especially sensitive, or in the national interest’, and to take the initiative
in changing the law.^90
The first printed collections of ordonnanceswere issued in Louis XII’s
reign, and there was an acceleration in the issuing of grandes ordon-
nanceswhich changed the law on account of ‘the variety and change-
ableness of the times’. The great ordinance of March 1499 on ‘the jus-
tice and police of the realm’ claimed that France was at all times ‘better
ruled and governed than any other monarchy in justice’, which was the
first of the cardinal virtues and ‘the principal and most necessary part of
well-conducted monarchies, realms and principalities’. The king’s
predecessors (the ordonnancewent on) had acquired the name of ‘most
christian princes’ (princes très-chrestiens) by their willingness to spend
more money than all other rulers on employing ‘in all the quarters and
provinces of this realm a great number of officers of justice’, and Louis
had now assembled at Blois some prelates, the presidents and council-
lors of his courts of parlementof Paris, Toulouse, and Bordeaux, some
baillis, the chancellor, other ministers, and the members of his grand
conseilto establish ordinances to ensure that his subjects continued to
be ruled by deue justice et police.^91
The jurisdiction of parlements and baillis extended to so many
aspects of the French polity, including commercial privileges, municipal
finances and the liberties of the church, that the ordonnanceneeded 162
clauses. The freedoms of the Gallican church from papal rule under the
pragmatic sanction of 1438 were to be enforced, universities were
instructed to give degrees only to the meritorious, and royal justices to
confirm in benefices only those who properly registered their degrees
(cc. 1–12). The procedures to be followed by commissioners to take
evidence from witnesses in civil cases were regulated (cc. 13–21), as
were those for the enforcement of mercantile debts (cc. 142 onward),
and merchants were also permitted to make common purses (i.e. set up
funds) to protect merchandise carried on navigable rivers, where lords
and gentleman were every day imposing new tolls (c. 81). Criminal pro-
cedures were tightened up (cc. 62 and following). Second offenders and
vagabonds were to be dealt with summarily (c. 90), and registers of
prisoners to be kept (c. 103). The application of judicial torture was to
be recorded scrupulously—the clerk of the court must attend to note the
names of the sergeants and others present, the form of the question put
to the prisoner, how much water he was allowed and how many times
he underwent the torture, and his response, perseverance, resolution, or
290 Monarchical State of the Later Middle Ages
(^90) Ordonnances des Roys de France,xx. 577–86, xxi. 4, 21, 56; Lot and Fawtier, Institu-
tions royales, 78–9.
(^91) Ordonnances des Roys de France, xxi. 177–207; Lot and Fawtier, Institutions royales,
352–4; New Cambridge Medieval History, vii. 415–16.