FROM KINGS TO MONARCHS: THE RESURGENCE OF PUBLIC POWER IN LATE MEDIEVAL EUROPE

  

 1. Introduction 

One of the reasons why the Germanic Kings wielded less power than the Roman emperors was because the old hierarchical relationship which singled out the emperor as the representative of public authority was replaced, in the case of the Germanic kingdoms, by a series of interpersonal, private accords between the king and his most important subjects: the heads of clans or lineages (sippe), which could challenge the crown, as royal succession was based on election rather than on hereditary principle. The Germanic kings, thus, struggled to be considered superiors in the way the Roman emperor had been because they had to grapple with the nobles of their kingdoms, to whom they often entrusted territorial government. This important transformation led to a specific form of social organization that historians have called feudalism, which from the perspective of European-Western constitutional history has been described as a type of government in which political power was a private prerogative and asset wielded by a whole series of local lords. 

1. The Early Middle Ages and the curious consequences of Feudalism in Western Constitutional History

 As F.L. Ganshoff, the main authority on the topic, indicates the word “feudalism” (Feudalismus, Lehnwesen, féodalité, feudalismo) has two essential meanings. In a social and political sense, feudalism is a form of society characterized by the development –carried to an extreme- of the element of personal dependence in society, with a specialized military class occupying the upper echelons of the social scale; an extreme subdivisions of rights pertaining to land ownership; a graded system of rights over land, created by this subdivision and generally corresponding to degrees of personal dependence; and, finally, a distribution of political authority amongst a hierarchy of persons exercising in their own interest powers normally attributed to the state and which are often derived from its disintegration or weakness.

  However, feudalism has also a “legal meaning”, as it may be regarded as a body of institutions creating and regulating the obligations of obedience and service (especially military) between a free man (vassal) and his superior (lord), by which the latter undertakes obligations of protection and maintenance regarding his vassal. The obligation of maintenance usually, entailed the granting to his vassal of a unit of land known as a “fief”.

  These two meanings of the word “feudalism” are not, of course, unrelated to each other, but rather closely intertwined. When we speak of feudal society, the fief –which is related to both meanings- was the most important element in the graded system of rights over land upon which this type of society was based.

  In our Western legal tradition “feudalism” has a pejorative connotation that goes back to the French Revolution, when it was generally associated, in a categorical and imprecise way, with the abuses of the Ancien Régime. This vision, which is in large measure justified because of the disintegration of a powerful, central authority and its replacement by a multitude of personal agreements that consolidated a structurally unequal society, is today not entirely justified, as feudalism brought had also some positive aspects, at least from today’s perspective.  And that is that under “feudal pacts” kings entered contractual relationships of a bilateral and reciprocal nature with their subjects, through which both parties took on obligations and were granted rights. To make it simple as a result of the feudal pacts established with their vassals, feudal kings hold not an absolute power but had to negotiate with their subject the important matters affecting the realm. And this idea of “pactism” leads directly to the concept of the “Social pact” formulated by Thomas Hobbes, John Locke or Jean Jacques Rousseau, meaning that political and legal power lies on a voluntary agreement between the king and its subjects, of accepting royal authority on contractual bases, that actually are defined in the Western “Constitutions”, a term already invented by the Roman emperors after Vespasian (remember Teaching Guide 2).  From the theory of the Social Pact, the idea of the Rule of Law derives, meaning that political power is bound to respect the constitution and the underlying Legal system.

John Locke (1632-1704)

 To make it short: without feudalism we would not have modern representative democracy.  I am sure you have never thought of that.

  Having said that Feudalism in the first centuries of the European Middle Ages had terrible consequences as it prevented to create powerful kingdoms and favoured a constant state of war among feudal lords. This is why Europeans ended up developing a political system based on the growing power of kings.

 

2. Late medieval monarchy and the origin of the Western state

The considerable surge in economic activity due to the multiplication of trade links (Commercial Revolution), and the rising cultural level coinciding with the emergence of the first European universities (Bologna, La Sorbonne, Oxford and Cambridge, Salamanca), were to transform European society in the Late Middle Ages. The rigid tripartite structure into which feudal society was organized, featuring a landed nobility, peasants, and the clergy, was to fundamentally shift as a result of commercial expansion, the growth of cities, and the emergence of a new social class: the bourgeoisie, which would amass considerable wealth and gradually upset traditional relationships of power. 

Bourgeois couple at home (19th century) 

In the final medieval centuries, the confrontation between popes and emperors would enable a set of strong monarchs to assert the independence of their kingdoms from the papacy and the Holy German Roman Empire, above all, in chronological order, in the kingdoms of Castile, France and England. Actual European states as Italy or Germany would not become independent until the 19^th century because they were integrated in the Holy Roman Empire. 

The Castilian, French and English kings of the Late Middle Ages, had little in common with the German “royalty” which arose after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, because the very nature of the royal institution underwent three major transformations: the “kings” had become “monarchs;” their crowns came to be inherited (hereditary principle); and kings no longer ruled over a certain “nation” or “people,” but rather over entire territories.   

Edward III of England

3. From kings to monarchs

 Kings in the Late Middle Ages were to recover much of the power they had lost in the early medieval period, both externally, by gaining independence from emperors and popes, and internally, where they gained ground against their great vassals, the feudal barons.  By becoming the undisputed holders of power, kings evolved into monarchs – a concept much more akin to the imperial Roman conception of political rule.

 a) From suzerainty to sovereignty

 The political consolidation of the monarchs of the Late Middle Ages (in contrast to the kings of the Early Middle Ages) was possible, firstly, because royal status came to be hierarchically posited, at least in theory, above all feudal bonds, through the concept of “suzerainty”. Which predated the legal term “sovereignty,” coined by “legists” (lawyers) of Louis IX (1226-1270), better known as St. Louis. Inspired by the Roman concept of imperium, these jurists contended that the King of France prevailed over all lords simply because he was a “sovereign.”

"Accolade" by Edmund Blair Leighton (1901)

 b) The consolidation of the hereditary principle as the basis of royal legitimacy

 But that wasn’t all. The late medieval monarchs were able to consolidate their power largely because their legitimacy was based on the hereditary principle, which stood in stark contrast to the system employed under the Roman Empire, in which the emperor appointed his successor by “adoption” – a procedure which frequently sparked struggles for power. The elective procedure of designation that prevailed in the time of the Germanic kingdoms, generated also great political instability, as this principle gave rise to warfare between noble clans.

Louis XIV in his deathbed with future Louis XV, 

his great grandson and heir

 But when it became clear that the legitimate heir of the king was the only one to have the right to reign, conflicts over royal succession calmed considerably down. The royal institution, thus, came to guarantee stability of power, averting the chaos and anarchy born of the perpetual state of war between lords which characterized and marred the feudal era. 

  The hereditary kingship brought legal rules that established which was the legal order of succession to be followed (Fundamental Laws of the Realm), who was the first in line (the prince: from “princeps” –remember Augustus) and ensure the continuity of the monarchy when the king died. Ensuring the transition from one reign to the following when the new king was a minor through the institution of regency. 

The Prince of Sleeping Beauty (1959)

3. A territorial monarchy.

 The Late Medieval monarchs not only managed to become “sovereigns,” staking their legitimacy upon the hereditary principle, but also exerted their power over whole territories.  So, for instance, the King of the Franks became the King of France with Philip II Augustus (1180-1223). In the Late medieval period appeared “Territorial monarchies”.

 The Territorial monarchy became an Administrative Monarchy, as the king could administrate directly the whole territory of the realm through royal agents (officials) which enabled him to collect taxes, and maintain a permanent army, that led them to absorb the greatest amounts of territory possible into their domains. The result was that the king became the head of an extremely powerful kingdom. Which was the case with three strong medieval monarchies: Castile, France and England, that became the protagonists of the history of the last medieval centuries (12^th to 15^th centuries).

 4. A powerful King-Judge and his new legal aristocracy

  The late medieval kings consolidated their power initially through the judicial courts, as everyone accepted the idea that as representatives of God on earth, they were the supreme judges, and their mission was to reestablish the order of the Creation, that was reflected in immemorial customs. The kings ended up having the monopoly of the Administration of Justice, much longer before they could create law through legislation. 

 And this was possible because from the European universities, since the end of the 12^th century graduated a whole bunch of Lawyers that initially became the “Officials” of the kings and ended up becoming a new ruling class as a New European legal aristocracy: the Nobles of the Robe. Kings called on jurists to place them in key positions in their kingdoms because they considered them powerful instruments for the reinforcement of their power, as the Law that these jurists had studied in universities across Europe convinced the authorities for whom they worked ―emperors, popes or kings― that they were heirs to the legendary Roman emperor; and not just any emperor, but the great Justinian, who had deemed himself the master and lord of everything, including, of course, the legal realm. 

Members of the "Noblesse de robe"

5. The triumph of Late Medieval Monarchies over Christian universalism 

 The last consequence of the rising of these strong monarchies was that their kings, if initially generally endorsed the ideal of political universalism and, as such, were at least theoretically beholden to the pope and the emperor, when they became powerful enough they reacted against the idea that they were under the authority of emperors and popes and defended their absolute independence within their respective realms. 

 First because the royal legists, the king’s officials, convinced the kings that they were emperors on their realms. And second because the popes lost prestige and power and by the end of the 15^th century, they were powerless against kings. After the Sack of Rome by the Imperial troops of Charles the Vth in 1527, popes would never get involved again in European politics. 

Sack of Rome (1527)

6. Kingship in the Era of Absolutism 

The fact that kings reacted against the idea that they were under the authority of emperors and popes and defended their absolute independence within their respective realms, explain why these great Late Medieval European Monarchies ended up being the base of the state model of organization that would appear in the beginning of the 16^th century with thinkers like Machiavelli, Bodin or Hobbes. 

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527)

In fact, “Modern” Kings became much more powerful than their late medieval predecessors in the course of the 16^th and 17^th centuries as they would be considered “Absolute” Monarchs, with almost all power of the land and the people of the realm. A strong power that was pretty useful in the 18^th century, when as “Enlightened” kings tha remained absolute monarchs tried to reform their realms adapting to the new ideas of the “Philosophes”, in an Era with brilliant  monarchs like Catherine the Great of Russia (1762-1796), Joseph II of Austria (1765-1790), Charles III of Spain (1759-1788), Frederick  II The Great of Prussia (1740-1786) or Joseph I of Portugal (1750-1777), with his prime minister the Marquis of Pombal. We will see all that in Teaching Guide number 6.  

Portrait of the Marquis of Pombal (1766)

By Michel Van Loo

7. The survival of monarchies in the XXIst century 

 After the Enlightened revolutions of the 18^th century things changed and the kings progressively saw their power limited. Like happened for instance in the United Kingdom because Parliament became the great protagonist of political end legal history, leading to a parliamentary regime in which government depended not on the free will of a monarch but on which party won the legislative elections. This is why under Queen Victoria (1837-1901), whose reign represents the height of the British Empire, the motto of the monarchy was: the king reigns but does not rule. Government was in the hands of the Prime minister elected by the majority of the parliament. 

Queen Victoria (1837-1901)

 Some monarchies ended up disappearing. Like happened for instance in France, one of the most solid ones, that disappeared first with the beheading of Louis XVI (21 January 1793) and Marie Antoinette (16 October 1793). The monarchy was reinstalled after Napoleon’s fall by Louis XVIII and Charles X, both brothers of Louis XVI. Monarchy was adapted to the Parliamentary regime under the reign of Louis Philippe of Orleans (1830-1848), and disappeared completely with the Wallon’s amendment the 30 January 1875, by one single vote, on the issue of the national flag. Since that date France is a Republic? Or is it a Republican Monarchy, in the line of Napoleon I and Napoleon III after the De Gaulle’s reform of 1962 enabling the direct election of the President of the Republic by universal suffrage that, in my opinion, has transformed the French 5^th Republic in a sort of a Republican Monarchy; following, in a way, the example of the US Presidential Regime.  The Presidents of the French and US Republics have far more power than European kings and queens. Though elected they are real monarchs. 

Charles de Gaulle (1959-1969)

 first president of the 5th French Republic

 The interesting point is that in Europe we still have several monarchies. The oldest European king is the British monarch who is not only the king of the UK, but also the head of state in most of the Commonwealth countries, like Canada or Australia, for instance. England in its history has only been a Republic under the Cromwell dictatorship established by the Lord Protector (1653-1658). 

 Spain is also a very old monarchy, but its rule was interrupted several times. This is why, for instance, Spanish monarchy had to be reinstituted after the Spanish War of Independence against Napoleon (1808-1814), the 1868 Revolution against Elisabeth II (1868-1874), and finally the II Spanish Republic (1931-1936), the Civil War (1936-1939), Franco’s Dictatorship (1939-1975) and the Transition to Democracy (1975-1978). An extremely interesting process from the legal perspective that I will be willing to explain in class. 

Anne Leibovitz, portraits fo the Spanish Royal Couple

Besides these two mentioned countries other European states have kings and queens as head of states like:  Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark or Luxembourg.  

The question then is why monarchies survived in these highly developed European countries. Isn’t monarchy an anachronism? 

 In my opinion it is not, and the first reason for that is that European monarchies get on well with democratic regimes, which is absolutely not the case of weird “Hereditary Republics” like North Korea. Let’s discuss in class why monarchy is still a useful institution. Starting first with the precision that 21^st century European kings are not monarchs but kings, with not real political power. Let’s find out why those powerless queens and kings are still today heads of their respective states. 

Of course, Royals must observe good conduct. Otherwise, they should disappear. We will also see in class how some scandals have affected the stability of European monarchies and have threatened their survival as an institution. Like Lady Di’s case in England, Sarah Ferguson, Meghan Markle, Prince Andrew and its relationship with Epstein, the Emerit king of Spain Juan Carlos, or the Norwegian princess Mette Marit.....  

Lady Diana, Princess of Wales (1961-1997)

2. How to study Teaching Guide 5:

 

a) Read the corresponding text in the “Aula Virtual”. 

b) Familiarize yourself with the basic Chronology of the period: 

 

CHRONOLOGY

 

XI Century

 

1066     Battle of Hastings. William the Conqueror defeats and kills Harold the last Anglo-Saxon king.

1085     Conquest of Toledo –the old capital of the Visigothic Kingdom- from the Muslims by Alphonse VI of Castile and Leon. 

1088     Foundation of Bolonia University, the oldest in Europe.

1099     Death of Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar “The Cid” in Valencia.

XII Century

1137 Union of Aragon and Catalonia (Barbastro Capitulations) as a result of the marriage between                 Ramon Berenguer IV count of Barcelona and Petronila, queen of Aragon. 

1154-1189       Reign of Henry II of England.  Creator of the legal system of “Common Law” through the creation of royal courts and important legislative reforms. (Constitutions of Clarendon, 1164). 

1170                Henry II of England orders the assassination of Thomas Beckett, Archbishop of Canterbury, for opposing royal power.    

1180-1223 Philip II Auguste of France. The first “King of France”

 1188     Cortes of Leon. First Assembly of Estates in Western Europe where the king convenes the representatives of the cities with the nobles and the bishops.

XIIIth Century

1212    Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa. Consolidation of Christian Supremacy in Medieval Spain. 

1215    Nobles impose on John Lackland Magna Charta. 

1230    Fernando III definitively unites the kingdoms of Castile and Leon, and creates the most                     powerful realm in the Spain of the Reconquest. 

1252-1284    Reign of Alfonso X, the Wise, of Castile.

1272-1307      Reign of Edward I of England, who strengthens royal power by relying on the cities                         as allies against the great nobility. 

1276     James I of Aragon dies and integrates the kingdom of Valencia in the Union of Aragon and                 Catalonia. Appears the Crown of Aragon (Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia).

 1285-1314 Philip IV of France “The Fair” 

XIVth century

 

1302                First meeting of the French Estates General (États Généraux), convened by Philip IV,             who asks for aid from nobles, bishops and cities representatives to fight against the pope Boniface           VIII.  

 1303     Anagni Slap. Boniface VIII is incarcerated by order of Philip IV of France. That will lead to the         Avignon Papacy (1309 to 1376).

1314     18 March         Jacques de Mollay the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, extremely      wealthy religious order dissolved by the king Philip the IV, who will die 9 months later. His three male sons will die without descendance: Louis X in 1316, Philip V in 1322 and Charles IV in 1328 (Accursed kings). End of the Capetian dinasty and beginning of the Valois. Dynastic cause of the beginning of the Hundred Year’s War as the king of England was a direct descendant of the Capetians through his mother, but in France women could not transmit rights to the Crown (Salic Law). 

1337    Beginning of the Hundred Year’s War (Until 1453) between the kings of England and the Kings of France. 

1348          Adoption of the Ordinance of Alcalá in Castile (Ordenamiento de Alcalá), Alphonse XI consolidates Kings authority in Castile. Royal Law prevails over local traditional customs.     

 

XVth century

1415      Azincourt Battle. Decesive victory of the English against the French.

1431      30 May 19-year-old Joan of Arc I is burned at the stake by the English. In 1428 she had conquered Orleans from the English Army, and she enabled the crowning of Charles VII in Reims despite English occupation on 17 July 1429.

1453     End of the Hundred Year’s War (beginning in 1337). French victory consolidates the                             position of French Kings. And English defeat consolidates preeminence of the English                             Parliament (House of Commons and House of Lords) over the English Kings.

1461     Death of Charles VII of France (king since 1422) who won the Hundred Year’s War and consolidated the strength of the French Monarchy.

1479     Union of Castile and Aragon under the Catholic Kings. Spain’s birth certificate. They laid the foundations of the Spanish State.

1485     End of the War of the Roses (since 1455). The conflict was fought between the supporters of the House of Lancaster (emblem a red rose) and those of the House of York (emblem a white rose), rival cadet branches of the royal House of Plantagenet. Henry VII, who descended from the Lancaster, rises to the English throne, the first monarch of the Tudor Dynasty. English nobility was so weakened as a result of the War that the Tudors could impose a century of royal absolutism in England with strong monarchs as Henry VIII and his daughter Elisabeth I.

1492     1^st January Conquest of the city of Granada by the Catholic Kings.  End of the Spanish Reconquest, after almost 800 years (Since 711).

            12 October: Christopher Columbus discovers America.

1494     Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), the kings of Castile and Portugal agree on the limits of their conquests Worldwide, independently of the Pope. They divide the world in two parts (Line of Tordesillas).

 

c) Complete in your Class notebook the following exercises:  

CONCEPTS:

Feudalism. Fief. Feudal pact. Vassal. Ancien Régime. Pactism. Social pact. Constitution. Rule of Law. Kings vs monarchs. Suzerainty vs sovereignty. Coronation. Anointing. Royal Touch. Thaumaturgic Kings. Fundamental Laws. Order of succession. Hereditary principle. Regency. Prince. Curia regis (court). Exchequer. Officials. Royal Courts of Justice. Common Law (England) vs Ius Commune (Continental Europe). Legists. Nobles of the robe. Assembly of States. Anagni Slap. Alexandrine bulls. Treaty of Tordesillas. Parliamentary regime. Wallon’s Amendment (1875). Hereditary Republic.

 

QUESTIONS:

Concrete questions

1. Why did Italy and Germany not become strong kingdoms in the Middle Ages? Compare the situation of both territories with what happened with kingdoms like Castile, France or England.

2. Explain the sense of the sentence “Rex est imperator in regno suo”. Who invented it?

3. Why the ceremony of royal coronation began and why it became crucial for stability of monarchies?

4. How did initially the kings of the Capetian dynasty in France ensure the instantaneous succession in the throne after the king’s death, prior to the consolidation of the hereditary principle?

5. Why were important in every kingdom the fundamental laws that organised royal succession? Think of the advantages of the principle of hereditary succession of the crown and why it was important to ensure the legality of royal succession.

6. Why there are monarchies still in Europe? Think of what the advantages are of having a king instead of a president of a republic.

7. What is the etymological sense of the word “prince”?

8. Who was the first French king that was referred to as “King of France? What is the sense of this terminology?

9. What were the consequences of the fact that late medieval kings could collect taxes from their subjects? In which way it consolidated the power of the kings? Think of why it helped the French monarchy to win the Hundred Year’s war against the English?

10. Why universities, and more concretely the Faculties of Law, were so important for changing not only the European Legal systems but the political organization of the late medieval kingdoms?  

11. Why the study of Roman Law helped consolidating the power of late medieval kings? Think of what the political background in the time that was formed the Compilation of Justinian.

12. Why Philip IV the Fair of France convened for the first time in 1302 the French General Estates (États Généraux)? What was his political purpose?

13. With which legal argument extracted from the Corpus Iuris Civilis of Justinian did the Legists of the late medieval kings justify that the kings were not submitted to the Emperor?

14. With which legal argument did the Legists of the late medieval kings justify that the kings were not submitted to the Pope?

15. How did the kings of Portugal get rid of the submission to the pope? Remember that Philip IV of France would do the same later.

16. Why did the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) prove that Castilian and Portuguese kings had become independent from the popes?

17. Why the absolutism of 18^th century enlightened European monarchs was beneficial for their kingdoms?

18. Why 21^st century monarchs have in reality become kings again?

General questions

1. Which are the two meanings of the word “feudalism”: from the social-political perspective and from the legal perspective.

2. Why today “feudalism” has not the entirely pejorative connotation it used to have, from the perspective of Western constitutional history.

3. What are the more important changes that the Commercial Revolution brings to late medieval European societies? Compare it with the old social structure from the Feudal era.  

4. Which are the specific titles granted to crown princes in England, France, Crown of Aragon, Castile and Leon and Navarre?

5. Why did the late medieval kings used initially the Administration of Justice to consolidate their power?  How did they do that?

6. Explain the essential difference between the English Common Law and the Continental “Ius Commune”? Think of how both legal systems appear.

7. Mention the reasons that explain that an anachronic institution like monarchy is still in use in some European nation-states in the 21^st century?