however, the term continued to refer to those who possessed a seigneurie, or lordship,
generally but by no means always rural in character. Those who possessed a seigneurie
might be the lord of different kinds of people: (1) those who were their tenants; (2) those
who were subject to their jurisdiction or ban; and (3) those who owed them homage for a
fief. To the first group, the seigneur was landlord; to the second, he was judge and
political ruler; to the third, he was the superior in a feudal relationship but often the social
equal. The feminine form, “lady” (Lat. domina), often referred to the wife or widow of a
lord but could also refer to a woman who exercised lordship over one or more of these
groups in her own right, usually as a result of inheritance. A corporate body, such as a
monastery or cathedral chapter, could also be a seigneur.
Although the term seigneurie could mean “lordship” in an abstract sense, most
commonly it referred to the persons and territory subject to one or both of the first two
types of lordship indicated above. In the first, and much older of these, the seigneur was
the proprietor of an agricultural operation, deriving his income, in cash or kind, from the
rents paid by his peasant farmers, who also often had to perform obligatory labor services
(corvées) on the lord’s own farmland, the produce of which was an important part of his
revenue. The seigneurie in this sense had ancient roots, and with it went a certain amount
of petty jurisdiction that came to be called “low justice.” This kind of seigneurie was
able, for a time, to support the lord as a mounted warrior, but in the 12th century its
economic value began to decline relative to the revenues obtainable from the second type
of lordship, sometimes called the seigneurie banale.
The seigneur banal was the political and judicial ruler of those who were his
dependents. With respect to some of these, he might also exercise the traditional role of
land-lord, but he might wield banal powers also over people who were the tenants of a
lesser landlord. The seigneur of this type possessed “high justice,” a far more lucrative
jurisdiction that covered most serious felonies. He could demand exactions that came to
be associated with serfdom. He could require his subjects to use his mill, winepress, or
oven and pay him a fee. He might hold extensive rights over the forests and waterways,
from which he could exact fees or tolls. Lordships of this sort provided the basic financial
support for the higher nobility of France. When they encountered economic difficulties in
the 14th century, the nobility suffered a serious crisis.
The seigneurie has sometimes been described as the exercise of formerly public
powers by private individuals, since the ban was the symbol of public authority. The
Frankish kings had adopted the practice of granting charters of “immunities” to
ecclesiastical lords, promising that royal officers would not enter their lands to exercise
their military or judicial functions. The holder of such a charter had the right and duty to
take over these functions in lieu of the royal officials. When they were incompatible with
clerical status, the church would have an important local layman act as vidame or
“advocate” and perform the functions associated with the ban.
In time, immunities were extended to important lay lords who could exercise the ban
on their own behalf. Finally, ca. 1000, the growing importance of the castle brought
further changes, as castellans used their positions to usurp banal powers from the counts
and impose their ban on lesser landlords and their tenants. By the 11th and 12th
centuries, the seigneurie was the principal unit of government and political power at the
local level, but in later centuries, as territorial princes and kings reasserted their own
public powers, it became primarily an economic unit again.
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1642