ROYAL ADMINISTRATION AND
FINANCE
. Although the Merovingian kings made some effort to preserve Roman institutions, early
Frankish culture tended to think of government in private, personal terms. When movable
wealth changed hands, the Franks understood gifts, booty, and tribute but not taxes and
salaries. The Carolingians not only came from the least romanized part of the Frankish
world but also took power at a time when the economy had become very local, warfare
had disrupted administrative practice, and few laymen could write. Charlemagne tried to
govern a large territory through family members, supportive clergy, household officials,
and followers bound to him by a personal oath of loyalty. His strong personality and
military prowess made the system work for awhile, but even he found that inadequate
public institutions of government had to be supplemented by private, personal
arrangements.
For nearly three centuries after the death of Charlemagne, monarchs, territorial lords,
and many lesser nobles governed their lands in much the same way—deriving income
mainly from the profits of rural estates and staffing military and judicial posts with
household officers and men bound to service through private contracts of vassalage. The
king’s theoretical position at the apex of the social order and his ability to control more
ecclesiastical appointments than other lords provided him with resources that others
lacked, but royal administration and finance long involved little more than the
management of those lands, rights, and jurisdictions that collectively made up the royal
domain.
Under Philip I, obscure household officials emerged as important figures in the
making and executing of royal policies. These were the earliest “great officers” of the
crown—the seneschal, butler, chamberlain, and constable—to whom we should add the
chancellor, who supervised those who wrote and authenticated royal documents. In this
same period, the late 11th century, increasing urbanization, population, and trade made
the revenues of the royal domain more substantial, but these were farmed by officials
called prévôts, who were difficult to control and often corrupt.
Several modest achievements in the 12th century laid the basis for important
developments in royal administration and finance. Louis VI forcibly pacified the unruly
castellans of the Île-de-France, and these henceforth formed a pool of reliable men to fill
administrative and military posts. The reduction of violence in the region also made the
royal domain more profitable. Under the next two kings, the introduction of itinerant
baillis helped bring the prévôts under better control, and the crown began building up a
significant treasure, housed in the Temple and subject to audit by the curia regis.
The stage was now set for the large territorial additions to the royal domain under
Philip II Augustus and his successors. The 13th-century bailli became more of a
provincial governor, wielding judicial, financial, and military power over a group of
prévôtés. When a great fief or large territorial block, such as Anjou, Normandy, or
Languedoc, came into royal possession, the king left intact whatever local administrative
structure he found, especially if it seemed superior to that existing in his other lands.
Normandy, for instance, had an exchequer to monitor the revenues of the domain, so
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1558