Gui XIV (d. 1486), during whose long reign Charles VII erected Laval into a county. A
younger son, André, lord of Lohéac, became admiral of France in 1437 and in 1439
succeeded his third cousin Gilles de Rais as marshal.
John Bell Henneman, Jr.
[See also: BRITTANY (genealogical table)]
Bertrand de Broussillon, Arthur. La maison de Laval, 1020–1605: étude historique accompagnée
du cartulaire de Laval et de Vitré. 3 vols. Paris: Picard, 1895–1900.
LAVILLETERTE
. The little church at Lavilleterte (Oise) is an almost perfectly preserved country church
of the mid-12th century. The nave is flanked by single aisles; all are covered by rib
vaults, as are the projecting transept and the simple, flat chevet. The sturdiness of the
construction perhaps accounts for the remarkable homogeneity of the structure.
William W.Clark
Prache, Anne. Île-de-France romane. La Pierre-qui-vire: Zodiaque, 1983, pp. 249–52.
Régnier, Louis. “L’église de la Villeterte (Oise).” Congrès archéologique(Beauvais) 72
(1905):489–522.
LAW AND JUSTICE
. To speak of French law is to speak first of the end of the Carolingian state in the late
10th century and the rise of the Capetian kings of France, laboriously establishing their
authority in the area around Paris and slowly extending their domain throughout the 11th
and 12th centuries. During this period, the customs of feudalism, a legacy of the
Carolingians, governed the king’s relations with the lay nobility of his domain and with
the great ecclesiastical lords—the bishops, abbots, and priors—who were part of the
feudal system. The bailiffs of the lay and ecclesiastical lords administered the law that
regulated the lives and activities of the agricultural population, law that was embedded in
the body of manorial customs that had also come from the distant Carolingian past.
During this period, the reviving economic activity of western Europe produced towns that
in France would create a new area of law.
It is difficult, therefore, to speak of French law before the 13th century, and by then
three other legal systems had become prominent in France and would contribute in
various ways to the development of French law. The first of these was the revival of
Roman law in Italy in the late 11th and 12th centuries. By the middle of the 12th, this
revival, based on renewed interest and study of Justinian’s Corpus iuris civilis of the 6th
century, had spread into southern France. It did not become the sole legal system of
southern France but provided important concepts and systematic structure as the
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