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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

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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

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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

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(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

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(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

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(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

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(45) See Appendix.

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(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

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(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

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(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

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