PRÉVÔT DES MARCHANDS
. See PARIS; PRÉVÔT DE PARIS
PRINCE/PRINCIPALITY
. The Old French words prince and princ(h)ier, the Old Occitan prince(p)/princi(p) and
princeer, and the English “prince” are all derived from the Classical Latin princeps (pl.
principes), whose basic sense was “first in order.” Throughout the classical and medieval
periods, princeps was applied to men both as a specific and as a generic title indicative of
high political and social rank, but the range of statuses with which it was associated in
both senses changed significantly over time.
As a specific and formal title, applicable to the holders of particular political dignities
as such rather than as members of broad social categories, princeps was used between
500 and 1100 only with the juridical sense it had acquired by 300 in Roman law: “ruler
with full monarchical powers” or “sovereign territorial lord.” In Gaul, after the collapse
of Roman power, it was progressively usurped (before 1020, only as an additional or
alternative title) by ever lesser rulers as a sign of their effective independence of higher
authority: by the Frankish kings in the 6th century; by their mayors of the palace, ca.
700–51; by the official dukes governing the peripheral provinces of the Frankish
kingdom, ca. 700–80; by the rulers of the new marches and duchies and of certain
counties (in alternation or combination with other titles in such phrases as princeps et dux
Normannorum), ca. 900–1100; and by the rulers of certain of the newly formed
castellanies, ca. 1020–1120. To both the personal status and the jurisdictional territory of
all of these French “princes,” the term “principate” (Lat. principatus, OFr. princté,
princé(e), Old Occitan principat) was commonly applied, but before 1020 only as a
secondary title.
Between 1120 and 1481, no lord in France is known to have made any regular use of
prince as a title of lordship, but the title was born throughout this period by a handful of
great lords of French origin in Italy (from 1062), the Holy Land (from 1099), and Greece
(from 1204), all of whom ruled dominions whose primary title was “principate.” Between
1481 and 1515, seven relatively minor barons, six of them in Angoumois or Saintonge
and one in Picardy, usurped the title of prince. The first titular principality to be officially
erected in France was that of Joinville, elevated in April 1552 for the duke of Guise, and
thereafter the dignity was occasionally conferred on members of houses that were already
princely in the generic sense.
In their generic sense, princeps and its vernacular derivatives were applied informally,
and usually in the plural, to the members of some loosely defined class of “leading men”
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1430