Philip left that in place and his Norman baillis were concerned more with military and
judicial matters. In other lands, where the chief political officer had been the seneschal of
the previous lord, the crown used this title, instead of bailli, for its chief local
representative. In Languedoc, which had more developed judicial institutions, the crown
preserved and enhanced these, leaving the seneschals with functions that were mainly
military and financial. Thus, the field administration did not achieve uniformity. It
adapted royal practices in the old domain to traditions and practices already present in
newly acquired lands, thereby smoothing the process of absorbing these lands but
reinforcing regional differences that would later hamper centralization. This
administration was not always honest or efficient, and Louis IX, who sent out enquêteurs
to receive complaints of official malfeasance, enacted many improvements in his
ordinance of 1254.
In the central government, the great officers of the crown entered a period of eclipse
under Philip II, who allowed the powerful office of seneschal of France to remain vacant
after 1191 and made increasing use of salaried officers. Because he lost his archives in a
battle in 1194, we lack details about royal governmental operations in the preceding
decades, but that debacle did lead Philip to establish permanent archives, the Trésor des
Chartes, in Paris. The daily operations of the government were in the hands of the curia
regis, which in the 13th century increasingly came to be called the “king’s council”
(conseil). This small body consisted of prelates and nobles in frequent attendance on the
king, as well as household officers and trusted salaried officials. For important occasions,
the king expanded this council into a much larger body by summoning his important
vassals from farther afield. When such an assembly dealt with a matter of political policy,
such as planning a crusade, it was called a “great council,” but when its work was largely
judicial it was called a “court” (curia).
The everyday curia/conseil contained (or had added to it when needed) experts
specializing in law, finance, or the currency. The king named six bourgeois of Paris, for
instance, to oversee finances when he went on crusade in 1190. Gradually, those with
special expertise became detached from the council and achieved the status of a
permanent, separate body. The judicial experts were functioning as a separate entity after
1254, becoming the Parlement de Paris, the kingdom’s highest court. The financial
experts, after operating somewhat separately for decades, received official status as the
Chambre des Comptes in 1320. By this time, the royal council itself acquired a different
character. To maintain authority in the difficult political environment of the 14th century,
the king had to include on his council representatives of powerful political interests
whose agenda might differ from his own. As the council became more of a political
forum, the kings made greater use of the royal household (hotel du roi) where their most
trusted followers served as maîtres des requêtes or chambellans.
Royal finances long remained the revenues of a great seigneur, including those from
high justice, coinage, treasure-trove, forests and fisheries, fairs and markets, and mineral
rights, which only the greatest lords possessed. Philip II built an abundant treasure from
these “ordinary” revenues, but under Philip IV they were becoming insufficient because
of the demands of more frequent war. By this time, the 1290s, evolving military
technology was making warfare on any scale much more expensive. The reign of Philip
IV was of great importance for the emergence of “extraordinary” revenues as a
supplement to traditional ones, and although it ended in rebellion over this issue, the
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