Before his departure in June 1190, Philip issued for France a docu-
ment which was partly the last will and testament of a king who might
die in the Holy Land, partly a general ordinance of immense signifi-
cance. It was the duty of kings (officium regium) to provide for the
needs of their subjects, it declared. The first of the instructions for the
conduct of the realm’s affairs in the king’s absence was that in every
prévôtéthe royal bailiffs should appoint four lawful and prudent men
to aid the king’s provost in the management of the royal domain, except
that in Paris there should be six. The bailiffs themselves must set aside
a day a month as an assize day, when they should give justice without
delay to complainants and the king also should have his rights enforced.
Except in cases of homicide, rape, and treachery the bailiffs and
provosts were not to keep in custody anyone who gave pledges that they
would answer pleas against them in a royal court. Three times in the
year the queen mother and the archbishop of Rheims, the king’s uncle,
should sit as a final court of appeal in Paris and hear clamoresfrom the
whole kingdom. The regents should also oversee vacancies in bishoprics
and royal abbacies, and if Philip should die on crusade, divide the royal
treasure, using half of it to pay the king’s debts and repair churches
destroyed in his wars and leaving the other half in the custody of the
Paris merchants until his son was of an age to rule; if his son died too
the royal goods should be collected together in the house of the bishop
of Paris and dispensed for the benefit of the souls of king and prince.^21
The importance of the ordinance rested above all in its articulation of
local and central administration. The revenues of the king were to be
brought, also three times a year, to the Temple treasury in Paris, where
Adam the clerk would record their receipt and payments from them
would be made only on the king’s written authority. But the judicial
procedures laid down were more fundamental than the fiscal machinery.
‘The bailiffs who hear assizes in the towns of the kingdom’ must attend
the thrice-yearly courts of the queen-mother and archbishop to have the
business of the kingdom recited to them and to report on the short-
comings of the prévôts. During the king’s absence neither prévôtsnor
bailiffs might be removed, except for homicide, rape, or treason, but the
bailiffs’ acceptance of rewards and services from the parties to litigation,
which deprived both king and subjects of their rights, must be reported
to Philip, so that under God’s guidance he could devise suitable punish-
ment. The ordinance’s key requirement follows the judicial clauses: the
114 Judicial Systems of France and England
National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1982), 20–1, 411–24; J. W. Baldwin, The Government
of Philip Augustus: Foundations of French Royal Power in the Middle Ages(Berkeley:
California UP, 1986), 52–4, 77–80; Recueil des Actes de Philippe Auguste, i, nos. 287, 289.
(^21) Recueil des Actes de Philippe Auguste, i, no. 345; Baldwin, Government of Philip
Augustus, 101–2, 406.