complaints (querelae) of churches against the turbulent barons of the
royal demesne—and then to correct injuries committed far beyond the
Île de France, demonstrating that ‘kings have long arms’.^2 Louis’s acta
show even better than the expeditions which Suger chronicled that what
Louis promoted was a newly vigorous royal peace. As must usually have
been true of the writs of English kings, his orders were issued in
response to petitions from a great variety of supplicants, clerical and
lay, who came into the king’s presence with their complaints. There was
the same development in France as in England towards more succinct
charters and peremptory mandates to enforce the king’s awards. Under
Louis VI and his successor Louis VII (1137–80) the invocation of God’s
anger on the infringers of a charter or judgment is more often supple-
mented by the naming of guarantors (obsides: ‘hostages’) of the grant,
perhaps including the king himself;^3 or by threats of royal indignation
or separation from the king’s love (recalling ‘on pain of losing my
friendship’ in Anglo-Saxon royal charters), for frustrating the grant and
violating royal majesty. A brief mandate ending with a curt valetemight
notify the king’s provosts and ministers of a grant to a church of
freedom for its men from tolls within the king’s lands, a grant which
they were to enforce with vigour.^4 But usually the notification is to
everyone in the present and the future (tam presentibus quam futuris),
and a grant is recorded as enacted publicly in the royal palace before
magnates and sealed with the royal seal, so that it might be preserved
from oblivion.^5 These procedures may be described as ‘protection for
the lasting stability’ of the grant (perpetue stabilitatis... munimentum),
but also for ‘the health of our soul’ and ‘the stability of our kingdom’.
There may be talk of depositing the deed in ‘public archives’.^6
An element of dispute-settlement is obvious in many twelfth-century
royal acts: a grant was often made to protect a church when its immu-
nities were challenged, and was intended ‘by royal power to reform it to
the state and wholeness of its ancient liberty’.^7 In a charter of 1112
Louis VI declared that the governing of a kingdom (regni guber-
naculum) required vengeance by the sword on those who acted in
110 Judicial Systems of France and England
(^2) Suger, Vita Ludovici Grossi Regis, ed. H. Waquet (Paris, 1964), 26, 70, 78–90, 135, 180.
(^3) Recueil des Actes de Louis VI, Roi de France (1108–1137), 3 vols., ed. R.-H. Bautier and
J. Dufour (Paris, 1992–3), vol. iii (introduction), pp. 65–73, 83–98, 133–4, 141–53, 184–6; A.
Luchaire, Études sur les Actes de Louis VII(Paris, 1885), 3–15.
(^4) Recueil des Actes de Louis VI, i, nos. 126, 130, 181, 182, ii, nos. 293, 299, 300, 307, 366,
402, 403, 416; Luchaire, Études sur les Actes de Louis VII, 354 (no. 33), 355–6 (no. 36),
356–7 (nos. 39, 40), 370 (nos. 126, 130), 380–1 (nos. 181–2), 394 (no. 307), 396–7 (nos. 320,
325), 414 (no. 420), 448 (no. 652), 462–3 (no. 766).
(^5) Recueil des Actes de Louis VI, i, nos. 130, 181, 182 etc.; Luchaire, Études sur les Actes
de Louis VII,354, 355–6, 370 (no. 26), 380–1, 394, 397, 414, 448, 462–3 etc.
(^6) Recueil des Actes de Louis VI,i, 126, 181–2, 189, 192, 219, 223etc.;Luchaire, Études
sur les Actes de Louis VII, 355–7, 370 (no. 130), 380–1, 448 etc.
(^7) Recueil des Actes de Louis VI, i, nos. 40, 46, 67, 70, 74, ii, 348, 378, 402.