Head, Thomas, and Richard Landes, eds. Essays on the Peace of God: The Church and the People
in Eleventh Century France. Special edition of Historical Reflections/Réflections historiques
14(1987).
Huberti, Ludwig. Studien zur Rechtsgeschichte der Gottesfrieden und Landfrieden. Ansbach:
Brugel, 1892.
PEER/PEERAGE
. The term “peer” (Lat. par, OFr. per, pair) was applied in the 11th century in the region
between the Seine and the Meuse to all co-vassals in their capacity as suitors to the court
of their lord. In recognition of the vast and increasing difference in wealth between
greater and lesser vassals, the legal terminology of a growing number of courts began to
draw a distinction early in the 12th century between two classes of peers, and by 1150 the
title “peer” had come in some dominions to be restricted to a small number of greater
vassals, between six and twelve in number, most commonly twelve. By 1200, this usage
was normal in northeastern France, and the status of peer had been converted into a
dignity permanently and exclusively attached to the possession of one of the six to twelve
fiefs (always counties, viscounties, or castellanies within a principality, and knight’s fees
within a castellany) that had been recognized as parial fiefs or “parities” (Lat. paritas,
parria, perreria, Fr. pairie). The parities of principalities were normally either selected
from or “identical” with the fiefs that in the same period came to be regarded as “bar-
onies” of the principality. The principal privilege of parial status was the right to be tried
in all cases touching either the person or parity of the peer in a court in which at least
some members of the relevant corps of peers or “peerage” were present.
The peerage of France as a whole seems to have been created on the model of the
peerages of the principalities in or shortly before 1202. Its early history is obscure, but
there is reason to think that Philip II Augustus, probably invoking the legend of the
“twelve peers” attributed to the court of Charlemagne, called the historical peerage into
being—possibly to deal with the judgment of his most dangerous vassal, John, king of
England, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine—and that he deliberately selected the twelve
original parities from among the baronies of the realm. These included six lay (the
duchies of Burgundy, Normandy, and Aquitaine or Guyenne, and the counties of
Toulouse, Flanders, and Champagne) and six clerical (those held by the archbishop of
Reims and the bishops of Laon and Langres, Beauvais, Châlons, and Noyon). Of these
twelve, however, two, the duchies of Normandy and Aquitaine, were almost immediately
declared confiscate, and although the latter was legally restored in 1259 it was again
declared forfeit in 1294; Toulouse was definitively annexed to the royal domain in 1274
and Champagne in 1285. For most of the century, the effective number of peers was thus
no higher than ten, and in 1294 it was reduced to eight—six clerical and two lay.
It was in these circumstances that Philip IV in Sep-tember 1297 inaugurated the
practice of conferring peerships by creating or “erecting” three new parities: Anjou,
Artois, and Brittany. Philip’s successors continued to erect new lay parities, down to
1424 exclusively for members of the royal house, and after 1305 the number of lay peers
The Encyclopedia 1345