Empowering Lordship in the Registers of Homage to Charles VI (Languedoc, 1389–1390)

Graham-Goering, Erika

Abstract

This article surveys the extensive registers of homages and dénombrements from the voyage of King Charles VI to Languedoc in 1389–90 as evidence of the reinforcement of seigneurial power through interaction with the royal government. These records established a consensus view of aristocratic power in the seneschalsies of Toulouse and Carcassonne but differentiated those who owed homage or fealty to the king. This distinction revealed a consistent gap within the stratification of social status and judicial rights of the men and women in these groups, even as references to lordship across this corpus remained stable. Lordship and nobility were thus malleable but separate concepts, and lordship cut across the divide between the categories of high and low justice often prioritized by normative models of power. The negotiations surrounding seigneurial authority suggest a decentralized and dynamic alternative to top-down models of the political development of the late medieval French kingdom.

Citation

Graham-Goering, E. (2022). Empowering Lordship in the Registers of Homage to Charles VI (Languedoc, 1389–1390). French Historical Studies, 45(3), 381-413. https://doi.org/10.1215/00161071-9746573

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: Aug 1, 2022
• Publication Date: 2022-08
• Deposit Date: May 2, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: May 2, 2023
• Journal: French Historical Studies
• Print ISSN: 0016-1071
• Electronic ISSN: 1527-5493
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 45
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 381-413
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/00161071-9746573