the arrière-ban (Lat. retrobannum), service owed the king from the feudal tenants of his
direct vassals, and in the 14th century the commutation of the arrièreban became an
important source of royal taxes.
For nonnobles, the ban became a district in which all residents, no matter who their
landlord, performed labor services, such as maintenance of roads, bridges, or castles, and
abided certain monopolies (banalités). Georges Duby coined the phrase “banal lordship”
(seigneurie banale) to describe this new, nonlanded form of lordship, and the concept has
been adopted by most historians, although the medieval terms most often used in that
sense were districtus and potestas (in the north) and mandamentum (in the south).
By the 12th century, banalités consisted of two types of economic rights possessed by
some landlords. The first was the monopoly of the local mill, oven, and winepress: local
residents were compelled to use those services (per bannum) in return for a payment in
kind (e.g., every sixth loaf of bread or one-twentieth of the wine or flour processed). Such
indexed revenues were important economic resources at a time of expanding population
and agrarian production but relatively fixed rents. Even lords who granted generous
community franchises often retained the banalités of their townsmen. The second type of
banalité was the banvin, the lord’s exclusive right to sell wine (ad bannum) during a
prescribed period, usually just before or after a new vintage.
Theodore Evergates
[See also: ARRIÈRE-BAN; SEIGNEUR/SEIGNEURIE]
Duby, Georges. Rural Economy and Country Life in the Medieval West, trans. Cynthia Postan.
London: Arnold, 1968.
Fossier, Robert. Histoire sociale de l’Occident médiéval. Paris: Colin, 1970.
Ganshof, François Louis. Frankish Institutions Under Charlemagne, trans. Bryce and Mary Lyon.
New York: Norton, 1968.
Van de Kieft, C. “Monopole de vente du Gruit et droit de ban.” Acta Historiæ Neerlandica
1(1966):67–81. [Historiographical review.]
BANKING AND MONEYLENDING
. The early admixture of banking functions helps to explain the disagreement among
financial historians regarding the origins of banking in the Middle Ages. Three in
particular have attracted attention: deposit banking, moneylending, and exchange. All
three activities can be documented in medieval France. Usher argued that the deposit
function was primordial in the development of banking. Sayous acknowledged the
existence of the deposit function as typical of banking but offered the hypothesis that
before bankers achieved the public confidence necessary to attract deposits, their
primitive function was that of lending money. With the passage of time, according to
Sayous, those loan bankers became credit bankers and changers. In the opinion of de
Roover, it was foreign exchange that would give rise to modern banking techniques.
Pawnbroking, common in most French towns, was frequently the domain of the Jews,
who served both urban and rural clienteles. Funds moved frequently via exchange
between Italy and France, Paris and the Champagne fairs in the 13th and 14th centuries.
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