land. Those with privileges might be corporate bodies (towns, universities, monasteries),
members of some occupational or social group, such as students, moneyers, nobles, or
royal officials, or even individuals. Individuals generally claimed privileges by virtue of
being members of some privileged group or corporate body.
It was not always clear what privileges of a corporate body extended to its members,
nor was it clear how privileges applied in situations not foreseen when granted or not
provided for in customary law. Regional differences in customary law created further
complications. Since France did not have a common customary law, lawyers and judges
trained in Roman and canon law often invoked principles from these legal systems to
describe what and when privileges might be overriden and what procedures were required
to override them. Not surprisingly, privileges and liberties gave rise to much litigation.
When privileges or liberties afforded protection against arbitrary power, they might
place one under a jurisdiction other than that of royal officials or authorize one to
exercise jurisdiction that normally belonged to the king. Conversely, they might entitle
one to come under royal jurisdiction instead of that of a town or seigneur. Those placed
under royal protection could escape the jurisdiction of others, but this type of protection
did not spare one from arbitrary treatment by the crown. Foreign merchants enjoyed this
ambiguous royal “protection” and were prepared to invoke it in court, but they were
vulnerable to exactions from their royal protector that could be ruinous.
Many privileges or liberties had fiscal implications. Members of some corporate body
or occupational group would gain exemption from royal or seigneurial exactions by
paying a lump sum or a nominal annual fee. By the end of the 13th century, however,
expensive wars led the monarchy to introduce taxation based on the principle, from
Roman law, that the common utility and “evident necessity” justified overriding fiscal
privileges. Rarely did courts uphold objections by taxpayers claiming privileges, but the
crown usually needed money quickly and often preferred to “settle out of court,” getting
an immediate payment in return for “letters of nonprejudice” specifying that the payment
did not constitute a precedent that could damage alleged privileges. This policy made
future litigation a virtual certainty. So also did another royal policy, that of negotiating
lump-sum payments from a region or a town, which then had to levy taxes of its own in
order to raise the money. People with exemptions from local taxes usually resisted paying
those that contributed to royal ones until a court required them to do so.
Such litigation is our best source as to what groups claimed privileges. In 1353, for
example, a court required clergy, nobles, moneyers, sergeants, notaries, and other officers
of the crown to contribute to a tax they had resisted. Communities like communes,
bastides, and villeneuves had charters dating from the 11th or 12th century exempting
them from royal exactions. When the 14th century produced new taxes under new
conditions, these privileges ran counter to the doctrine of “evident necessity.” Numerous
court decisions attempted to resolve the issue, but the matter remained contentious until
the French Revolution.
The church desired primarily to establish its right to give consent each time a tax ran
counter to its privileges. If proper procedures were followed, the clergy generally were
prepared to pay. The right to consent, however, did not in this period imply a right to
withhold consent, and most royal subjects resisted taxes on the grounds of precedent or
insufficient necessity.
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1434