the setbacks that
In France, the outset of the Hundred Years' War had been catastrophic and royal power was greatly contested after the defeat at Crécy in 1346. In effect, Philip VI was enthroned to the detriment of Edward III thanks to a series of legal technicalities. In the same way, Charles II of Navarre (called "Charles the Bad") was a pretender to the throne, his mother Jeanne having been removed in order to avoid a powerful foreigner taking control of France by marriage. In this era the nobility justified the divine essence of its power by chivalrous conduct, especially on the battlefield. Thus, Crécy was a disaster against a very numerically inferior army and Philip VI fled, calling into question the divine legitimacy of the Valois. This disrepute was worsened by the appearance of the Black Death in 1348, supporting the idea that this dynasty was not supported by God. Edward III and Charles of Navarre therefore saw their chance to emphasize their respective claims to the crown of France and attempted to win over the cities then losing hope in the institution of a controlled monarchy.
The États généraux
Étienne Marcel, provost of the merchants of Paris became head of the Third State in the States-General of 1355 and 1356. In 1355 the Hundred Years' War reignited, and John the Good had to convene the States-General, to finance his army of 30,000 men necessary to defend France. They were extremely suspicious of the question of public finances (angered by the devaluations brought about by repeated monetary changes),[3] and would only accept a rise in the salt tax (the gabelle) if the States-General were able to control the application and the usage of the funds raised by it. The officers who would raise the tax had to be designated by the States-General, and ten representatives had to be on the king's counsel of the king in order to check the finances.[4] This ordinance was ratified on 28 December 1355.
The
The beginnings of the Dauphin Charles's regency were fraught with difficulty: only 18, with little experience or personal prestige (unlike his father and brother he had quit the field of battle at Poitiers), and carrying the shame of the Valois dynasty on his shoulders. He surrounded himself by greatly discredited members of his father's royal counsel.
On his arrival in Paris, 10 days after the battle, he convened a meeting of called the States-General of the langues d'oïl on 17 October 1356. The deputies of the Third Estate numbered 400. The Dauphin faced a strong opposition - Étienne Marcel headed the Bourgeoisie and the friends of Charles of Navarre regrouped around Robert le Coq, Bishop of Laon. Within the States-General, a committee of 80 members,[6] formed on its own initiative to facilitate discussions, supported their claims. The States-General declared the Dauphin the king's lieutenant and defender of the kingdom in his father's absence and assigned him a counsel of twenty men (twelve nobles, twelve bourgeois and four clerks) as foreseen by the order of 1355.[6]
Étienne Marcel sought to reform the government and the administration of the kingdom. In return for allowing the king to raise new taxes, he demanded the discharge of the seven most compromised counselors[7] and the freeing of the King of Navarre. On these conditions, the states were disposed to vote for the period of one year the Dauphin an aid of a décime and a half on all the three orders' revenues. Not powerful enough to refuse these suggestions straight away, the Dauphin postponed his response (on the pretext of waiting for messengers from his father)[6]), dissolved the States-General and left Paris for Metz to render homage to his maternal uncle emperor Charles IV.[8] But, lacking money, he soon found himself at the mercy of Marcel, who had seized upon the indignation provoked by a new ordinance to change the currency (published on 10 December 1356) and caused all the corporations to take up arms; the Dauphin had to accept the dismissal of his counsellors, cancel the currency change and recall the States-General, to meet at the start of February 1357.[9] On 3 March, after stormy debates, the Dauphin accepted the promulgation of the major "grande ordonnance" that had been voted for on 28 December during the States-General of 1355 and that his father had ratified just before departing to fight the English in summer 1356.
The ordinance
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The text of this ordinance consisted of 61 articles. Less rigorous than that of December 1355, it sketched out a controlled monarchy and a vast plan of administrative reorganization. It specified that a
However, the full execution of this ordinance was quickly blocked. The purging committee was set up but only functioned for 5 months. The tax collectors named by the States-General met with hostility from peasants and poor craftsmen. The six representatives on the guardianship counsel were in a minority and the States-General lacked the political experience to keep a permanent check on the Dauphin's strength, as he took advice and rediscovered his officials' support. The frequent displacements, costly and dangerous in this era, discouraged the provinces' representatives, and the states became less and less representative. Little by little, only the Parisian middle class came to sit in the assemblies.
Notes and references
- ^ L’enfance au Moyen-Âge : la Ville. Site of the bibliothèque Nationale de France
- ^ http://www.cliohist.net. Les Communautés rurales et urbaines : cliohist.net Archived 2007-09-28 at archive.today
- ^ The king could change the currency: it thus favoured the royal coffers to call in gold coinage and have his vassals strike silver coinage for circulation. Le Franc - histoire d'une monnaie. Les mécanismes de mutation National Library of France
- ^ Jourdan, Decrusy and Isambert, Recueil général des anciennes lois françaises, depuis l'an 420 jusqu'à la Révolution de 1789 Paris: Belin-leprieur: Plon, 1821-1833, pages 738-745 National Library of France
- ^ The Battle of Poitiers,Chad Arnow myarmoury.com
- ^ a b c Raymond Cazette,Étienne Marcel, Taillandier 2006, p. 151
- ^ Le Franc histoire d'une monnaie. La création du Franc Bibliothèque Nationale de France
- ^ Raymond Cazette,Étienne Marcel, Taillandier 2006, p. 158
- ^ Paris à travers les âges : histoire nationale de Paris et des parisiens depuis la fondation de Lutèce jusqu'à nos jours. Tome premier / par H. Gourdon de Genouillac ; ouvr. réd. sur un plan nouveau et approuvé par Henri Martin pages 179-183 Bibliothèque Nationale de France
- ^ Edward P. Cheney, The Dawn of a New Era 1250-1435 3ème Chapitre: The Rise of the Middle Class: The Development of Representative Governmentgeocities.com