business with parlements.^57 Baillisand sénéchauxwere the founders of
the French legal system, because the bailliageswere not royal estates but
units of the kingdom made up of both royal and private castleries, and
the office of bailliwas a permanent reminder of the king’s hand over
everyone, ‘chastelain, vavasor, citaen, vilain’.^58
For Beaumanoir the king’s court is simply the last resort for vassals
who fail to obtain justice from their own lords and successive overlords,
proceeding there ‘from degree to degree’, since ‘all lay jurisdiction in the
realm is held from the king as a fief or rear-fief’.^59 But the records show
how much the king’s feudal jurisdiction was reinforced by the parle-
ment’s supervision of the activities of baillisand enquêteurs. Parlement
was the court for appeals from their decisions, and petitions against
officials and others which it received directly it might refer to the baillis
and sénéchauxfor inquiry. According to the Queen’s confessor, Saint
Louis was accustomed, for the sake of peace, to increase the sentences
imposed by the baillisin criminal matters, and in 1281 the king’s
council ordered those deputed to inquire into the misdeeds of reeves,
serjeants, foresters, and such-like to leave punishment to the king’s
court.^60 On the other hand, an ordinance of 1276 attempted to keep the
interrogation of witnesses before the baillisand prévôts, and away from
parlement, ‘as has been the custom hitherto’.^61 The first comprehensive
set of établissementsfor the conduct of the court, issued at the Candle-
mas parlementof 1278, began with an order that to expedite its pro-
ceedings no cases should be heard there which might or should be taken
before the baillis, and (c. 26) specifically allotted to them the deter-
mination of the frequent complaints of novel disseisin.^62
The records of parlement show its gradual evolution from the
administrative expedients of the king and his council into an organized
law court with sovereign jurisdiction. Jean de Montlucon, the clerk
responsible for making the ‘official’ roll of each session’s judgments,
began to compile the first registers of the court’s proceedings (‘Olim’)
retrospectively in 1263, perhaps intending them to be (like the English
Year Books, which commence a little later) tools for advocates and
councillors working in parlementand needing instruction in its practice.
Jean separated the cases into sections of Inqueste, where the issues were
decided by enquêtes, and of Arrestaciones, where matters were
The bill revolution and parlement 165(^57) Philippe de Beaumanoir, Coutumes de Beauvaisis, ed. A. Salmon, i (Paris, 1899),
pp. vii–xi.
(^58) B. Guenée, Tribunaux et gens de justice dans le bailliage de Senlis (1380–1450)(Paris,
1963), 66–8.
(^59) Beaumanoir, Coutumes de Beauvaisis, i. 37 (§44), 41–2 (§54), 158 (§322).
(^60) Recueil des historiens, 20, p. 118.
(^61) Les Olim, ou Registres des arrêts rendu par la Cour du Roi, ed. Comte Beugnot, ii (Paris,
1842), 74 (ix), and cf. 188–9 (l); Langlois, Textes, 94 (lxx); id., ‘Les Origines’, 88–91.
(^62) Langlois, Textes, 95–9 (lxxii).