liberty and defence’, not only of his realm of France but also of
ecclesiastical persons, ‘li generaux estats de l’Eglise’ and the ‘barons and
other nobles and inhabitants of the said realm’. In the statuta utilia et
salubriahe made in 1302 for the reformation of the ‘government and
good state’ of his kingdom, which was ‘bowed down in the past by the
adversities of the times and wars and many other contrary events’, and
‘also for the peace and tranquillity’ of his subjects, Philip placed first
a confirmation of all the privileges and liberties of churches and
‘ecclesiastical persons’ and injunctions to his servants to observe them,
but clearly in the context of a newly vigilant supervision of those
liberties. The fiscal demands of the war between France and England
completed the definition of the clerical estate alongside the estates of the
lay aristocracy and the burgesses.^238
The law of injuries and the public peace
The final way in which kings legislated for the state of their realms was
to curb the injuries of their subjects to each other. According to
Beaumanoir the traditional rules of the feud allowed particular
members of warring kindreds to disown a settlement arranged by their
friends, but if they failed to do so publicly and still carried on the feud,
they could be arraigned for treachery and breach of the peace (pes
brisiée) and hanged.^239 Saint Louis’s successors continued his attempt to
impose this sort of peace at home, in order to leave them unimpeded in
their wars abroad. In 1303 Philip IV issued a ‘general statute’ to all his
subjects in every part of his realm, ‘of whatever estate or condition’,
forbidding wars, battles, killings, the burning of townships and homes,
attacks on farmers or ploughmen, and—at least ‘during our wars’—all
duels; local customs allowing feuding were declared null and void, since
they were contrary to ‘good morals and the profit, good state and
healthy governance of the people’. Eleven years later King Philip needed
again to order the cessation of wars within the realm guerra nostra
durante, when the count and people of Flanders broke the peace-treaty
(forma pacis) made with them and waged ‘open war’. In the middle of
the fourteenth century King John of France denounced the nobles and
others who ignored the frequent ordinances he had made against private
war pour cause de noz guerres, and were now making ‘defiances and
wars’ with each other ‘under the shade of the peace published in our
240 Legal Ordering of ‘the State of the Realm’
(^238) Documents relatifs aux États Généraux et Assemblées réunis sous Philippe le Bel, ed.
Picot, 1, 5, 8, 14, 15, 26; J. H. Denton, ‘Philip the Fair and the Ecclesiastical Assemblies of
1294–5’, TAmPhilSoc, 81, part 1 (Philadelphia, 1991), 35, 38; Ordonnances des Roys de
France, i. 354–68, and cf. ii. 84–5, 557, 563–6, iii. 21, 173.
(^239) Coutumes de Beauvaisis, ii. 359–65 (§1677–89).