see that restitution was made to the men of Calais, whose ships were
being held to ransom at Sandwich, Dover, and elsewhere, as he would
wish to see justice done to Englishmen in a similar situation in France.^67
STABLIMENTAThe king’s role in the machinery of justice was to use his political
authority to give a grant or judgment ‘the strength of perpetual stability’
(perpetue stabilitatis robur), a formula found in charters throughout the
Frankish world.^68 When important political figures or a whole class of
tenants were involved, such promulgation of decisions about feudal
rights amounted to legislation. Since both parties held of King Philip’s
fee, King Richard Coeur de Lion’s agreement with the archbishop of
Tours in 1190 concerning the exercise of justice in Touraine received
the formal approval of the French king, who ‘rejoiced in peace and
wished to preserve their rights whole and unimpaired’.^69 The name
sometimes given to such an affirmation of rights was stabilimentum
(établissement, statute). It was the term applied in Philip’s register to the
declaration of the barons of Normandy of the rights they had seen King
Henry (II) and King Richard exercise with respect to the clergy, which
was made on oath at Rouen in 1205 and recorded in a document with
twenty-two seals.^70 Another inquest taken towards the end of Philip’s
reign by three of the most experienced royal baillisagain shows feudal
tenure being regarded as a set of legal rights to be declared by the
barons, but very much at the direction of the king and his judges. The
baillisreported to Philip that they had gone to Montdidier as he ordered
and had required of the king’s men and knights of the castellany, ‘by the
fees and loyalties binding them to you’, that they would pronounce a
judgment on Jean de Preaux’s obligation to give his uncles a share of his
inheritance. The knights had replied that they would not give a judg-
ment but only say what the practice (usus) was in such situations
when the count of Flanders was overlord there; and since they would
not declare this as a judgment, the baillishad seized the recalcitrant
knights’ goods and now awaited the king’s orders.^71 In 1224, Louis VIII
instructed two fidelesto compel men named by the abbot of Saint-
Victor as his vassals to do homage to him for their fees, as they ought
to do according to the stabilimentum feodorummade by the king’s
Stabilimenta 123(^67) Recueil des Actes de Philippe Auguste, iv, no. 1674.
(^68) Ibid.i, no. 357, iii. 1678 etc.
(^69) Ibid.i. 357.
(^70) Les Registres de Philippe Auguste, 56 (no. 14).
(^71) Ibid.118–19 (no. 72).