elevated to the standing of a distinct ministerium, or mestier, of the royal hostel, or inner
household, at some time between 1257 and 1261, to replace the chambre.
D’A.Jonathan D.Boulton
Lot, Ferdinand, and Robert Fawtier. Histoire des institutions françaises. 3 vols. Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1957–62, Vol. 2: Institutions royales (1958).
FRANC-ARCHERS
. On April 28, 1448, Charles VII issued an ordonnance requiring every parish to mobilize
at local expense an archer for a militia of franc-archers. Such men received 9 livres
tournois per year and a tax exemption for their participation and as much as 4 livres
tournois per month when on active duty. Theoretically organized into bands of 500
assembled under four generals, each commanding 4,000 men, the envisioned force of
16,000 infantry would serve for provincial defense and in emergencies as reinforcements
for the crown’s professional forces. Though never fully mobilized, these reserves played
a valuable role in the decisive campaigns of the Hundred Years’ War.
Though they had proven valuable in the era of national liberation, the franc-archers
gradually became havens for tax exemption. Units of ill-disciplined men little interested
in military service proved inadequate to the needs of a state permanently at war against
foreign and domestic enemies. After 1480, the crown relied on mercenaries and neglected
the reserves. Despite sporadic reforms, climaxing in the creation of the legions of Francis
I, they were rarely mobilized, and their revolutionary potential for universal military
service remained untapped for centuries.
Paul D.Solon
Bonnault d’Houet, Marc Louis Xavier, baron de. Les francsarchers de Compiègne, 1448–1514.
Compiegne: Lefebvre, 1897.
Contamine, Philippe. Guerre, état et société à la fin du moyen âge: études sur les armées des rois
de France. Paris: Mouton, 1972.
——. War in the Middle Ages, trans. Michael Jones. London: Blackwell, 1984.
Esquer, G. “Levée des francs-archers aurillacois au XVe siècle d’après les comptes consulaires
d’Aurillac (1451–1493).” Revue de la Haute-Auvergne 6(1904):297–311.
FRANCHE-COMTÉ
. Although the kingdom of trans-Saône Burgundy was absorbed into the Holy Roman
Empire upon the death of Rudolph III in 1032, the region continued to have a fairly
independent existence until the middle of the 12th century, especially the most western
part, which centered on Dôle, Besançon, Vesoul, and Salins. This region became known
as the Franche-Comté of Burgundy in the late Middle Ages. The county of Burgundy, as
it was called in the 11th and 12th centuries, was ruled for over a century by the
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