With Chapter 6, the analysis moves from the German Empire to France, examining the claim that the gradual emergence of independent territorial monarchies from the fourteenth century led to the identification of nation and polity and the formation of proto-nation-states. The chapter shows that Pierre Dubois, Nicole Oresme, and Christine de Pizan – key figures in conceptualizing the nature and self-understanding of the late medieval French monarchy – all reject the ideal of world government and begin to theorize some of the elements of independent statehood. However, they do not (yet) think of the territorial kingdom or “state” in national terms. Dubois’ proposal for the recovery and settlement of the Middle East is especially revealing in this regard. In his work, the Holy Land functions as a conceptual blank slate for the projection of an ideal political order, and he envisions a multinational settlement where expatriates from all parts of Europe would live under a common legal and jurisdictional system. The chapter thus shows that the inevitable alternative to the empire was not the nation-state.

The late medieval French monarchy developed its political vocabulary in the aftermath of the existential crisis of 1356-1360. Charles V patronized intellectuals, above all Nicole Oresme, who created a language for a monarchical commonwealth. French politics took place within the framework of this language for about two centuries, when another existential crisis, tied to the Wars of Religion, generated a new vocabulary, built around a royal State. Chapter 1 focuses on the origin of this vocabulary, tied to the representative assemblies of 1356-1358. The key figures in this process, aside from Charles, then regent for his prisoner father, were Jean Buridan and Nicole Oresme. The “bien de la chose publique” vocabulary came into being around debates on currency at the meetings of the Estates General of Languedoïl in Paris in the late 1350s. Minting brought together the two key elements of the public good – the economy and politics. The connection between currency and the public good would remain strong at later assemblies, in 1484 and 1576.

Chapter 7 considers astrometeorology as an established branch of knowledge, within the context of fourteenth-century developments in astronomy and technology. Mechanical clocks were prominent products of these advances, as were more accurate astrolabes and planetary tables. Most successful of the latter were the Alfonsine Tables, used by the authors of new and more ambitious treatises of astrometeorology, such as Firminus de Bellavalle. The chapter analyses the new approaches taken by inventors like Richard of Wallingford and scholars like John of Eschenden, and traces the growing prominence of Merton College, Oxford, in this field. Eschenden’s fame as a forecaster was boosted by his claim to have predicted the great plague of 1348. Related to this is the survival of his weather forecasts for 1348 to 1374. The chapter considers the rise of weather observation, and the survival of records from Lincolnshire, Oxford, Wurzburg and Basel, as evidence of a drive to give astrometeorology an empirical backing. It concludes that astrometeorology grew as an area of expert practice, despite the attacks that critics such as Nicole Oresme made against the reliability of all forms of astrology.