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THE COURT BOOK OF MENDE AND THE SECULAR LORDSHIP
OF THE BISHOP: REICOLLECTING THE PAST OF THE
THIRTEENTH—CENTURY GEVAUDAN

presented by

Jan K. Bulman

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6/01 c-JCIRC/DateDuo.p65-p.15

THE COURT BOOK OF MENDE AND THE SECULAR LORDSHIP OF THE
BISHOP: RE/COLLECTING THE'PAST OF THE THIRTEENTH-CENTURY
GEVAUDAN

By

Jan K. Bulman

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of History

2003

ABSTRACT
THE COURT BOOK OF MENDE AND THE SECULAR LORDSHIP OF THE

BISHOP: RE/COLLECTING THE'PAST OF THE THIRTEENTH-CENTURY
GEVAUDAN

By

Jan K. Bulman

In 1268, the Chancery of the bishop of Mende began to record the cases litigated
before the episcopal court in a court book. This study argues that the bishop conceived of
this register, which was part of a larger episcopal archive that, for the most part, is lost, as
evidence of episcopal secular lordship in the bishop’s lawsuit against the French crown,
which sought to end interference by royal agents with the bishop’s right to exercise
secular lordship in his diocese. The court book of Mende is probably the earliest extant
example of this type of record from an ecclesiastical court. Following an analysis of the
origins of episcopal lordship in Mende beginning in the middle of the twelfth century, the
court book is examined to uncover information about the operation, the personnel, and
the types of cases of the episcopal court. One consequence of the creation of the court
book was to stabilize and ﬁx historical memory of the diocese. The organizational
system of the court book reveals a bureaucratic concern for the future need to retrieve
information about particular cases. Writing some thirty-ﬁve years after its inception,
Guillaume Durand the Younger was able to research cases in the court book and other
records of the episcopal archive when composing a massive legal brief in defense of
episcopal secular lordship. In 1307, the lawsuit was resolved in the context of the French

crown’s determined efforts to assert royal supremacy over ecclesiastical authority.

Cepyright by
JAN K. BULMAN
2000

For my father and
in memory of my mother

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks must go to my dissertation committee, Professors Julia Holderness,
Christopher Celenza, Emily Tabuteau, and the director Charles Radding, who patiently
read drafts at every stage and improved this project immensely. To Charles Radding, I
owe a singular debt; his contribution to my professional development, by scholarly
example and generous mentorship, has been immeasurable. The Graduate School at
Michigan State University provided that most sought-after graduate school commodity,
security, by awarding to me the Dean’s Recruitment Fellowship in 1995 and helped with
funding to support research trips to France. Research for this study was undertaken at the
Archives departemental de la Lozere, where that staff was most kind and helpful; to all
there I owe a great debt, but in particular I would like to thank Helene Duthu, Benoit-J
Pedretti, Isabelle Darnas, and Cecile Vanlierde. Without my daughter, Christina
Calderwood, the years devoted to the completion of this project would have been ﬁlled
with much less happiness. Throughout my graduate studies, the memory of my mother’s
indefatigable optimism was with me every day. Finally, I extend a heartfelt embrace to

my father, who spurred me on with unfaltering love and support.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LIST OF TABLES ..... - - VIII
ABBREVIATIONS - - - - - ............................... IX
INTRODUCTION“ -- ..................... ........................... - ............. 1
Plan of the Dissertation ............................................................................................. 10
CHAPTER 1 .......... _ - 11
THE COUNTY OF THE GEVAUDAN TO ABOUT 1200 11
The Landscape .......................................................................................................... 11
Early History to about 1000 ...................................................................................... 20
The County of the Gévaudan .................................................................................... 23
Aldebert III (1151 - 1187) and the Golden Bull ....................................................... 32
CHAPTER 2 - - _ ............ 48
THE SECULAR LORDSHIP OF THE BISHOPS OF MENDE 48
Guillaume de Peyre (1187 — 1222) ........................................................................... 53
Etienne de Brioude (1222 — 1247) ............................................................................ 62
Odilon de Mercoeur (1247 - 1274) ........................................................................... 72
CHAPTER 3 - _ - -- 83
THE COURT BOOK AND THE BISHOP’S COURT 83
The Court Book ......................................................................................................... 84
Types of Cases .......................................................................................................... 96
Legal Expertise in the Bishop’s Court .................................................................... 101
Examples: Cases of Assault, Theft, and Rights of Lordship ................................. 110
CHAPTER 4 - - - - 126
THE COURT BOOK, HISTORICAL MEMORY, AND THE PAREAGE ........... 126
Challenges to the French Episcopate ...................................................................... 127
Guillaume Durand the Elder (1285 - 1296) ............................................................ 129
Guillaume Durand the Younger (1296 - 1330) ....................................................... 135
The Mémoire Relatif au Paréage ............................................................................ 142
The Mémoire and the Court Book .......................................................................... 148
Historical Memory .................................................................................................. 156
Resolution of the Suit .............................................................................................. 161
CONCLUSION .............. - ............ - - ............ 167

 

vi

BIBLIOGRAPHY A ..... A A A __ A A A A - 175

 

vii

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE 1. TOTAL CASES BY TYPE ............................................................................ 98
TABLE 2. PERCENTAGE OF CASES BY TYPE, BY JUDGE .................................. 103
TABLE 3. ANALYSIS OF JUDGE’S APPEARANCE IN COURT BY DATE ......... 107

viii

AASS

ADL
AN
BEC

BSL

Chronicon

Documents historiques

Etudes historiques

GC

HGL

LTC

LPB

Mémoire

Miracles

ABBREVIATIONS

Acta sanctorum, 68 vols. Paris, Rome, and Brussels, 1863-
1870.

Archives departementales de la Lozere.
Archives nationales.
Bibliothe’que de l’Ecole des chartes.

Bulletin de la Socie’te’ d 'agriculture. Industrie, sciences et
arts du de’partement de la Lozére (1850-1954) and Bulletin
de la Société des letters, sciences et arts de la Lozére:
Revue du Ge’vaudan, (1955-).

“Chronicon breve de gestis Aldeberti.” In Les miracles de

Saint Privat suivis des opuscules d ’Aldebert III, e’véque de
Mende, ed. Clovis Brunel, 126-139. Paris, 1912.

Documents historiques sur le province de Ge’vaudan, ed.
Gustave de Burdin, 2 vols. Toulouse, 1846-1847.

Charles Pore’e. Etudes historiques sur Ie Gévaudan. (Paris,
1919). I

Gallia Christiana, l6 vols., Paris, 1715-1865.

Claude Devic and Joseph Vaissete. Histoire générale de
Languedoc avec des notes et les pieces justiﬁcatives. Rev.

ed. A. Molinier et al., 16 vols. Toulouse, 1872-1905.

Layettes du trésor des chartes. ed. Alexandre Teulet, et al.,
5 vols. Paris, 1863-1909.

Lettres de Philippe-le-Bel relatives au pays de Ge’vaudan,
ed. Jean Roucaute and Marc Saché. Mende, 1896.

Mémoire relatifau pare’age de 1307 conclu entre l ’évéque
Guillaume Durand I] et le roi Philippe-le-Bel, ed. Abel
Maisonobe. 2 vols. Mende,1896.

“Miracles de Saint Privat. ” In Les miracles de Saint

Pri vat suivis des opuscules d ’A ldebert III, e’véque de
Mende, ed. Clovis Brunel, 3-26. Paris, 1912.

ix

Opuscules

RH

“Opuscules d’Aldebert IH, évéque de Mende.” In Les
miracles de Saint Pri vat suivis des opuscules d ’Aldebert
Ill, évéque de Mende, ed. Clovis Brunel, 30-123. Paris,
1912.

Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, eds.
Martin Bouquet, et al., 24 vols. Paris, 1738-1904.

INTRODUCTION

This study examines the complex interrelationships among the written records of
an ecclesiastical court, the defense of episcopal seignorial rights, and the preservation of
historical memory in southern France from the thirteenth to the early fourteenth centuries.
These connections arose within the context of the spread of Roman law and expanding
commercial activity that spurred the diffusion of literate legal culture from Italy.l
Diplomatic evidence for the infiltration of Roman law into southern France from the
northern Italian cities of Bologna, Pavia, and Pisa first appears before 1150 within a
triangular zone formed by the Rhone, the Aude, and the Mediterranean.2 In this region,
between 1121 (in Montpellier) and 1150 (in Avignon), Roman law practice and its
juridical language appear in charters, particularly in the donatio propter nuptias, and in
practices such as the presence of seven witnesses at the drafting of a testament.3

Moreover, the penetration of Roman law into this region is evidenced by the appearance

 

' Knowledge of some aspects of Roman law never entirely disappeared from northern Italy and
Occitania. For a survey of the resurrection and diffusion of Roman and canon law, stressing early twelfth-
century study of law in Bologna the see Stephan Kuttner, “The Revival of Jurisprudence,” in Renaissance
and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, ed. Robert Benson and Giles Constable (Cambridge, MA, 1982;
reprint Toronto, Buffalo, London, 1991), 299 - 323 (page citations are to the reprint edition) and Knut
Wolfgang Norr, “Institutional Foundations of the New Jurisprudence,” in Renaissance and Renewal in the
Twelfth Century, ed. Robert Benson and Giles Constable ( Cambridge, MA, 1982; reprint Toronto, Buffalo,
London, 1991), 324 — 338 (page citations are to the reprint edition). For an account of the renewed study of
Roman law, arguing for a leading role of the notaries and professional judges in school of Pavia, see
Charles M. Radding, The Origins of Medieval Jurisprudence: Pavia and Bologna, 850 - 1150 (New
Haven, 1988).

2 Andre Gouron, “Diffusion des consulats méridionaux et expansion du droit romain aux XIIe et
XIIIe siecles,” Bibliothéque de I ’Bcole des Chartes (hereafter BBC) 12] (1963): 26 — 76; reprint La science
du droit dans le Midi de la France au Moyen Age (London: Variorum Reprints, 1984), 57 (page citations
are to the reprint edition).

3 Ibid., 54. The Roman law practices were used in Gaul until the great invasions of the ﬁfth and
sixth centuries, after which they largely were forgotten.

of the ofﬁce of notary public.4 Around the mid-twelfth century an Occitan treatise on
Roman law, Lo Codi, describes the notary as a man of the community charged with
making charters: his instruments protected the transactions of prudent men by virtue of
the notary’s redaction.5 In the last quarter of the twelfth century, terms to describe
trained writers, such as tabellio, scriptor publicus, or notarius appear in the documents of
the region.6 The earliest surviving evidence for the presence of the notarial office in
southern France dates from August 1174, when the bishop of Béziers conceded the
tabellionate, or the power to make charters, to Bernard de Caussiniojouls.7 The earliest

extant notarial casebook is the 1248 book of Giraud Amalric of Marseilles.8

 

4 On the spread of notarial practices used in drafting contracts through southern France see the
works of Roger Aubanas, Etudes sur le notariat provencal au moyen-age er sous l ’Ancien Régime (Aix-en-
Provence, 1931); Robert Henri Bautier, “Les diverses origines et l’évolution de l’institution notariale
francaises en tant que depositaire de la puissance publique,”in Le gnomon: Revue intemationale d ’histoire
du notariat (Paris, 1986) 1-65; Louis Stouff, “Les registres des notaires d’Arles, (debut XIVe siécle —
1460). Quelques problemes poses par l’utilisation des archives notariales,” Provence historique 100
(1975): 305 — 324; Armin Wolf, “Das offentliche Notariat,” in Hanbuch der Quellen und Literatur der
neueren Europc'tischen Privatrechtsgeschichte: Mittelalter (1100 — 1500) ed. Helmut Coing (Munich,
1973), 500 - 514.

5 Andé Gouron, “Maitre Durand, pionnier du notariat savant,” in Mélanges oﬂerts a André
Colomer (Paris, 1993), 181-183. “D’aquelas prouanzas que om fai per carta e cals rezuns es de la carta:
Poiss que nos auem dig (d’aquellas prouanzas que om fai per garentias, ara digam) d‘aquellas prouanzas
que sunt faitas per estrument, zo es per cartas. Aquellas cartas deuunt esser receubudas em plaig per
prouanza que sunt faitas per persona communal, zo es per aquella persona que a mester de faire las cartas
per mandament de la poestat de la tetra: aquest omes appellaz ‘notaris.’” Lo Codi : eine Summa Codicis in
provenzalischer Sprache aus dem 12. Jahrhundert, ed. Felix Derrer (Ziirich, 1974), 42XXXIIII § 1 —2. On
the disputes surrounding the dating of Lo Codi manuscripts see Andé Gouron, “Du nouveau sur la Codi,”
Tijdschrrft voor Rechtsgeschiedenis, Revue d’histoire du droit. XLIII, 2, 271-277; reprint La science du
droit dans le Midi de la France au Moyen Age (London, 1984) 271-277.

6 C. Douais, Documents sur l’ancienne province de Languedoc, (Paris and Toulouse, 1906), 3: l-
49.

7 Ma'ité Lesné-Ferret, “The Notariate in Consular Towns,” in Urban and Rural Communities in
Medieval France: Provence and Languedoc, 1000 — 1500, ed. Kathryn Reyerson and John Drendel
(Leiden, Boston, Koln, 1998), 4-5.

8 John H. Pryor, Business Contracts of Medieval Provence: Selected Notulae from the Cartulary of
Giraud Amalric of Marseilles, 1248 (Toronto, 1981 ).

During the twelfth century, professional writers began to inﬁltrate secular and
ecclesiastical chanceries, where their activities led to substantial increases in document
production and archival organization. The role these men played in the organization of
secular writing ofﬁces has been well studied, but the process of the organization of
episcopal bureaucracies has only begun to be studied.9 One consequence of the orderly

preparation and organization of records was the creation of complicated relationships

 

9 The eleventh-century elaboration of the episcopal writing ofﬁce in northern France has been
discussed by Robert-Henri Bautier, “L’authentiﬁcation des actes privés dans la France médiévale. Notariat
public et juridiction gracieuse,” Notariado publico y documento privado, de los origines al siglo XIV.
Actas des VII Congreso internacional de diplomatica, Valencia, 1986 (Valencia, 1989), 11: 707-709 and
Ghislain Brunel, “Chartes et chancelleries épiscopales du Nord de la France au XIe siecle,” A propos des
actes d 'eveques. Hommage a Lucie F ossier, ed. Lucie Fossier and Michel Parisse (Nancy, 1991), 227 -
244.

For the early development of episcopal chanceries in England see Christopher R. Cheney, English
Bishops’ Chanceries 1100 — 1250 (Manchester, 1950) 100 — 1 10 and 147 — 149. For the bishopric of
Arras, Benoit-Michel Tock, Une chancellerie épiscopale au Xlle siécle: le cas d’Arras (Louvain-la-Neuve,
1991); for Geneva, Maurice de Tribolet, “L’Organisation de la chancellerie épiscopale et l’entourage de
l’évéque de Geneve au Xlle siecle,” Schweizerische Zeitschriftﬁir Gerschichte 18 (1968): 401-421; for
Metz, Peter Acht, Die Cancellaria in Metz, Eine Kanlei- und Schreibschule um die Wende des 12.
Jarhunderts. Diplomatische Beziehungen zum Mittel- und Niederrhein und zum franzo'sischem Westen
(Frankfort am Main, 1940); for Cologne, Richard Knipping, Beitra'ge zum Urkundenwesen der Kolner
Erzbischofe des 12 Jarhunderts (Bonn, 1899); for Osnabrtick, Walther Stephan, “Beitrage zum
Urkundenwesen desBistums Osnabriick vom XI.-XIII Jahrhundert” (Inaug. Diss., Marbourg, 1902); for
Mainz, Max Hein, “Die Kanzlei und das Urkundenwesen der Erzbischofe von Mainz im frtiheren
Mittelalter (1060-1249)” (Inaug.Diss., Berlin, 1909); for Passau, L. Gross, “Uber das Urkundenwesen der
Bischéfe von Passau im 12. und 13 Jarhunderts,” Mitteilungen des Institutsﬁir Osterreichische
Geschichtsforschung 8, 3 (191 1): 505-673; for Augsburg, V. Feist and K. Helleiner, “Das Urkundenwesen
der bischofe von Augsburg von Anfangen bis zur Mitte des 13 Jarhunderts (897- 1 248),” Archivalische
Zeitschrtft, 37 (1928): 38-88; for Warsaw, Hans Allamoda, “Beitriige zur Geschichte der ausseren
Merkmale der altesten Breslauer Bischofsurkunden bis zum Jahre 1319” vol. 1 (Phil. Diss., Breslau, 1934);
for Miinster, M.L. Frein von Fiirstenberg, “Beitréige zum Urkundenwesen der Bischofe von Miinster,”
Westfc'ilische Zeitschrift 90 (1934): 193-303; for Speyer, Peter Acht, “Studien zum Urkundenwesen der
Speyeren Bischofe im 12. und im Anfung des 13 Jarhunderts. Speyer in seinem Verhaltnis zur
Reichskanzlei,” Archivﬁ'ir Urkundenforschung 14 (1935-1936): 262-306. In Italy, the presence of a
professional notariale, from, at least, the eleventh century meant that Italian bishops commonly used towns’
notaries. Robert Brentano, Two Churches: England and Italy in the Thirteenth Century (Princeton, 1968),
292-95. The nearest Italian approximation of an English bishop’s register is from the diocese of Citta di
Castello where nine books of episcopal records are preserved dating from about the late twelfth century
through the end of the fourteenth century. Robert Brentano, “The Bishop’s Books of Citta di Castello,”
Traditio xvi (1960): 241 — 254. For an account of the role of notaries in preserving diocesan records in
Italy during this period, see Robert Brentano, A New World in a Small Place: Church and Religion in the
Diocese of Rieti, 1188 — 13 78 (Berkeley, 1994), l 16 — 37.

For classic studies of episcopal diplomatic, see Arthur Giry, Manuel de diplomatique (Paris, 1894)
and Harry Bresslau, Handbuch der Urkundenlehrefu'r Deutschland und ltalien. 2d ed. (Leipzig, 1912-
1931).

between documentation and the ways in which men and women remembered their past.
The records of the bishop’s archive fused cultural practices, politics, and historical
memory, and in the process created and recreated institutionalized social memory.
Ecclesiastical notaries and scribes created a body of records that were sites of storage,
from which knowledge about the past could be uncovered. Hence, the records from the
medieval ofﬁciality of the bishop reveal the intersection between the evolution of record-
keeping at the diocesan level and the maintenance of historical memory.

The focus of this study will be on the south-central French diocese of Mende,
which was located in the archdiocese of Bourges in the Middle Ages and was congruent
with the medieval county of the Gévaudan.’0 The surviving ecclesiastical court records
now preserved in the Archives departementales de la Lozere in Mende divide into two
categories. 1' The ﬁrst category consists of court books, registers of litigated cases, of
which there are three: one from 1268 - 1272 (186 fols, 12 quires), a second from 1340-
1345 (126 fols, 3 quires), the third a collection of cases from 1283 - 1448 (72 fols)
extracted from their original registers.12 The second category is made up of about 29

fonds of varying sizes and types pertaining to the business of the bishops’ court, such as

 

'0 The medieval diocese of Mende corresponds closely to the modern French department of the
Lozere. For a reliable, but brief, history of the diocese of Mende see J. —M. Besse, Abbayes et prieurés de
l’ancienne France: recueil historique des archevéchés, évéchés, abbayes et prieure’s de France, tome 4,
Provinces ecclésiastiques d’Alby, de Narbonne et de Toulouse (Ligugé and Paris, 191 1), 53-71.

It lnventaire-sommaire des Archives departementales ante’rieures a I 790, Lozere, serie G, ed.
Ferdinand Andre. 2 vols. (Mende, 1882 — 1890). Inventaire-sommaire des Archives departementales
antérieures a l 790, Lozere, serie G addition; serie H, ed. Ferdinand Andre, et a1. (Mende, 1904). Charles
Donahue, Jr., ed., The Records of the Medieval Ecclesiastical Courts, Part I: The Continent (Berlin, 1989),
80-83 lists the records from the ofﬁciality of the bishop of Mende.

'2 ADL o 963, ADL G 934 and ADL o 945, respectively.

jurisdictional disputes, clerical trials, and correspondence with the papal court.l3 About
one-third of the cases in the second category pertain to the defense of episcopal
seigniorial and spiritual jurisdictional rights against royal infringement.

In this body of records, the court book of the 1260s is of particular interest
because it is, perhaps, the earliest extant book recording chronological sequences of cases
litigated before any bishop’s court. Although earlier individual ecclesiastical court
documents survive, books or rolls containing more-or—less continuous — or even broken —
runs of episcopal court documents do not appear elsewhere until the late fourteenth
century.” Therefore, this court book, because it is the earliest surviving example of its
kind, suggests an advance in the art of government not replicated in other episcopal
courts of this period and it presents an opportunity to study the operation of an
ecclesiastical court about a century before most systematic diocesan court records
begin.15 Heretofore, this book has escaped scholarly attention; it has never been edited,

published, or investigated in a systematic way, although the former director of the

 

’3 The second category mainly is comprised of loose documents and quires. Of interest are two
formulary books, a letter from Pope Nicholas IV to bishop Guillaume Durand the Elder concerning
jurisdiction, a case, with depositions, of a assault during mass by a canon with the subsequent appeal to
Rome, and two copies of a fourteenth-century trial in which a priest is accused of using black magic against
the bishop of Mende (one quire, 24 fols.).

'4 Donahue, Medieval Ecclesiastical Courts, 27-28. There is one exception to this general
statement: From the neighboring diocese, Le Puy, two court books survive with a similar range of dates,
albeit slightly later. AD H-L G 260 (1270-1274) and AD H-L G (1274-1284). Therefore, the court book of
Mende is the earliest extant book of its kind, but the LePuy registers are roughly contemporary.

'5 For the relationship between of written records and literacy in England and the expanded role of
central government see the classic study by Michael T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record:
England 1066 — 1307, 2d ed. (Oxford, 1993).

Archives departementales de la Lozére, Charles Porée, transcribed two cases from the
book in 1919.'6

The beginning of the chronological run of causae in the. court book corresponds
closely with the initiation of a suit before the Parlement of Paris in 1269 by the bishop of
Mende in defense of his right to exercise seigniorial and spiritual jurisdiction in the
Gévaudan without interference from royal agents.l7 I shall argue that the timing of the
creation of the court book, just as the bishop appealed to the king for relief from
harassment by royal ofﬁcers, suggests that he regarded the written records from his court
as evidentiary support for his argument. As we shall see, evidence strongly suggest that
the records of the episcopal court were extensive, comprised of, perhaps two dozen or
more court books, although only one survives. In addition to providing written evidence
of episcopal lordship, however, the court book had the unintended consequence of
creating an archive, which preserved certain aspects of historical memory. As Michael
Clanchy has shown, one of the consequences of the elaboration and retention of written

records was to commit to writing that which previously had been preserved in memory.18

 

'6 Charles Porée, “Une pseudo-conspiration contre Odilon de Mercoeur (1268)” in Etudes
historiques sur le Gévaudan (hereafter Etudes historiques) (Paris, 1919), 267-280 and 507-508. Porée’s
transcription of the ﬁrst case contains several errors. owing to the experimental nature of book by which the
scribes attempted to gather all the processes from one case under a single rubric. The implications of the
court book’s format will be discussed at length below, but for now it is important to note that the effort to
organize the causae in this way met with limited success and numerous cross-references make the book
extremely difﬁcult to follow.

'7 The suit was resolved in 1307 by an agreement called the pare’age, ﬁxing the jurisdictional
rights of king and bishop in the diocese as equals (pares), rather than assigning power to one or another
party. The text of the pare’age is found in an early fourteenth-century copy (ADL G 743) and is printed in
Ordonnances des roys de la troisieme race, ed. Eusebe Jacob de Lauriere, et al (Paris, 1723-1849), II: 369-
403; Documents historiques sur la province de Gévaudan (hereafter Documents historiques). Gustave de
Burdin, (Toulouse, 1846-1847), 1: 359-76; Lettres de Philippe—le-Bel relatives au pays de Gévaudan
(hereafter LPB), ed. Jean Roucaute and Marc Saché, (Mende, 1896), appendix 1, 173-179.

'8 Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, 146-147; 152; 224; 295-297.

Archival records became a type of artiﬁcial memory that preserved memorable events
and transactions with a permanence that went beyond that of personal or collective recall.
Jacques Derrida describes the dual functions of archives.19 The ﬁrst function is
sequential: archives establish chronology, order, and beginnings and endings. The
second function is jussive: archives are sites where public authority lies. Control over
the information in archives, the gathering, unifying, and classifying of information into a
single corpus or system, rests with the social authority that also claims the right to
interpret its elements. In Derrida’s scheme, the organization of archives has the effect of
institutionalizing authority and law; the right to control the archives gives the prevailing
authority its force and rights of authority. In a literate society, control of the archives —
and historical memory — is the linchpin of political power.20

I shall argue that the court book of Mende and its subsequent effect on later
generations played an important role in the establishment of historical memory in the
Gévaudan. As we shall discover, in later generations the court book was referred to in
drafting a legal brief, which, in fact functioned as a sort of historical narrative. In this
study, I deﬁne historical memory as an awareness of the past and a desire to understand
past experience with reference to time, change, and continuity. The process of
establishing the past in the historical memory is wholly a function of the ideologies,

concerns, and ambitions of the present, by which societies erect a history.“ One

 

'9 Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, trans. Eric Prenowitz. (Chicago, 1998)
1- 6.

2"111111.,4.
2’ The process by which historians mediate the past through the lens of the present is a

commonplace in historiographical analysis. Historians select which “memories” of the past to endow with
meaning, expanding some and winnowing out others. For an interesting and relevant discussion of

generation transmits historical memory to subsequent generations by a variety of
methods, but most historians and social scientists recognize transmission by ﬁve media.
The ﬁrst is oral tradition, which conveys historical memories with varying degrees of
deliberate intention. The second is written records. Historians are aware that written
records usually are not devoid of bias; texts are shaped by the --sometimes—unconscious -
- desire to inﬂuence others. The third is images, which have been used since antiquity by
practioners of the “art of memory.”22 In this category also fall memorial representations
such as tombstones, statues, and medals. The fourth is instructive actions, which transmit
the memory through ritual, motion, and reenactment. The ﬁfth is spatial arrangement,
which conveys memory by speciﬁc placement 023f images to be remembered.” The
transmission of memory is a complex function and these ﬁve methods of memory
transmission operate conjointly, although often the transmitted ideas operate in divergent
or competing contexts. The transmission of memories validates shared ideologies, but
also can destabilize them, ceaselessly reinventing tradition and a sense of the past.

The court book is, in fact, a critical point of intersection between the shift “from
memory to written record” and the establishment of historical memory.25 Writing

preserved memory and ﬁxed potentially competing versions of the past.26 Those who

 

objectivity in history, see Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob, Telling the Truth about History
(New York, 1994), 241-270.

22 On the subject of the history of mnemonics, see Francis Amelia Yates, The Art of Memory,
Chicago, 1974.

23 Pierre Nora, “Between Memory and History,” Representations 26 (1989): 8.

24 Peter Burke, “History as Social Memory,” in Memory: History, Culture, and the Mind, ed.
Thomas Butler (Oxford, 1989), 100-102.

25 “From memory to written record” is, of course, from M. Clanchy.

26 Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, 99. 101, 107, 154, and 322.

recorded the past made decisions about what should be remembered and how it should be
remembered. In the words of Patrick Geary, the study of historical memory is, in one

sense, “a study of propaganda.”27

Those who recorded events preserved in the court book
selected episodes to inform their present and, by extension, the future. The strategies and
intentions of the writers contributed to the determination of how memories would be
preserved.28 A register of litigated cases is not a genre in which one might expect to see

the preservation of historical memory since the creation of a court book was not intended

to preserve memory in the way that, say, a monastic chronicle was.29 Although the court

 

27 Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance, 9.

28 The process of neglect, selection, and transformation at the time events are recorded, thereby
shaping memory, has been the subject of several recent works. For the eleventh century see Patrick Geary,
Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millennium (Princeton, 1996), 81
— 114 and for the connection between ritual and memory see David Warner, “Ritual and Memory in the
Ottonian Reich: The Ceremony of Adventus,” Speculum 76 (2001): 255 — 283.

29 Since the 19805, historians’ interest in memory during the Middle Ages has grown considerably.
See Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval C ulture, (Cambridge, 1990),
Patrick Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millenium,
(Princeton, 1994), Megan M. McLaughlin, Consorting with Saints: Prayer for the Dead in Early Medieval
F rance, (Ithaca, 1994), Karl F. Morrison, History as a Visual Art in the Twelfth-Century Renaissance,
(Princeton, 1990), Memory and the Medieval Tomb, ed. Elizabeth del Alamo and Carol Stamatis
Pendergast, (Brookﬁeld, VT, 2000). Legends in Limestone: Lazarus, Gislebertus, and the Cathedral of
Autun (Chicago, 1999).

For general works on social memory in history see James Fentress and Chris Wickham, Social
Memory, (Oxford, 1992); Marie-Noelle Bourguet, Lucette Valensi, and Nathan Wachtel, eds., Between
Memory and History, (New York, 1990); Peter Burke, “Memory: History, Culture, and the Mind,” in
History as Social Memory, ed. Thomas Butler (Oxford, 1989), 97-113; Patrick Hutton, “The Art of
Memory Reconceived: From Rhetoric to Psychoanalysis,” Journal of the History of Ideas 48 (1987): 371-
392; Pierre Nora, “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire,” Representations 26 (1989): 7-
24; Edward 8. Casey, Remembering: A Phenomenological Study (Bloomington, 1987); Margreta de Grazia,
Maureen Quilligan, and Peter Stallybrass, eds., Subject and Object in Renaissance Culture (Cambridge,
1996); Adrian Forty and Susanne Kuchler, eds., The Art of Forgetting (Oxford, 1999); Alan Radley,
“Artifacts, Memory, and a Sense of the Past,” in Collective Remembering, ed. David Middleton and Derek
Edwards (London, 1990), 46-59.

On the association between memory, archives, and political power, see Jacques Derrida, Archive
Fever: A Freudian Impression, trans. Eric Prenowitz (Chicago, 1996); Kenneth Foote, “To Remember and
Forget: Archives, Memory, and Culture,” American Archivist 53 (1990): 378-392; Irving Velody, “The
Archive and the Human Sciences, ” History of the Human Sciences 1 l (1998): 1-16; Francis X. Blouin and
William G. Rosenberg, “Archives, Documentation, and the Institutions of Social Memory,” Bulletin
(Bentley Historical Library) 48 (2000): 1-24.

book was not created to generate historical memory, that was one consequence of the

systematically organized episcopal archive.

Plan of the Dissertation

This dissertation, then, addresses the relationship between the founding of an
episcopal archive and preservation of memory in the Gévaudan in the context of the legal
struggle between the French crown and the bishops of Mende over exercise of secular
lordship in the diocese. Chapter 1 examines the geology, geography, and topography of
the Gévaudan and its history up to the thirteenth century. Chapter 2 traces the
ascendancy of the bishops as secular lords in the Ge’vaudan and the challenge to episcopal
power from an aggressive Capetian effort to extend royal inﬂuence in southern France
and to centralize the governance of peripheral regions. Chapter 3 analyses court book to
uncover information about the operation, the personnel, and the types of cases of the
episcopal court. Finally, Chapter 4 considers the link between the cases in the court
book, their use in defending episcopal rights in the Gévaudan, and their consequences for
stabilizing and ﬁxing historical memory in the Gévaudan by examining how later

generations drew on the archival record preserved in the bishop’s court.

10

CHAPTER 1

The County of the Gévaudan to about 1200

This chapter introduces the Gévaudan. At the most fundamental level, the terrain
of the Ge’vaudan has shaped its history, so the geological landscape acts as the initial
introduction to the region. The sources for history of the Gévaudan before about 1000
are thin, but what emerges from the record is that the diocese traces its roots to the
earliest days of the church in Gaul and that early origins of regional identity were formed
around the story of the martyrdom of its patron saint, St. Privat. After the turn of the
millennium, diplomatic evidence gradually increases and indications of episcopal efforts
to assert their secular lordship begin to take shape. Challenges to these efforts came from
various sources and exercise of episcopal secular lordship was never uncontested.
However, as we will see, the issue of the legitimacy of the bishops’ secular lordship was

altered dramatically in 1161, when Louis VII published the Golden Bull of Mende.

The Landscape

Historians long have recognized the crucial interplay between the natural
geographical features of an area and its history. To illustrate this point, recall Georges
Duby’s classic study of the Maconnais, in which he considered the context of relief, soil,
and water supply essential to understanding cultural practices such as land tenure.1 With

respect to the geography of the Gévaudan, two general characteristics are worth

 

' Georges Duby, La sociéte’ aux XIe et Xlle siécles dans la région mticonnaise, (Paris, 1953).

ll

remembering. The first is that rugged and difficult terrains dominate the topography of
the county, contributing to its isolation in the Middle Ages. For instance, a charter issued
by King Louis VII to Aldebert III, bishop of Mende in 1161 begins with a justiﬁcation
for the bishop’s absences from court of the king due to the rugged terrain. The preamble
reads, “Far from the memory of living men of our time is it that any bishop of Ge’vaudan
has come to the court of our ancestors the kings of France and acknowledged their
subjection or given ﬁdelity to them; although all that land, mountainous and most

difﬁcult to access, ever lay in the power of the bishops.”2

The charter highlights an
important aspect of the geography of the Gevaudan: in general, sharp river valleys and
rocky plateaus mark the terrain, making access from without and travel within the county
very difﬁcult.3

The second characteristic is that the rocky landscape combined with poor soil and
severe winters made the Gévaudan poor in agricultural resources and limited its value to
outsiders. Until the close of the Albigensian wars, the Gévaudan was dominated at
various times by the Counts of Barcelona and the Kings of Aragon, yet this backwater

region was never a signiﬁcant part of their patrimonies. In 1289, Guillaume Durand the

Elder, before taking up residence in his new episcopal see of Mende, was concerned

 

2 This charter, the so-called Golden Bull of Mende is discussed at length in chapter two. Layettes
du trésor des chartes (hereafter LTC), vol. 1, ed. Alexandre Teulet, et a1. (Paris, 1863), 168. “Longe est a
memoria mortalium nostri temporis quod aliquis episcopus Gaballitanorum ad curiam antecessorum
nostrum regum Francie venit, et eorum subditionem cognovit, sive ﬁdelitatem eis fecit, quamvis tota terra
illa difﬁcilima aditu et montuosa, in potestate episcoporum semper exiterit. .

3 For a description of the isolation and idiosyncratic mountain culture among the barons of the
Gévaudan, see Robert Michel, L’Administration royale dans la Se’néchaussée au temps de Saint Louis
(Paris, 1910), 109- 118.

12

”4 Durand, otherwise

about the lack of viticulture in the “frigid regions of the Gévaudan.
engaged in service to the papacy, delayed nearly ﬁve years from his consecration as
bishop in autumn 1286 before moving to the Gévaudan. Just possibly, he also was
reluctant to take possession of this remote, poor, and inclement diocese, so lacking in
indispensable necessities.

Mende, the capital of the ancient diocese of the same name, is located in the
southern region of the Massif Central, in the valley of the Lot river, whose headstreams
are found in the massive upland of the Margeride, about twenty-eight kilometers to the
east of the episcopal city.5 The Lot descends westward following a winding course to its
conﬂuence near Aiguillon with the Garonne River, which opens into the extensive plain
of Aquitaine.6 The Lot, ﬂowing east to west bisects the Gévaudan nearly in half, with
Mende nearly at the center. To the north of the Lot lie the mountainous plateaus of the
Monts d’Aubrac (northwest of Mende) and the Montagnes de la Margeride (northeast of
Mende). South of the Lot, the Gévaudan is divided between the limestone plateaus
known as the Causses in the southwest and in the southeast the Cévennes Mountains that
form the main watershed of the Massif Central. Partitioned into four geologically distinct
regions, with Mende at its center, the Gévaudan’s geological constants inﬂuenced its

human history; therefore, we need to examine the four geological regions of the

Gévaudan in detail.

 

4 Nicholas IV, no. 1.473 quoted in Constantin Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy: The Political
Thought of William Durant the Younger (Cambridge, 1991), 70.

5 F. J. Monkhouse, A Regional Geography of Western Europe, 4lh ed. (London, 1974), 549.

6 Ibid., 319.

13

The Aubrac is comprised of lava tablelands that were created by volcanic activity
in the late Miocene to the Pliocene periods.7 The basaltic plateaus of the Aubrac stretch
forty km. in length from northwest to southwest and are 130 km. broad. The altitude is
remarkably uniform at about 1,300 m.8 the surface of the basalts has been weathered
yielding good soil.9 The region is snow-covered in the winter; therefore, the Aubrac is
used largely for transhumance pasturage from the end of May until the beginning of
October.10 Javols, the ancient capital of the Gévaudan, is located in the Aubrac along a
tributary of the river Truyere.

Outlined by the headstreams of the Truyere River and the Lot in the west and the
Allier River in the east, the Margaride is comprised of a crystalline massif of broad
rounded summits 1,200 to 1,400 m. in altitude, with the highest point found at the True
de Randon 1,554 m. The rock of the south is predominately irregularly jointed granite
with an irregular surface of large rectangular blocks articulated in high isolated crags,
tors, columns, and obelisks. Some pinnacles project from coarse vegetation, others from
bare granite tables. In the northern Margaride, called the Margaride auvergnate, the rock
is predominantly foliated rock comprised of bands of granular minerals called gneiss and
mica schist. Vertical differences in elevation are less pronounced than in the south.

Characterized by poor acidic soil, heather heaths, peat bogs, and severe winters the

 

7 The principles of geological time are summarized in F. J. Monkhouse, Principles of Physical
Geography, 8‘” ed. (London, 1975), 15-16 and 19.

3 Monkhouse, Regional Geography, 554.
9 Monkhouse, Regional Geography, 526 and 554.

'0 Rene Jean Bernard, Paroisses et communes de France: Dictiormaire d 'histoire
administrative et démographique. Lozére (Paris, 1982), 45.

14

Margaride is one of the most isolated areas in the Massif Central, suitable for little but the
most meager upland grazing.ll

Forming the northern half of the Gévaudan, in modern terms the Haute-Lozere,
the Margaride and the Aubrac, often called la Montague by locals, resemble the
Auvergne in climate and terrain.12 In contrast, the southern portion of the county,
comprised of mountains, hills, and valleys sloping south and west from Mende, borders
the Languedoc to the south and shares that region’s culture and climate.'3 In fact, on a
clear day, from viewpoints in Nimes or Montpellier, it is possible to see the dark line of
hills on the northwestern horizon that marks the edge of the Massif Central, delineated
most clearly in the escarpment running from northeast to southwest. This ridge, forming
the southern line of the Cévennes, is comprised of crystalline rock formations and is
bordered on the north by the Margaride and the west and south by the Grands Causses.
In general, the elevation of the Cévennes rises to between 1,200 and 1,400 m. although
Mont Lozére (1,702 m.), the highest point in the eastern margin of the Massif Central and
Mont Aigoual (1,567 m.) form dramatic peaks.M The northern and western slopes of the
Cévennes are comprised mostly of Mesozoic rocks that have eroded into gradual slopes.
The eastern slopes of the Cévennes are vastly different in appearance from those of the

west. Here the terrain is comprised of steep-sided ravines and rocky ridges with plunging

 

n Monkhouse, Regional Geography, 549.

'2 The Auvergne, which comes from the Gaulish tribe, the Arverni, who inhabited this region,
deﬁnes the area of the central uplands of the Massif Central with its volcanic uplands stretching west from
the Allier river valley to Le Puy de Dome. Monkhouse, Regional Geography, 548.

'3 Bernard, Paroisses et communes, 7.

'4 The modern French administrative departement, the Lozere, which corresponds closely to the

region of the Gévaudan and the ancient diocese of Mende, takes its name from plaques of slate called lozes,
which frequently are found on the slopes of Mont Lozére. Monkhouse, Regional Geography, 544-545.

15

valleys. The southern edge of the Cévennes, which forms the southem—most ridge of the
Massif Central, creates a steep face that drops sharply toward the Mediterranean in the
south, declining 1,200 m. in only six linear km. from Mont Aigoual. Here the rain tends
to come in concentrated downpours forming streams from rapid run off, following
torrential southward paths that eventually join the more smoothly ﬂowing streams which
join the Tarn and the Lot rivers. The Cévennes receives heavy amounts of rainfall;
modern statistics kept at the weather station at Mont Aigoual report a mean annual total
of 2,330 mm.15 The upland hills provide slopes for meadows and pasturage. Some ﬂocks
live year round in the Ce’vennes, moving from the valleys to the higher slopes, but most
of the animals follow the centuries-old pattern of transhumance from Bas-Languedoc.
The southern grades of the Cévennes are much more rugged than the upland hills, with
sheer inclines that give way to more gently inclined stepped slopes. Mediterranean
climatic patterns and vegetation characterize the southern Cévennes.16

The Grands Causses form the southwestern area of the Gévaudan. This is a high
arid plateau comprised of Jurassic limestone, which in late Paleozoic times was probably
a gulf of the sea since the area contains several small coalﬁelds.l7 The Grands Causses
display two distinct relief elements: valleys and plateaus. The valleys cut into the
peneplain limestone plateau; the most important river valley of the Grands Causses is that

of the Tarn, along with its main tributaries, the Jonte and the Dourbie. At Florac, the

 

'5 Mont Aigoual receives rains originating from the Atlantic and Mediterranean. Mont Aigoual
derives its name from the Occitan aigo, meaning water. Bernard, Paroisses et communes, 45 n.4.

'6 Monkhouse, Regional Geography, 544-548.
'7 Coal measures in the Massif Central are not extensive and the coalﬁelds in the Gévaudan have
been expensive to work, although the coal is of good quality. As we will see, in the Middle Ages, the rights

to mines were, nonetheless, aggressively protected. Margaret Reid Shackleton, Europe a Regional
Geography, 7‘” ed., rev. W. Gordon East (London, 1964), 183.

16

Tarn enters a deep gorge and for 80 km. the walls of the gorge rise above the river in
sheer cliffs up to 600 m. high. The river valleys divide the plateaus into large blocks; in
the Gévaudan, the two most important are called the Méjan, located south of the Tarn,
and the Sauveterre to the north of the Tarn. The highest elevation of the Grands Causses,
at 1,278 m., is located in the eastern Méjan. The plateaus have been planated, but the
surface is quite diversiﬁed; steep overhangs flank the combes and large depressions
created by vanished rivers dominate. Water sinks have created underground caves,
grottoes, rivers, and lakes.18

Poor soil, rugged terrain, and harsh winters contribute to the region’s sparse
population. With a few minor variations, the borders of the medieval Gévaudan
correspond to the modern department of the Lozere; the Lozere of today is France’s least
populated alépartement.l9 Medieval population estimates based on records of ﬁscal
hearth taxes are imperfect and have generated contentious debate among historians.
Population estimates derived from determining a household index of the number of
persons per hearth and using that ﬁgure as a multiplier have been proposed for southern
France, although the question of the reliability of the multiplier is, as J. C. Russell wrote,

a “live one.”20 The earliest hearth tax census in the Gévaudan dates from 1364, the so-

 

'8 Ibid., 559-565.

’9 The lnstitut national de la statistique et des etudes économiques (INSEE) reported that the 1999
population of the Lozere was 73,509; the lowest of any mainland French department; the next lowest
departmental population was the Hautes-Alpes with 121,419, or 65% more than the Lozére. As with so
much else in France, the geographical boundaries of the Gévaudan were altered during the French
Revolution to their present-day conﬁguration. In 1790, the National Assembly transferred ﬁfteen parishes
from the archpriest of Saugues to the Department of Haute—Loire; from the archpriest of the Cévennes, the
parish of La Melouze was attached to the Department of Garde, and the parish of Estables-d’Olt was
moved to the Aveyron. In compensation, the Lozere received six parishes: four from the diocese of Uzes
and two from Ales. Bernard, Paroisses et commune, 73-75.

20 J. C. Russell, “Recent Advances in Mediaeval Demography,” Speculum, 40, no. 1 (1965): 88.
Some of the obvious pitfalls of estimating medieval populations based on the hearth include factors such as

17

called Vidimus de la Charte du 13 aout 1364, promulgated by Charles v.” It reported
4,607 hearths in the diocese of Mende, spread among 183 parishes; the city of Mende
itself contained 318 heaths.22 Rather than proposing population estimates based on
multiplier, perhaps we are on ﬁrmer ground if we use the use the information in the
Vidimus to sketch a picture of the settlement patterns of the Gévaudan. Of the 183
parishes, 52 (28.4%) were described as castrum, forty-six (25.1%) simply as locus,
seventy-eight (42.6%) as paroisse, three (2%) as villa. The remaining four were
designated cite’, mansus, or without description. Although the generic designation locus,
does not offer much descriptive information, the Gévaudan was comprised
overwhelmingly of rural parishes or castra. 23 Other early quantitative information
concerning population comes from 1528, when, on the occasion of his elevation to the

episcopal ofﬁce, Bishop Claude Duprat (1528-1532) had a list of the ﬁnancial obligations

 

exemptions from taxation, which in southern French cities ran from one quarter to one half, shifting social
realities affecting the number of persons per hearth, the universal inclination to evade taxation census, to
name a few.

2’ The vidimus of the act of 12 August 1364 is found in ADL, cote ii-l 1. It has been edited and
published in the “Vidimus d’une charte de Charles V,” Bulletin de la Société d’Agriculture, lndustrie,
Sciences, Lettres et Arts de la Lozere (hereafter BSL), t. XIV (1863), 106-1 17. For population and
demographic analysis based on the 1364 hearth census, see Philippe Maurice, La famille en Gévaudan au
X Ve siécle (1380-1483) (Paris, 1998), 63-71. For a more cautious approach, see Bernard, Paroisses et
communes, 11-12. For early fourteenth-century demographic density estimates in the provinces of
Provence and Comtat see Edouard Baratier, Georges Duby, and Ernest Hildesheimer, Atlas Historique:
Provence, Comtat, Orange, Nice, Monacco (Paris, 1969), 45—46 and map 94. Also see J. C. Russell, Late
Ancient and Medieval Population, vol. 48, part 3, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society
(Philadelphia, 1958).

22 Maurice, La famille, 68-69.
23 Ibid., 64. Interpreting this very limited data set is not without difﬁculties. For example,
inconsistencies exist, such as the designation of the ancient fortiﬁed castrum of Grézes and the fortiﬁed

cities of Marvejols and Chirac with the nonspeciﬁc term locus in the census, when these locations clearly
were fortiﬁed cites.

18

of ecclesiastics of the diocese drawn up.24 This document records 197 parishes with
2,373 ecclesiastics (excluding the regular clergy): the archpriest of the Cévennes had 43
parishes with 380 ecclesiastics; the archpriest of Barjac had 43. parishes with 520
ecclesiastics; the archpriest of Javols had 58 with 740 ecclesiastics; the archpriest of
Saugues had 54 with 582 ecclesiastics; the city of Mende had 141 ecclesiastics.25 In the
intervening 164 years, between 1364 and 1528, the number of parishes in the diocese
increased from 183 to 197 or 7.6%.

The isolation of the Gévaudan imposed localism that is typical of mountain
cultures. The county occupies a liminal position on the geographical horizon of
Languedoc, itself a kind of borderland between French monarchy in the north and the
self-goveming towns of Italy to the south. Although part of Languedoc, the county does
not share the culture, vegetation, or climate of the lower Languedoc. There is no
evidence that the heresy that ﬂourished in Languedoc during the twelfth century reached
the Gévaudan and the military campaign to eradicate it barely touched these isolated
valleys.”S The diocese is of ancient origin but it was an ecclesiastical backwater until the
ﬁnal decades of the thirteenth century, when the chapter of Mende elected the famous
canonist Guillaume Durand as bishop, and the region produced two masters general of
the Hospitallers, ﬁve cardinals, and a pope, Urban V (1362-1370). In short, the county of

the Gévaudan is characterized by isolation, as something of frontier between Languedoc

 

2" This document exists as ADL G 35 and is printed in Ferdinand Andre, “Etat du clergé de
l’ancien diocese de Mende en 1528,” La Semaine religieuse du diocese de Mende, 20 (13 mai 1876): 328-
331. The information is summarized in Bernard, Paroisses et communes, 26 - 28.

25 Bernard, Paroisses et communes, 26-28.

26 Although there are no records of heresy in the diocese, events surrounding the Albigensian wars
did affect the Gévaudan, as we will see below.

19

and the northern royal kingdom that received deﬂected inﬂuence from both regions yet
retained its local independence even as surrounding regions developed centralized

governments.

Early History to about 1000

Mende is a diocese of ancient origin, documented, although not extensively, in the
early records of the church. The diocese was formed in a region bordering the Provincia
Romana inhabited by a Gaulish people called the Gabali. In the ﬁrst century BC, Julius
Caesar notes that the Gabali allied with a neighboring tribe, the Arvemi, to resist,
ultimately unsuccessfully, the advances of his legions.27 The Romanization of southern
Gaul proceeded apace for succeeding generations with several important consequences.
Networks of roads were constructed linking important Roman cities. J avols, called
Anderitum in the Gallo-Roman era, had been the principal city of the Gabales (civitas
Gabalorum), and it was the chief city of the region from the period of Julius Caesar until
its decline during the disruptions of the ﬁfth through eighth centuries.28 The via Agrippa,
running from Lyon to Toulouse, passed through Anderitum, joining the via Domitia at
Cessero (Saint-Thibéry). A second Roman road, from Nimes to Clermont ran through

Villeforte to Garde-Guérin, passing near Langogne in the eastern Gévaudan.29 Numerous

 

27 Caesar, The Gallic War, v11.7, V1164, and v11.75.

28 The Gallo-Roman archaeological sites in Javols have undergone numerous excavations over the
years since their discovery in the nineteenth century; none have been sustained (or funded) sufﬁciently to
permit systematic examination of the evidence.

29 For historical maps see Claude Devic and Joseph Vaissete, Histoire ge’nérale de Languedoc
avec des notes et les pieces justiﬁcatives (hereafter HGL), Rev. ed. A. Molinier, et al., vol. 16, (Toulouse,
1905) plates I — X and Auguste Longnon, Atlas historique de la France depuis Ce’sarjusqu 2} nos jours
(Paris, 1885-1889), plates 1-13.

20

Gallo-Roman settlements developed in the region, whose names still reﬂect their Roman
antecedents: Florac (F lorus), Chanac (Canus), and Lévéjac (Lepidius). In the village of
Lanéjols, situated about four km. east of Mende, a fourth-century, Gallo-Roman, non-
Christian mausoleum is preserved. Dedicated to the memory of the two sons of Lucius
Julius Bassianaus and Pomponia Regola, the monument speaks to the prosperity of Gallo-
Roman period, at least for some. 30

Certainly another important aspect of Romanization with lasting consequences
was the linguistic transformation that occurred throughout Roman Gaul as the native
languages gave way to Latin, a sure sign of cultural assimilation, if not domination.
Nearly nothing is known of the Latin spoken in the Gévaudan during the Gallo-Roman
period, but linguists are certain that the Romance vernacular of the Middle Ages
developed from these Gallo-Roman Latin antecedents.3 ’ During the period of the later
Roman Empire, the area formerly known as that territory of the Gabales, gave way to a
region with Latin identiﬁcation, located on the frontier between the provinces of
Narbonnensis and Aquitanica, the diocese of Septemania Provinciae in the Prefecture of
Gaul.

Of utmost signiﬁcance was its conversion to Christianity, since with conversion

came the beginnings of written historical evidence. Bishops’ names are known from an

 

3° The monument at Lanéjols was part of a Gallo-Roman villa; its proprietor is not known,
although there are some architectural similarities with mausoleums in Syria and the name Bassianus
suggests Syrian connections as well. No archaeological or textual evidence suggests that the city of Mende
was a Roman site, making it one of the few episcopal sees in France that was not a Roman foundation.

3' William D. Paden, An Introduction to Old Occitan, (New York, 1998), 89—93 and 311-321. For
discussion related to reading diplomatic evidence written in Occitanian see Clovis Brunel, “Documents
linguistiques du Gévaudan,” BEC 77 (1916): 5-57 and 241-285; Les plus ancienne chartes en langue
provencale recueil des pieces originales antie’rieures au Xllf siecle, ed. Clovis Brunel (Paris, 1926), xiii-
1v.

21

early date although the details of Christianization are obscure. One account of the first
bishop of the Gévaudan, largely discounted, holds that, when St. Martial, the ﬁrst bishop
of Limoges, passed through the tenitory of the Gabales in the ﬁrst century, he appointed
one of his disciples, St. Severin, as its ﬁrst bishop.32 The ﬁrst historical glimpse of a
bishop of the Gévaudan comes from Gregory of Tours, who describes the martyrdom of
St. Privatus, the Bishop of Javols, during the invasion of Gaul by Chrocus, king of the
Alamans. Gregory relates that the people of Javols had taken refuge from the invaders at
the fortiﬁed castle of Grezes while their bishop prayed and fasted in a cave near Mount
Mimat, that is, Mende.33 Privat refused to surrender his “sheep to the wolves” and to
perform pagan sacriﬁces; as a result, the invaders severely beat him and he died from of
his wounds a few days later.“ Although Gregory of Tours’ chronology of Privat’s
martyrdom at the hands of the Alamans may not stand up to scrutiny, a Christian

presence in region is evidenced from at least the early fourth century since the bishop of

 

32 This story, part of the Limousin cycle of legends relating to St. Martial as the evangelist sent by
St. Peter, was ﬁercely defended in Jérome Charbonnel, Origine et histoire abrégée de l ’église de Mende
(Mende, 1859), 6-18. Although largely discredited, the account retains great popular appeal even today
among many people in Mende.

’3 The site of St. Privat’s grotto is believed to be on Mount Mimat, the peak overlooking the city
of Mende. Today the site houses a hermitage named for its famous martyr.

3" Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks 1.34. Considerable disagreement over the date of this
event exists. Gregory writes that the invasion took place during the reigns of Valerianus and Gallienus,
about 253-260, in contradiction to a fragment from the chronicle of Fredegar, which places the invasion of
Chrocus in the beginning of the ﬁfth century. Roger Collins, Early Medieval Europe 300-1000 (New York,
1991), 30-35, relying on Ammianus Marcellinus, Res gestae, XVl.xii.5 places Alamannic penetration into
Gaul in the 3503. Earlier historians such as L. Duchesne, Fastes épiscopaux de l’ancienne Gaule, t. 11
(Paris, 1899), 54-55 suggest that the date may be much earlier, before the Council of Arles. Whatever the
exact chronology, by the time Gregory was writing the cult of St. Privat was well known to him. Gregory
leaves no doubt as to the punishments that befell this murderer of “God’s elect.” After his capture in Arles,
Chrocus was tortured by various methods and died as a result of a blow from a sword, “paying the penalty
which he deserved.”

22

the Gabali attended the Council of Arles in 314.35 The ancient city of J avols remained
the episcopal seat at least through the eighth century. Gregory of Tours mentions J avols
four times, each time as an ecclesiastical and civic center.36 Nevertheless, although

J avols remained the capital while the region changed from the overlordship of the
Visigothic Kingdom of Toulouse to that of the Franks, the episcopal city was moved,

sometime between the eighth and tenth centuries, to Mende.37

The County of the Gévaudan

The county’s isolated location and rugged terrain form a frontier zone between the
Auvergne and Languedoc, northern and southern France; neither entirely of the north nor

of the south, the Gévaudan has not ﬁt easily into modern historical studies of France.38

 

35 Mansi, Conc. ampliss coll., t. 11, col. 463-512. “Genialis, diaconus, de civitate Gabalum,
provincia Aquitanica.” Mansi indicates in a note that, in this case, the designation of “deacon” should be
read as “bishop.” For the Council of Arles also see Charles Joseph Hefele, Histoire de conciles d’aprés les
documents origineaux, t. 1, pt. 1, (Paris, 1907), 275-298. Early concilliar representation of the church of the
Gévaudan occurred also in 506 at Agde by Leoninus, in 535 at the Council of the Auvergne by Hilarius, in
541 at the Council of Orleans by Euanthius, and in 614 at Paris and 627 at Clichy by Agricola. See
Duchesne, Fastes, t. 11, 54-55.

36 Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, 1.34 describes the murder of the bishop of Javols, St.
Privat in the mid-third century; 1V.39 recounts a dispute between the count of Javols and the bishop in the
late sixth century; V1.37 is an account of the murder of the abbot of the monastery of St. Privat in Javols by
the count of Javols probably in the opening decade of the seventh century. X.25 is the strange story of a
messianic ﬁgure who arrived in the area of Javols, probably in the late sixth century.

37 Information concerning the political vicissitudes in this region from the ﬁfth to the eighth
century is very slim. For a summary, see Marius Balmelle and Albert Grimaud, Précis d’histoire du
Gévaudan (Paris, 1925), 92- 104. Likewise, the relocation of the episcopal city is not well attested. It
seems that Javols had become depopulated. The cult of the local saint, Privat, was especially strong in
Mende because it was near the grotto in which the saint was reportedly martyred (see infra). The grotto
had become a site of pilgrimage and the relocation of episcopal city no doubt followed the path of the
pilgrims. J.-M. Besse, Abbayes et prieurés, t. 4, Alby, de Narbonne, et de Toulouse, 54-55.

"’8 For instance, although generally considered to be part of Languedoc, the Gévaudan is largely
ignored in Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Histoire du Languedoc (Paris, 1962) and the inﬂuential collection
Cahiers du Fanjeaux mentions the Gévaudan only in passing. René Nelli, Histoire du Languedoc (Paris,
1974), 8 recognizes the Gévaudan was linked administratively to Languedoc, but merely as a peripheral
province of intermittent signiﬁcance to the history of Languedoc. Augustin Fliche, “L’Etat Toulousain,” in

23

There is no comprehensive scholarly historical study of the area. Information concerning
the Gévaudan in the Middle Ages can be harvested from Devic and Vaissete’s
monumental Histoire ge’ne’rale de Languedoc although, as with most studies, the region
generally receives attention only when events in the Gévaudan intrude into the historical
narrative of other regions.39 The most important study devoted solely the Gévaudan is
Charles Porée’s Etudes historiques sur le Gévaudan.“) Porée examines various topics in
his work, most signiﬁcantly for our purposes the Aragonese domination of the Gévaudan
(1172 — 1258), the origins of the bishops’ secular lordship, and a baronial conspiracy
against Odilon de Mercoeur, bishop of Mende from about 1247 through 1274.

In the tenth century, as throughout most of France, effective Carolingian
overlordship declined in the Gévaudan and comital power increased, as counts came to
regard their property as heritable."l Families outside the region held the title of count
after the native comital house died out, some time between 1029 and 1035. The
Gévaudan became an insigniﬁcant fragment of the larger patrimony of Hugues, Count of

Rodez around 1035; the county then passed to Bertha, his daughter and the ﬁrst wife of

 

Histoire des institutions francaises au moyen age, vol. 1, ed. Ferdinand Lot and Robert Fawtier (Paris,
1957), 71 suggests that the Gévaudan was a region apart from Languedoc. The history of the Gévaudan is
integrated into Languedocian history in Philippe Wolfe, Histoire du Languedoc (Toulouse, 1967).

Since the county receives scant attention in regional studies, it should come as small surprise that
general histories of France often neglect to mention the Gévaudan at all. For instance, Robert Fawtier, The
Capetian Kings of France: Monarchy and Nation 987-1328, trans. Lionel Butler and R. J. Adam (London,
1965) overlooks the region and Georges Duby, Le Moyen Age 987-1460 (Paris, 1987) mentions it only
three times in passing and without detail.

39 Claude Devic and Joseph Vaissete, Histoire générale de Languedoc avec des notes et les pieces
justiﬁcatives. Rev. ed. A. Molinier et al., 16 vols. (Toulouse, 1875).

‘0 Charles Porée, Etudes historiques sur le Gévaudan (hereafter Etudes historiques) (Paris, 1919).
Porée served as the archivist of the Lozere from 1897 until 1899.

4' For the history of the period from the tenth to the mid-twelfth centuries see Etudes historiques,

348-353 and 195-201; HGL, 4:133-139; Lot and Fawtier, Histoire des institutiones, 1: 73-78, and Fasolt,
Council and Hierarchy, 34-37.

24

Robert Count of Rodez; when Bertha died without heirs, the title passed to her cousin
Raymond W of St. Gilles, Count of Toulouse. The inﬂuence of comital authority in the
Gévaudan was nominal due to its economic insigniﬁcance and. peripheral location; after
the late eleventh century, the title of count seems to have lapsed, not to be revived again
until 1307.

In Pore’e’s view, during the period from the tenth to the mid-twelfth centuries the
secular lordship of the Gévaudan rested with the viscounts, who asserted their role as
regional overlords by assembling solid blocks of land and advancing their rights at the
expense of comital rights."’2 The ﬁrst viscomital family to appear in the record was
named for their castle at Grezes, situated in the west-central part of the county, about
eleven km. east of Mende.43 The viscounts of Grézes began to consolidate their position
in 998, when Etienne viscount of Grézes and his wife Almodis granted land for the
founding of a monastery at Langogne.44 By the mid—eleventh century, a clearer picture of
the ascendancy of the viscounts in the Gévaudan emerges in the diplomatic record.45 In

the second half of the eleventh century, Aldebert of Canillac rendered an oath to

 

’2 For a description of the usurpation of rights of the Counts of Toulouse by the viscounts see
Dunbabin, France in the Making, 170-173 and for the a discussion of the counts and viscounts of the
Gévaudan, in so far as they affect the Rougergue and the Auvergne, see 104, 214-215, and 219.

‘3 Fasolt follows Porée in his estimation of the signiﬁcance of viscomital authority over episcopal
from the tenth to the twelfth century. For his brief assessment, see Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy, 34-37.
Grezes was an important defensive site. Gregory of Tours writes that the people of Javols ﬂed to Grezes
for safety when Crocus attacked their city and, as we will see, the site ﬁgures prominently in the history of
the county. Grézes, a formidable site, dominates the surrounding plains with an attitude of 1008 m. and is
well protected by sheer cliffs.

4" The foundation charter of the monastery at Langogne can be found in Gallia christiana
(hereafter GC), 1: book vi, no. 148, 579. The monastery was founded under the rule of St. Theofred.
Langogne is located in the northeastern part of the county, about 70 km. from Grezes, suggesting that the
viscount held extensive possessions in the county.

45 For a genealogical table of the viscounts of the Gévaudan, see Etudes historiques, 353.

25

Berenger, viscount of the Gévaudan and Millau, and to his sons, Richard and Gilbert, in
recognition that he held the castles of Canillac, St. Laurent, and St. Amans located in La
Canourgue, Bramatourte, and I-lermaux respectively.46 Through a series of marriages, the
viscounts of the Gévaudan came to hold multiple titles. Hence, when, in 1112, Douce,
the granddaughter of Berenger and the sole heir of his son Gilbert, married Raymond
Berenger III the count of Barcelona she was the viscountess of Millau, Gévaudan, and
Carlat, and marquise of Provence.47 Because she was the last of her indigenous line, the
marriage made the viscounty of the Gévaudan a possession of the counts of Barcelona.48
In 1126, Raymond Berenger III ceded in fee to his ﬁdeles Garin and Odilon the castle at
Randon in the heart of the region.49 Some time between 1131 and 1144, Berenger
Raymond H, son of Raymond Berenger III and viscount of Millau, Gévaudan, and Carlat,
and marquis of Provence, received oaths from Girauld and Richard de Peyre for the
castles of Baldasse’, Grézes, Marchastel, Montrodat, and Modes.50 In 1150, the same

men renewed the oath, this time to Raymond Berenger IV, count of Barcelona, marquis

 

4° This oath is found in AN J 305, n. 53 and is preserved in a thirteenth-century copy in ADL G
455. It also is printed in Feuda Gabalorum, ed. Henri Boulleir de Branche, vol. 1, (Nimes, 1938-1940), 57
n l. and is further analyzed in Brunel, “Documents linguistiques du Gévaudan,” BEC 77 (1916): no. 8, 58
and 61. The oath is not dated, but Brunel dates it between 1050 and 1097.

“’7 Etudes historiques, 349-353.
‘8 Ibid., 195.
‘9 Ibid., 349.

5° The de Peyre family was one of the most important families in the Gévaudan during the Middle
Ages. Although its origins are obscure, Guillaume I de Peyre was the ﬁrst member of the family to be
elected bishop of Mende in 908; from 908 through 1300, the de Peyre family provided ﬁve bishops to the
episcopal see of Mende. The ruins of a de Peyre chateau in Saint-Sauveaur-de-Peyre is a physical remnant
of the powerful barony whose lands were bisected by the Roman road (the via Agrippa ) that ran from Le
Puy to Rodez. The oaths are found in AN J 320, no. 96 and printed in numerous sources including Les plus
anciennes chartes, no. 29; LTC, 1: 54, no. 80. On the de Peyre barony see B. Pruniers, “L’Ancienne
Baronnie de Peyre,” BSL 17 (1866): 159-361.

26

of Provence and viscount of Millau, Gévaudan, and Carlat.5 ' In the same year, Astrorge
de Peyre conﬁrmed that his castles of Peyre (located in St. Saveur de Peyre), Marchastel
(located near Nasbinals), and Gene’brier, as well as other castles in the viscounty of Carlat
were held of Raymond Berenger IV.52 Finally, in about 1161, Guilabert de Montferrand
and his brother Guilabert gave an oath for their castle at Montferrand to the same
Raymond Berenger IV.53 In 1172, the viscounty of the Gévaudan passed into the hands
of the kings of Aragon when the last of the line of the counts of Barcelona died without
issue.

Porée cited these oaths as evidence that, before period of the Aragonese presence
in the Gévaudan, the viscounts, not the bishops, held secular power in the region.“
While the diplomatic evidence before 1172 for viscomital overlordship is not
overwhelming, it is nearly nonexistent for episcopal lordship. Another measure of power
is the number of castles held. The viscounts held many more castles, concentrated in the
east, north, and west of the county, than the bishop held, and the bishop’s castles

controlled only the valley of the Lot.55 Porée argues for the preeminence of the viscounts

 

5' ADL G 455; printed in LTC, 1: 54, no. 80. In addition to being the count of Barcelona,
Raymond Berenger IV was also the prince of Aragon and guardian of his nephew Raymond Berenger III,
viscount of Millau, Gévaudan, and Carlat and marquis of Provence. Raymond Berenger [11 married
Richilde of Poland. There were no sons produced of this marriage and when their only daughter, Douce
died in 1 172 without children, the viscounty of Gévaudan came into the possession of Alphonse 11, king of
Aragon, whose father, Raymond Berenger IV had died in 1162. For a table of this complicated succession,
see Etudes Historiques, 353 and Thomas Bisson, The Medieval Crown of Aragon: A Short History (Oxford,
1986), appendix III, and 31-44.

52 ADL G 455 is a late-thirteenth-century copy. Printed in Etudes Historiques, 484.

53 ADL G 455. Printed in “Documents linguistiques,” 246, no. 19.

5" Etudes Historiques, 348-363.

55 In fact, Porée believes that the episcopal domain was limited the Lot valley until as late as 1225.

Etudes Historiques, 369-379. Beginning in the thirteenth century, the bishops of Mende began an
aggressive castle building campaign, augmented by shrewd land purchases, to solidify his power west

27

before 1172, which slowly gave way, beginning in the mid-twelfth century, to the
creation of the episcopal domain, evidenced, in part, by the castle building of the bishops
that began in the twelfth century.56 Gregory Pass has researched the problem of the
extent of the bishop’s lordship before 1172, demonstrating that the surviving diplomatic
evidence shows that the bishops of Mende controlled ten castles, while the viscounts of
the Gévaudan exerted lordship over twenty-seven. 57 Constantin Fasolt’s study of the
political thought of Guillaume Durand the Younger, bishop of Mende (1296-1328),
concurs with Porée’s conclusion. Fasolt describes the church as “held hostage by the

noble barons of the Gévaudan.”58

The episcopal demesne was negligible and hemmed in
by lands of powerful barons: the Toumel to the east, the Randon to the north, the
Mercoeur and Apcher to the far north, the de Peyre to the northwest, the Anduze to the
southeast, and the Canilhac and the successors to the viscounts to the west. According to
Fasolt, the barons manipulated church revenues and ofﬁces under the pretext that they
were best able to offer protection to the church; the powerful barons enjoyed the right of
spoils after the bishop’s death and ﬁlled important diocesan ofﬁces from their own ranks.

In fact, from the famous synod of Leo D( in Rheims in 1049 through the Fourth Lateran

Council in 1215, every bishop of Mende was drawn from the local nobility and, Fasolt

 

along the Lot. Isabelle Darnas, “Les Chateaux de l’évéque de Mende dans la vallee du Lot en Gévaudan
(XIIe — XIVe siecles),” Archeologie du Midi medieval XI (1993): 41.

5" Etudes Historiques, 363-368, 381-385. For a description of the castles of the bishops of Mende
in this period, see Darnas, “Les Chateaux,” 41-51.

57 Gregory Allan Pass, “Source Studies in the Early Secular Lordship of the Bishops of Mende”
(Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1996), Appendix III.

58 Fasolt, Hierarchy and Council. 36-

28

argues, the church of Mende demonstrates the classic characteristics of proprietary
churches.59

The view that before the twelfth century bishops were held hostage by powerful
barons and viscounts recently has been challenged by Gregory Pass. Pass argues that
Porée misinterpreted the nature of the oaths sworn by the barons for their castles as oaths
of homage, when, in fact, they were oaths of reddition. In the Gévaudan oaths of
reddition, or the agreement to turn over the fortiﬁcation to the lord under certain speciﬁc
conditions, were the most important aspect of castle tenure, rather than a bond of homage
and personal vassalage. Castles were not held as a result of the oath of homage or
personal vassalage, which were not important elements of lordship in this region until the
thirteenth century. The oaths sworn in the twelfth century do not demonstrate “ﬁdelity”
or create ﬁdeles, the castles were not ﬁefs, and the men who swore to surrender their
castles to their lord at speciﬁcally designated times suffered only a very limited lordship.
Consequently, lordship in the twelfth-century, according to Pass, was not the tightly
institutionalized network of control described by Pore’e, but a rather the exercise of frail

bonds of authorityf’0

 

59 Ibid., 36-37. For the classic interpretation of the proprietary church, see Ulrich Stutz, “The
Proprietary Church as an Element of Mediaeval Germanic Ecclesiastical Law,” in Mediaeval Germany 911
- 1250, vol. 2, ed. Geoffrey Barraclough (Oxford, 1938), 35 - 75.

6° Pass, “Source Studies,” 208-224. The creation of castellans and oaths of reddition in this period
were not unique to the Gévaudan. In Provence, oaths taken before the twelfth century cannot be assumed
to imply the creation of ﬁdeli. Jean-Pierre Poly has shown that oaths of reddition reﬂect the shift in control
of castles to private seigneury that began in the tenth century. The rights of castlania (the privilege of
castle-guard) came to be held by powerful barons. The barons sought these lucrative rights and placing the
castles in their control proved to be an effective defense against frequent Muslim raids. See Jean-Pierre
Poly, La Provence et la Sociéte’fe’odale (879-1166), (Paris, 1976), 151-156 and 164-167. Thomas Bisson
describes a similar pattern in Catalonia, as the lands of the count of Barcelona came to be known. There
the lands of castellans (castlans) formed the basis of the twelfth-century designation, Catalonia. Bisson,
Crown of A ragon, 24-25. Adam J. Kosto demonstrates that in Catalonia oaths of reddition were more
importance to castle tenure than were homage and personal vassalage, but he does not regard them as frail

29

While diminishing the inﬂuence of the viscounts, Pass shifts attention to the early
development of the bishop’s secular lordship, which he traces to the peace movement of
the eleventh century.“ Diplomatic evidence for the bishop’s role in the keeping of the
peace the eleventh century is very scant; it rests on a fragment from an eleventh-century
cartulary.62 Called the breve de la paz de Mende, this short writ reports that the bishop,
Raimon, and the viscount, Richard de Peyre, will appoint twelve men to act as judges
(judiciarii) charged with maintaining the stability and observance of the peace. These
judges of the peace were to adjudicate disputes between those who had pledged
themselves to the peace,63 and the bishop and Richard de Peyre would enforce the

decisions of the judiciariif’4 The breve de la paz de Mende is not dated, however the

 

bonds of lordship, as is Pass’s assessment of the Gévaudan. Adam J. Kosto, Making Agreements in
Mediaeval Catalonia: Power, Order, and the Written Word, 1000-1200 (Cambridge, 2001), 80-98.

6' Pass, “Source Studies,” 56- 98. The peace movement in the Gévaudan before 1 100 is the subject
of Clovis Brunel‘ “Les juges de la paix en Gévaudan, ” BEC 109 (Paris, 1951): 32- 41. For a general
discussion 0 ihe peace inoVement in Occitania and its role in the formation of secular lordship see Thomas
Bisson, “The Organized Peace in Southern France and Catalonia (c. 1140 — 1233),” American Historical
Review 82 (1977): 290-31 1 and Thomas Bisson, Assemblies and Representation in Languedoc in the
Thirteenth Century (Princeton, 1964), 11 1-124.

62 The fragment is found in AN J 304, no. 112 , fol. 8 and is printed in Brunel, “Les juges de la
paix,” 40—41. The fragment wrongly was placed under the rubric “Toulouse” in LTC, vol. 1 based on the
assumption that the Raimon mentioned in the peace writ was Raimon II de Lautrec, bishop of Toulouse
who died in the 1160s. Citing another act that was included in the gathering with the writ establishing the
peace judges, which documented the division of property between two members of the de Peyre family,
Brunel argues that, in fact, the bishop Raimon mentioned in the “Breve de la Paz de Memde " is Raimon of
Mende. Neither act is dated. Brunel, “Les Juges de la paix,” 34-35.

63 The writ identiﬁes the elected judges, listing not twelve names, but twenty. Brunel writes that
iudices pacis as a separate body of judges cannot be attested before 1 135, although clearly these judges
discharged similar duties, forming a sort of tribunal for the purpose of maintaining the peace through
adjudication of disputes. Brunel, “Les juges de la paix,” 35.

6" Ibid., 40 — 41. . .noscat vestra fratematitas qualiter bone memorie Raimundus episcopus et
Ricardus, pro stabilitate et observantia pacis, duodecim eligerunt judicarios ad judicandas querelas
ominium ad constitucionem pacis veniencium. . ..Ex prenominatis judiciariis mandamus et ﬁrma ratione
stabilimus ut universa constitucio ad observaciam pacis ﬁrma et stabilis permaneat secundum
constitucionem duodecim judiciorum quos Raimundus episcopus et Ricardus mandaverint.”

30

episcopate of Raimon is first mentioned in 1031 and ended in 1052. 65 By assigning
responsibility for maintaining local order to the bishop and a baron from the family of the
de Peyre, the writ suggest that authority had shifted from the independent comital house
to the local level.66

Narrative evidence linking the bishop of Mende with the peace movement comes
from the Miracula Sancti Privatii, probably composed in the twelfth century by a canon
of the cathedral of Mende.67 This hagiographic narrative describes bishop Raimon
journeying to Le Puy to attend a peace council convened by Etienne, bishop of Le Puy.68
Carrying the bones of Mende’s patron saint with them, Raimon and his entourage came

to Le Puy; as the delegation from Mende came into view, the bishops who had already

 

6’ This dating scheme follows the persuasive argument in Brunel, “Les juges de la paix,” 32—33.
Further adding to the confusion over this early bishop, Series episcoporum ecclesiae Catholicae, ed. Pius
Bonifacius Gams (Graz, 1957), 577 dates Raimon’s pontiﬁcate to 1029-1031, this is surely in error. All
modern historians have followed Brunel’s chronology.

66 Pass, “Source Studies,” 62. The ruins of a de Peyre chateau in Saint-Sauveaur-de-Peyre is a
physical remnant of the powerful barony whose lands were bisected by the Roman road (the via Agrippa )
that ran from Le Puy to Rodez.

67 A collection of miracles attributed to St. Privat has been published in Les miracles de Saint
Privat suivis des opuscules d’Aldebert Ill, e’véque de Mende (hereafter Miracles), ed. Clovis Brunel (Paris,
1912), 1-26. The earliest surviving manuscript of the miracles dates to 1646-1650, although reference to
the miracles of St. Privat is found in a treatise written in the opening decade of the fourteenth century by
Guillaume Durand the Younger, which has been published in Mémoire relatifau paréage de 1307 conclu
entre l’évéque Guillaume Durand II et le roi Philippe-le-Bel (hereafter Mémoire), ed. Abel Maisonobe.
(Mende, 1896), 125 and 217. Bibliotheca hagiographica latina antiquae et mediae aetatis (Brussels,
1898-191 1) 6932, 6933 lists two passions of St. Privat based on the account of Gregory of Tours and
Vincent of Beauvais in the thirteenth century. Also see AASS, IV Aug, col. 439-440 and Jules Baudot and
Leon Chaussin, ed., et al., Vies des saints et des bienheureux selon l’ordre du calendrier, vol. VII (Paris,
1935-1959), 388-410. On the cult of St. Privat see Félix Remize, Saint Privat, martyr, évéque du
Gévaudan IlIe siécle (Mende, 1910) and Pierre-Andre Sigal, “Le culte des reliques en Gévaudan aux XIe et
XIIe siécles,” 18 - 19 Revue du Gévaudan (1972-1973): 103-115.

68 CC, t. I, c. 89 and Brunel, “Les juges de la paix,” 32-33 date the council of Le Puy to 1036
based on Oﬂicium sanctorum Mimatensium, which Brunel has identiﬁed as Oﬁ‘icium sanctorum
peculiarium insignis ecclesie Mimatensis (Lyon, 1619), which is no longer extant.

The bishop of Le Puy, Etienne II de Mercoeur was the nephew of St. Odo (994 — 1049), the abbot
of Cluny and a principal promoter of the Peace of God. The council of Le Puy was one of a series of
councils (others were held at Limoges and Bourges) concerning the peace movement during the ﬁrst half of
the eleventh century. Miracles, 14-15, n. 1.

31

gathered for the council and the citizens of Le Puy formed a great procession, singing and
chanting as they entered the city. As the procession made its way into Le Puy, a father
carrying his paralyzed son reached out to touch the holy bones, whereupon his son’s
paralysis was cured, to the jubilation and amazement of the crowd.69 This story
illuminates an important aspect of the bishop’s role in the peace of the Gévaudan: That in
the ﬁrst half of the eleventh century the bishop was associated with the peace movement
and their prerogative to enforce the peace was legitimized, or at least validated, by
episcopal control over the relics of Saint Privat. As we will see, the cult of Saint Privat
often would be invoked to lend potency to the bishop’s exercise of secular power in the

, 7o
Gevaudan.

Aldebert III (1151 - 1187) and the Golden Bull

The exercise of lordship in the Gévaudan before the mid-twelfth century is
difﬁcult to assess. However one evaluates the slim evidence for secular lordship before
1150, beginning with the election of Aldebert III in 1151 we are faced with a different
situation, as the sources, from within the county and from without, become more
plentiful. The most important sources for the pontiﬁcate of Aldebert are the Opuscula
and the Chronicon breve de gestis Aldebertii. Aldebert himself wrote the Opuscula (or
commissioned the work to be written as if he were the author) sometime in the 11703.

The work is divided into ﬁve short sections devoted to the inventio, translatio, and

 

“9 Miracles, 14-15.

70 The classic work describing the link between control of holy relics and authority is, of course,
that of Peter Robert Lamont Brown, The Cult of Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity
(Chicago, 1981).

32

miracula of the relics of the saint, but in the process of telling its stories, the Opuscula
also leave no doubt as to the connection between the bishop, the favored saint, and effort
to maintain the peace. The Chronicon breve is a much shorter work; written by an
anonymous clerk in the cathedral of Mende between 1165 and 1170; it records the deeds
and events of Aldebeit’s pontiﬁcate, with an emphasis on his efforts to restore and secure
secular lordship in the Gévaudan for the bishop. As we will see, Aldebert faced a
dangerous and widespread baronial rebellion in this period, probably the stimulus for the
creation of the work, which emphasized episcopal overlordship and maintenance of the
peace. In fact, in the opening sentence, the Chronicon breve states that its purpose is to
list how many and which castles, fortiﬁcations, villages, and other possessions Aldebert
gained for his church in the time of peace.71 The chronicle clearly is not an impartial
work; its obvious intention is to show the bishop successfully exerting his lordship in the
Gévaudan. Therefore, it must be used with caution when assessing actual episcopal
authority in this period.72

The pontiﬁcate of Aldebert III was marked by aggressive measures to strengthen
episcopal power within the Gévaudan in the face of challenges to his lordship from
powerful barons and comital authority. Aldebert had reason to feel threatened: the

Chronicon breve relates that secular lords were squeezing the bishop’s authority by

 

7' “Chronicon breve de gestis Aldeberti,” (hereafter Chronicon) in Les miracles de Saint Privat
suivis des opuscules d ’Aldebert Ill, évéque de Mende, ed. Clovis Brunel, (Paris, 1912), 126. “Omnium
posteritati notum ﬁeri volumus que et quanta videlicet castella, munitiones, villas et alias possessiones
Aldebertus, Mimatensis episcopus, ecclesie sue tempore pacis acquisivit.”

72 The Opuscula and Chronicon, preserved in a ﬁfteenth century copy called Livre de St. Privat
(ADL G 1446), are published in Les Miracles de Saint Privat, ed. Brunel, 30-138. Strictly speaking, the
Chronicon is not a chronicle at all, since its chapters do not follow in chronological order. The manuscript
bears no title; the work’s modern editor, Clovis Brunel, called it Chronicon breve based on his assessment
of the contents. Brunel analyzes both works in Les miracles, xxiv-xlv. For Aldebert 111 see Etudes
Historiques, 355-363; GC, vol. 1, 90-91; Pass, Source Studies, 64-120; Fasolt, Hierarchy and Council, 39-
43.

33

encroaching on the locus of episcopal power, the cathedral of Mende.” The fortiﬁed
houses and buildings of the Count of Barcelona and the lords of Canilhac, Cabriéres, and
Dolan encircled the cathedral on four sides, making access difﬁcult for him or members
of his household.74 Moreover, the lords of Canilhac and Cabriéres claimed to possess
their property by their offices in the church, those of treasurer (archiclavaria) and
archdeacon (archidiaconatus), respectively.75 The lord of Dolan had control of the
movable wealth of the episcopal household, its gold, silver, vestments, chattels and
household furnishings when the see fell vacant.76 Even more formidable, the count of
Barcelona, whose overlordship stretched from Catalonia to Provence and who held
lordship and full power over the church and the episcopal city, possessed the western side
of the church, called the Chastel Frag. So imposing was the count’s authority in the city
that he had extracted an oath from the bishop to surrender the city upon his command and

the knights of the city were his feudatorii.77

 

73 The description of Aldebert’s efforts to clear the landscape around the cathedral from lay
domination is found in Chronicon, 126-128. On the relationship between urban landscape and episcopal
authority, the “topography of power,” in northern Italy, see Maureen C. Miller, The Bishop ’s Palace:
Architecture and Authority in Medieval Italy, (Ithaca, 2000).

7" Chronicon, 126-127. “Quatuor nobiles, scilicet comes Barcilionensis, dominus Canhilhaci,
dominus de Doualan, dominus [de] Cabreria, unusquisque proprium jus in ecclesia Mimatensi vendicabat et
quatuor angulos ecclesie in propriis ac privatis ediﬁciis occupaverant, [ita] quod nec episcopus, nec aliquis
de domo episcopali ad ecclesiam accedere, nisi per eorum ediﬁcia, poterat.”

75 Ibid., 127. “Dominus de Canilhac quoddam jus, quod dicitur archiclavaria, vendicabat in
ecclesia et, illius juris occasione, proprium meum et proprias mansions ad orientalem partem ecclesie
possidebat. Dominus de Cabreriam quasi jus archidiaconatus sibi vendicans, ad australem partem ecclesie
mansiones et munitiones habebat. .

76 Ibid. “Dominus vero de Doalan vendicabat sibi regnum et dispensationem domus episcopalis
quandiu cessabat ab episcopo, aurum, argentum, vestes, jumenta et omnem superlectilem domus. . .”

77 Ibid., 127-128. “Comes vero Barchilonensis principatum et potestatem plenam in ecclesia
Mimatensi et civitate vendicabat, et sacramentum de restitutione civitatis ab episcopo et ﬁdelitatem ab
hominibus exigebat et, hac de causa, dominum de Doualan et milites civitatis feudatorios suos et vicarios
asserebat. Hujus dominii occasione, ad occidentalem partem ecclesie, castrum proprium, quod vocatur
Chastel Frag, habebat et juxta illud proprium vicum possidebat.”

34

In spite of these signiﬁcant challenges, Aldebert vigorously promoted his lordship
by acquiring rights to the income and property of rival lords by either purchase or seizure.
He purchased the rights to the fortiﬁed house on the south side of the church that the lord
Cabrieres claimed as archdeacon at great cost of much silver and wealth,78 he seized all
the lord Dolan’s rights and properties and restored them to the church.79 Aldebert
purchased from the count of Barcelona whatever property the count held “either justly or
unjustly” in the church, in the city, in the territory, or in the castle of Pon, whether in
feudatariis, in vicariis, or in anything whatsoever.80 To raise the money for these
important purchases, Aldebert sold many of his possessions.“ The count of Barcelona
conﬁrmed the sale by swearing an oath on the Gospels, that the church and the city would
suffer no molestation or controversy in the future.82

The implications of these transactions are signiﬁcant. In effect, the bishop of
Mende became the secular and ecclesiastical lord in the city of Mende, independent of

lay control. In this, Mende deviates from the pattern found in many twelfth-century

urban communities of southern France and northern Italy, where the gradual emergence

 

78 Ibid., 127. . .que omnia dominus episcopus memoratus multo pretio argenti multisque
menueribus emit...”

79Ibid., “...que dominus episcopus amparavit et predicta jura omnia ecclesie sue titulo a quo
recesserant restauravit.”

80 Ibid., 128. “Sed dominus episcopus, consideratis omnibus istis, abiit et vendidit multa que
habuit et emit quidquid juste vel injuste predictus comes habebat, possidebat vel exigebat in ecclesia et in
civitate vel ejus territorio vel in castro del Pon sive in feudatariis, sive in vicariis, sive in aliis quibuslibet
possessionibus.”

8' The Chronicon does not reveal the source of the possessions that Aldebert sold, so it is
impossible to know whether the bishop drew on his own personal resources or liquidated church properties
to gain lordship over the episcopal city.

82 Chronicon, 128. “Hanc venditionem predictus comes, tactis sacrosanctis evangeliis, jurejurando

conﬁrmavit caveret ne ulterius super omnibus iis ullam molestiam seu controversiam ecclesia Mimatensis
seu civitas ab aliquo pateretur...”

35

of municipal self-govemments progressively minimized the role of the bishop or secular
lord.83 The sales and the oath sworn by the count of Barcelona are preserved only in the
Chronicon breve, and they are not dated; no diplomatic evidence of these transactions
survives. Nonetheless, we can assume that Aldebert carried out these measures before
1161 because afterward he had a potent weapon to promote and protect his lordship in the
Gévaudan, which he surely would have invoked had it been available to him. That
weapon was the so-called Golden Bull of Mende.84

The Golden Bull, granted in 1161 to Aldebert and his successors by the French
king, Louis VII, became the cornerstone of episcopal claims to secular lordship in the
Gévaudan. It not only granted secular lordship in perpetuity but also conﬁrmed the two
sources of the bishops’ lordship: ancient custom and royal concession of regalian rights.
Although the text contains no divisions or breaks between the clauses, for purposes of
analysis, the charter can be divided into four sections. First, the context (of the charter is
laid out. We are informed that no man of the royal court has memory of any interaction

between the royal court and any bishop from the mountainous and nearly inaccessible

 

83 A very good general discussion of the emergence of the self-goveming municipality can be
found in Susan Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe 900 - 1300, 2d ed. (Oxford,
1997), 135-138, 170-184, and 270-272. For southern France see André Gouron, “Diffusion des consulats
méridonaux et expansion du droit romain aux Xlle et Xllle siecles,” BEC 121 (Paris, 1963): 26-76. For
northern France, A. Vermeesch, Essai sur les origines et la signification de la commune dans le nord de la
France (Heule, 1966). The best introduction to the emergence of the Italian communes is found in Daniel
Waley, The Italian City-Republics, 3d ed. (London, 1988). For a divergent view, stressing divided lordship
between lay and episcopal lords in twelfth-century southern France see Poly, La Provence, 279-317.

8" The Golden Bull, so-called because it was reputed to have a golden seal or bulla, has not
survived, although fourteenth century copies exists in AN J 341, no. 3 and no. 6. The charter was
conﬁrmed by Pope Innocent IV in 1249 and is preserved in ADL G 25. Gustave de Burdin claims that the
original, with the gold seal for which it was named, was burned publicly during the Revolution, although
the evidence is for this is slim. Documents historiques, vol. 1, 7. The charter has been printed numerous
times. See LTC, vol. 1, no. 168; HGL, vol. 5, no. 641 ; Documents historiques, vol. 1, 355-356; GC, vol. 1,
24. An English translation of the text of the charter appears in Pass, “Source Studies,” 103 and in Fasolt,
Council and Hierarchy, 39-40. For other copies, see Achille Luchaire, ed., Etudes sur les actes de Louis
VII, (Paris, 1885), 245, no. 452.

36

Gévaudan and that there is no recollection of the bishop either acknowledging his
subjection to, or giving fealty to, the king.85 Second, it acknowledges that the bishops of
Mende always possessed ecclesiastical and secular lordship in their diocese imposing
ecclesiastical censure when necessary, and even rendering judgment by the sword.86
Third, in the presence of king’s barons, Aldebert gave an oath, which he conﬁrmed on the
Gospels, swearing that his bishopric belonged to the crown and acknowledging his
ﬁdelity to the king, his court, and to the kingdom.87 Fourth, the king reciprocated,
thereby completing the cycle of gift and regrant; he conceded all of the Gévaudan and the
regalia pertaining to the crown to Aldebert and all his successors, to he possessed in
freedom and immunity from all exactions in perpetuity.88

The Golden Bull is riddled with ambiguities, leading to various interpretations of
its meaning, lawfulness, and intention. Aldebert and his successors cited the charter in
support of their claim to temporal power by ancient custom and royal concession,

although the geographical limits are not clear. The Bull says that the bishop exercised

 

85 LTC, vol. 1, 168. “Longe est a memoria hominum mortalium nostri temporis quod aliquis
episcopus Gaballitanorum ad curiam antecessorum nostrorum regum Francie venit, et eorum subditionem
cognovit, sive ﬁdelitatem eis fecit quamvis tota terra illa, difﬁcilima aditu et montuosa, in potestate
episcoporum semper exiterit. . .” Further evidence of the isolation of the Gévaudan, the royal court seems
almost surprised at the appearance of a bishop from this remote area.

36 Ibid.,“. . . in potestate episcoporum semper exiterit, non tamen ad faciendam ecclesiasticam
censuram, sed etiam ad iudicandum in ladio su r illos uos en] a sua monstrabat sic redar uendos.”
P

87 Ibid., “Vir autem illustris jam dictus Aldebertus episcopus, religiose cogitans materialis gladii
iusticas ad virgam regni pertinere, nostram serenitatem Parisius adiit, et ibidem, in presencia totius baronie
nostre, cognovit episcopatum suum de corona regni nostri esse, et, se nobis subdens, nobis et regno,
celebriter tacto Evangelio sacro, ﬁdelitatem fecit.”

88 Ibid., “Ecclesie gloriose martyris Privati et episcopis omnibus venerabili amico nostro
Aldeberto canonice succedentibus, totum Gabalitanorum episcopatum, cum regalibus ad nostram coronam
pertinentibus, ex integro concedimus, et ut libere et quiete in perpetuum possideant, auctoritate regia
conﬁrrnamus. Ne autem de cetero aliquis successorum nostrorum molestiam vel violenciam aliquo modo
inferre conetur, paci et quieti predicte ecclesie regia benignitate providentes, ipsam liberam et ab omni
exactionem immunem esse concedimus.”

37

potestas in tota term, but whether this means the “county” of the Gévaudan is unclear.
Certainly, in 1161 the county of the Gévaudan was under the lordship of the count of
Barcelona as a matter of law, although not of practice. In fact, it may be questioned
whether the French king had the right to confer overlordship to the bishop at all since the
power in the region was contested and fragmented among the bishop, the count of
Barcelona, the king of France and the local barons.

Moreover, precisely what the king granted is somewhat vague. The fourth clause
concedes the regalia pertaining to the crown to the bishop and his successors in
perpetuity. During the struggle between the Empire and the papacy, partisan writers
drew a sharp distinction between bishops’ spiritual and secular rights, often called
regalia.89 Writing in 1086, Guido of Ferrara described the regalia as a collection of
secular rights and appurtenances that the emperor granted to the bishop, including manors
and landed properties (curtes, praedia), secular judicial power (iudicia or placita
secularia), ﬁscal rights (vectigalia, tributa), and unspeciﬁed public power (publica
iura).90 The Concordat of Worms of 1122 left the meaning of regalia ambiguous,
although a kind of deﬁnition was achieved since the Concordat provided for investiture

with the regalia before consecration of the bishop-elect.” During the reign of Frederick

 

89 On the evolution of the meaning of regalia, see Robert L. Benson, The Bishop-elect: A Study in
Medieval Ecclesiastical Ofﬁce (Princeton, 1968), 203-387.

90 Benson, Bishop-elect, 225-226. Benson suggests that Guido, whose sympathies lay with the
Empire and the anti-pope Clement III, probably picked up the word regalia from the imperial chancery,
where it had been used in diplomas to infer rights and powers attached to the royal prerogative. The papal
chancery used the term as early as 1059, describing the regalia Sancti Petri when referring to the secular
power and jurisdiction of the papacy in central Italy. Benson, Bishop-elect, 227-228. In England, William
11 claimed the regalian right upon the death of Lanfranc in 1089, claiming the rights to the revenues of the
vacant see. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. F.L. Cross and Elizabeth A. Livingstone,
3“. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997) 1375-1376.

9' Benson, The Bishop-elect, 231-237.

38

Barbarossa, contemporary with the issuance of the Golden Bull of Mende, granting of
regalia was the prerogative of the king and their concession by the king to the bishop
signiﬁed the granting of the landed temporal possessions over which the bishop exercised
jurisdictional rights.92 Because the Golden Bull confers upon the bishop the entire
bishopric and the regalia in the Gévaudan, it seems to grant to the bishop something very
close to sovereign lordship in the Gévaudan.93 Yet, since sovereignty is absolute and
unconditional, it could not be granted and had no cause to be conﬁrmed; thus, the Golden
Bull seems to conﬁrm rights that did not, and could not, be conﬁrmed.94 In the third
clause, the bishop had acknowledged his subordination to the royal authority; how then
could he claim absolute power that the king appeared to grant in clause four? What
clause four appears to grant, clause three renders invalid. These contradictions seem not
to have been noticed in 1161, and through the thirteenth century, the Golden Bull often
was invoked by the bishops of Mende in support of their claim to secular lordship in the
Gévaudan.

Interpretations of the bull and its royal concessions appeared in Aldebert’s own

lifetime. The author of the Chronicon breve, clearly a partisan of the bishop, describes

 

92 Benson, Bishop-elect, 276.

93 On the question of the ambiguity of the Golden Bull and sovereignty of the bishops of Mende,
see Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy, 40—42. In Joseph Strayer’s view, the bishops of Mende claimed not
merely extensive rights of government, but sovereignty in the county. Joseph R. Strayer, The Albigensian
Crusades (New York, 1971), 12 and Joseph R. Strayer, The Reign of Philip the Fair (Princeton, 1980), 192.

9’ Peter N. Riesenberg, lnalienability of Sovereignty in Medieval Political Thought (New York,
1956), 18-19. Certainly, ideas about sovereignty and regalia changed over time and considerable
geographical variation existed. The systematic study of Roman law after about 1100 provided rational
principles on which theories of sovereignty rested, but precise meaning often was elusive. In France, royal
lawyer Pierre de Cuignieres at the Council of Vincennes (1329) defended the theory of the inalienability of
sovereignty by arguing that the king may not alienate jurisdictional rights to the detriment of the Crown
since he had sworn in the coronation oath not to do so. This theory, once articulated, dominated French
political theory throughout the rest of the Middle Ages.

39

the bishop’s appearance at the royal court as resulting in the king’s grant of regia
potestas and full jurisdiction over all men in the diocese to Aldebert and his successors in
perpetuity.95 In fact, this interpretation was not at odds with Aldebert’s actions and upon
his return to the Gévaudan, he lost little time in capitalizing on his newly acquired
powers. The exploitation of silver mines in the Gévaudan had long been exempt from
fees or taxes. However, bolstered by his diplomatic coup at the court of the French king,
Aldebert assembled the clerks and people of the Gévaudan and imposed a new tax on the
silver mines. Not surprisingly, the barons did not welcome the new ﬁnancial exaction
and they appealed for relief to the count of Barcelona.96 The count prohibited the mining
tax, yet the bishop deﬁantly continued to levy it, collecting forty silver marks in revenue
per year.97

The barons of the Gévaudan saw that the Golden Bull reordered the distribution
of power in the region.98 They neither granted their consent nor were a party to the
agreement between bishop and king, and apparently many of them felt that the bishop
had co-opted the assistance of the French monarch in order to usurp baronial rights. In

1163, two years after the Golden Bull was issued, the barons, led by the bishop’s

 

95 Chronicon, 133. “Ad ultimum rex, convocatis baronibus suis, ducibus scilicet aliquibusque
viris illustribus, in conspectu eorum donavit A. episcopo suisque successoribus in perpetuum regiam
potestatem plenamque jurisdictionem super omnes homines, tam majores quam juniores, qui in episcopatu
suo degunt.”

96 Events concerning the silver mines are found in Chronicon, 129-130. “. . .Considerans iterum
regiam et plenam potestatem quam a rege Francorum impetraverat, desideransque et considerans exemplum
adjacentium regionum, convocavit omnem clerum et populum Gaballitane regionis et super hoc
querimoniam suarn exposuit.” See Etudes historiques, 361 for an analysis of these events that stresses the
decline of the baronial power owing to the bishop’s success in imposing the silver tax.

97 Chronicon, 130. “Ad ultimum vero, contra voluntatem et prohibitionem comitis et aliorum, ad
jus ecclesie sue applicavit de quibus annuatim quadringente marce argenti proveniebant.”

9” Etudes historiques, 261-263.

40

illegitimate brother, rose in a dangerous rebellion that the bishop could not put down for
seven years.99 During the rebellion, castles under the “public care” of the bishop were
seized and the bishop’s own castle was captured and pillaged, compelling him to lament,
“this was the beginning of our sorrow, for during seven years rapine, murder, and ﬁre did
not cease in all our diocese.”'°0 So severe was the threat to Aldebert that he wrote to the
king invoking the Golden Bull and seeking royal intervention on his behalfm' He
implored the king to remember that peaceful occasion, before adversaries and enemies to
the bishop had appeared, when Aldebert faithfully had placed his bishopric and paternal
lands into the hands of the kingm The correspondence is undated, but the text of the
letter reveals that Aldebert’s rebellious brother rendered homage and fealty to the bishop
the same day the messenger was dispatched to the king, suggesting, perhaps that
enthusiasm for rebellion waned as the threat of royal intervention waxed. Following this

apparent reconciliation, the rebellious brother received unspeciﬁed castles and land and

 

99 The rebellion is described in the Chronicon and the Opuscula of Aldebert III, which was written
about 1170, shortly after the settlement of hostilities between the bishop and the barons. “Opuscula
Aldeberti" (hereafter Opuscules), in Les miracles de Saint Privat suivis des opuscules d ’Aldebert Ill, éve‘que
de Mende, ed. Clovis Brunel, (Paris, 1912), 27-123 and Chronicon, 124-134. For interpretation of the
insurrection see Etudes historiques, 361-362; C. Brunel, ed. Introduction to Les miracles de Saint Privat
suivis des Opuscules d’Aldebert Ill, Evé‘que de Mende, (Paris, 1912), xxv - xliii; Fasolt, Council and
Hierarchy, 42-43; and for a particularly rich account see Pass, Source Studies, 87-96. Aldebert’s
illegitimate brother was motivated to lead the rebellion in pursuit of his claim to a portion of family
patrimony. Aldebert may have been from the noble family of Toumel and his ability to draw on personal
resources to secure his lordship suggests that these resources were extensive. Etudes historiques, 361.

'00 Opuscules, 34-35. “Nam et nostri proprium nostrum castrum invaserant, predam tulerant,
incendia dederant, et extranei in publica que cura nostra erant simili modo fuerant debachati. Initia
dolorum hec, namque per totum septennium rapine, cedes, incendia in tota dyocesi nostra non cessarunt.”

'0' This correspondence consists of two letters. The ﬁrst introduces the messenger, a certain
Radulf, to the king and the second outlines the bishop’s appeal. Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la
France (hereafter RH), vol. 16, ed. Martin Bouquet, et al., (Paris, 1869-1880), 160-161, nos. 474-475.

'02 RH, vol. 16, 160, no. 475. “Meminit, ut credo, dignatio vestra, qua devotione temporis pacis
meae, quando hostis vel adversarius nullo apparere ausus fuerat, me, meaque episcopatum, terramque
patemam, in manus vestras bene ﬁdeliterque indidi, et ipsam ﬁdem sine aliqua reprehensione servare
studui.”

41

was made a knight. Yet, peace was not secured by this apparent rapprochement, and the
brother rallied a group of men opposed to the bishop and occupied two of Aldebert’s
castles.’03 There is no record of the king’s reply to the bishop’s appeal for help; but,
since royal intervention was not forthcoming, it seems that the bishop’s evocation of the
Golden Bull did not produce the hoped for results.104

If Aldebert lacked royal support, he did beneﬁt from a well-timed demonstration
of supernatural patronage. In 1170, the bishop was traveling to the royal court in Paris.
The nature of his business at court is not known, but we may conjecture that Aldebert’s
purpose was to plead for royal assistance in person. En route, he stopped off at Clermont
to celebrate Easter with the countess of the Auvergne, Anne of Nevers, and the bishOp of

Clermont, Etienne de Mercoeur.”

There he received news of the fortuitous discovery,
made while digging a well in the episcopal orchard, of a crypt containing a sarcophagus

of lead, placed on columns of stone.106 The sarcophagus contained human bones, but the

 

"HRH, vol. 16, 160-161, no. 475. “Nunc autem insurrexerunt in me homines iniqui ﬁlii iniquitatis,
et, quod mihi dolor est dicere, frater meus et quidam perversi cum eo, terram meam, immo vestram
fraudulenter et proditorie, ut audietis, invaserunt. Nam ea die qua magister Radulfus a vestra curia ad nos
pervenit, ego fratrem meum in pace recepi, et castra quaedam terramque simul ei commendavi, unde mihi
hominium et ﬁdelitatem fecit, juramentumque praestitit quod me meaque ﬁdeliter servaret, et mihi in
omnibus et per omnia obediret. Inde ut fratrem tractavi, militemque feci, et honeste mecum habui. Qui in
fraude, nefandorum coetu secum congregato, a me et mensa mea recedens, duo ex castris meis fraudulenter
occupavit, et adhuc tenet. Nec mirum si sic egit, qui non legitime genitus contra me illicite agere
praesumpsit. Hinc ad vos clamorem facio, et ut non tam mea quam vestra quaeratis exopto. Magistrum
etiam Radulfum mitto, et ut eum tamquam me audiatis, et quae dixerit credatis et faciatis, precor ei obnixe
exoro. Licet enim necessarium sit mihi auxilium vestrum, tamen pro vestro honore et gloria magis laboro
quam pro mea utilitate.”

'0’ The king was as close as Le Puy in 1269 or 1270, and the because no hint of royal intervention
on behalf of Aldebert exists, it seems likely that either the king rejected the bishop’s appeal out of hand, or
that proximity of the king, and the bishop’s appeal based on the Golden Bull, was enough to cause baronial
capitulation. For a discussion on possible dates for these letters, see Pass, Source Studies. 91-92.

'05 The discovery of the relics of St. Privat is described in the Opuscules, 36-40.

'06 Opuscules, 37. [Messenger speaks to Aldebert]: “ ‘Dum puteus de quo mandastis, domine, in
recessu vestro profundius foderetur, inventa est cripta quedam, structura mirabili, lapidibus magnis et

42

jaw was missing; since the jaw of St. Privat had been translated to the high altar early in
the twelfth century, it was suspected that this unknown body, discovered under these
“miraculous” circumstances, was that of the holy martyr of Mende.'°7 Nevertheless,
Aldebert wanted to authenticate the discovery in person, and so he ordered that nothing
be altered until his return. Aldebert concluded his business at the curia regis and
returned to Mende, but before entering the city, he stopped in Blesle, between Issoire and
St-Flour, and sent messengers ahead to determine how public and private matters stood,
as well as war or peace. Aldebert was informed that the rebellious barons had decided to
beg for his mercy and to make reparations for all their depredations, and that there was
nothing to delay in all this except his absense. '08

Aldebert attributed the surrender of his enemies directly to the invention of the
holy relics and to the intercession of St. Privat, declaring that the capitulation was the

“victory of the holy martyr.”109 The bones of the saint were carried to the cathedral in

 

quadratis. Invenerunt et in ipsa cripta vas in modem sepulcri plumbeum, super columpnas lapides
venerabiliter collocatum, et in ipso vase ossa corporis beati Privati.’ ”

'07 Bishop Aldebert II translated the reliquary of St. Privat, presumably containing only the jaw, to
the high altar between 1102 and 1 1 12. “ ‘Plane, inquit, omni litterarum monumento certius evidentiusque
quidquam ibi repertum est. Concurrente siquidem moni populo Mimatensi, rogarunt seniores civitatis
inquiri diligentius an esset ibi cum ceteris ossibus maxilla inferior. Quesitum est omni studio et inventum
est eam solam deesse de ossibus totius corporis. Unde inestimabili gaudio repleti, beati Privati martyris
illud esse corpus indubitanter asseruerunt, cujus inter certa ossa solam maxillam deesse videbant. Quam
videlicet pennanus vivorum venerabilium... et Aldeberto Gavalitano [Bishop Aldebert 11, ﬂ. 1099 - 1109]
episcopis, in majori altari ecclesie Mimatensis quod consecratum est in honore beati Juliani martyris
repositam fuisse audierant, et quidam etiam eorum presentes dum reponeretur et oculis propriis inteuentes
adstiterant.” Opuscules, 37-38.

’08 Opuscules, 50. “Cumque hec hujusmodi, vel in eundo ad curiam regis... vel ibi morando,
mecum retractarem assidere, tandem ad ecclesiam nostram regrediendum existimavi et Blasellam usque
reversus, misso inde ad fratres nuntio qui de statu rei publice ac private belloque seu pace rediens nos
faceret certiores, relationem accepi quod, initio salubriori consilio, inimici nostri omnes mox ut venirent ad
pedes nostros veniam postulaturi, ablata reformaturi accelerate disponerent, nichilque aliud his moram
afferre nisi absentiam nostram.”

’09 Ibid. . .beati martyris hanc esse victoriam arbitrans. .

43

Mende with great pomp and ceremony for all the people to see. To emphasize role of the
supernatural protector of the bishop, Aldebert recalled the story the vision of a ﬁdelis,
experienced years before the rebellion, the meaning of which now became clear to him.
In the vision, St. Privat came to the ﬁdelis and declared that Aldebert would be victorious
over his enemies because of the saint’s protection. “Go and tell Aldebert for me that he
must not fear during his tribulations. For 1, his protector, will rescue him and lead him
forth unharmed.”l '0 Aldebert’s recording of the “miraculous” recovery of the relics
strengthened the association between bishop and saint and promoted identiﬁcation of the
bishop -- and the saint -- with maintenance of peace and order.1 ” Furthermore,
assistance from the holy protector proved apparently, more reliable than protection from
the Capetian court, for it resulted in the quashing of the baronial revolt. By using his
association with the patron saint of the church of Mende to overcome his enemies,
Aldebert not only reinforced his lordship over his baronial rivals for power but also
demonstrated before the population of the city that the body of their -- and his -- protector
would have lain in obscurity had God not wished the body to be recovered, in order to
save the bishop from the depredations of his enemies.

Aldebert linked his secular lordship with St. Privat in other ways. For instance,
the Chronicon breve relates that Ricard de Peyre, a powerful man, aggressive toward his

neighbors, had long demanded unjust and extraordinary exactions from villages and

 

”0 Ibid., 51. “ ‘Vade et dic Aldeberto episcopo ex parte mea ut non timeat inter tribulationes. Ego
enim adjutor ejus eruam eum et educam illesum.”’ Clear scriptural references of this passage are found in
Isaiah 38:6, Jeremiah 15:20, Exodus 33:12, etc.

I” Brunel, Introduction, Les miracles. xxiv-xliii; Pass, Source Studies. 93-95.

POSSESSions of the church of St. Privat.I '2

By using ecclesiastical censure and military
might, Aldebert compelled him to renounce all exactions, and the sincerity of Ricard was
ensured by an oath and other securities.1 '3 Furthermore, Ricard and his brother Giral
gave the bishop and the church of Mende their castles and fortresses at Crueize, Peyre,
and Mastchastel, acknowledging that the castles and all else were held of the bishop. To
symbolize that they held these castles of the bishop by feudal right (iurefeudi), the
brothers ﬂew the banner of St. Privat over them, an indisputable statement of the growing
episcopal lordship.l 1" By military force, backed by the associative power of St. Privat,
Aldebert strengthened his seigniorial rights within the Gévaudan.

Thus, Aldebert III defended and extended his secular lordship in the Gévaudan by
purchase, coercion, royal alliance, evocation of Mende’s patron saint, and military
effectiveness. Other demonstrations of his public authority include an account in the
Chronicon breve of the bishop forcing thieves from the castle of Garde-Gue’rin to stop

attacking those who traveled the old Roman road from Le Puy to Nimes. Aldebert’s

success was achieved by laying siege to the castle, thus, as the account says, “not so

 

I '2 Chronicon, 130. “Ricardus de Petra, vir potens et vicinis, suis infestus, in villis et
possessionibus sancti Privati injustas et extraordinarias exactiones exigebat per longa temporum
curricula...” Since the Chronicon is not arranged in chronological order, and its entries are not dated, it is
not possible to say if this incident occurred before, during, or after the larger baronial revolt.

”3 Ibid., “. . .ad ultimum vero, ab A. episcopo ecclesiastica censura et manu militari coactus,
omnibus renunciavit et ne in posterum aliquis de progenie sua ea repeteret, prestito sacramento ei alias
securitates repromisit.”

“4 Ibid., 131-132. “G. de Petra et Ricardus ejus frater donaverunt A. episcopo et ecclesie
Mimatensi in perpetuum castella sua propria et munitiones, videlicet Cruyza, Petra, Marchastel et si que
alia possident que ab illo tenent; insuper in omnibus istis vexillum sancti Privati imposuerunt et ea, jure
feudi, ab episcopo acceperunt.” This is the earliest reference to using the banner of Saint Privat as a
symbol of the bishop’s lordship, a practice that became common by the mid-thirteenth century. Pass,
Source Studies, 188-189.

45

much by ecclesiastical censure as by military force.”l ‘5 He protected the city by building
walls. “6 Although he did not neglect to strengthen his authority within the Gévaudan,
his horizons extended beyond regional localism. For example, Aldebert corresponded

”7 Moreover,

with Etienne of Toumai, one of the most prominent canonists of the age.
the bishop successfully pursued the settlement of a dispute with the powerful monastery
of St. Victor of Marseilles over the possession of the monastery of La Canourgue in the
Gévaudan. The agreement, at least in part, was reached out of fear of Aldebert’s
inﬂuence in the Roman curia, which held him “beloved above all others.”l '8 The
Chronicon breve also describes Aldebert’s juridical efforts in his own dioceses to recover
possessions unjustly stolen from the provost of Mende.I '9

Yet, if Aldebert used every opportunity to extend his lordship, his successors

would ﬁnd his achievements difﬁcult to sustain in the face of royal centralizing efforts

during the thirteenth century. The foundation for the royal challenge to the episcopal

 

”5 Chronicon, 132-133. “non tantum censura ecclesiastica, sed manu militari...” The account
makes it clear that neighboring bishops had tried to put on end to the to the depredations of the thieves, but
only Aldebert succeeded in forcing the inhabitants of the castle to submit.

”6 The Chronicon says that before Bishop Aldebert III walled the episcopal city (sometime
between between 1165 and 1170), the city was an “undefended village of the ﬁelds” (...Mimatensem
civitatem que villa campestris erat, murali ambitu et vallo ex omnia parte valavit...) and vulnerable to
attacks from hostile Basques, Aragonese, and Germans who had many times besieged the city. ( ...et ita
earn expugnabilem fecit quod multa milia perﬁde gentis Basculorum, Aragonorum, Theutonicorum ...).
Chronicon, 126.

”7 For the text of the letter see PL: 211: 317. Cited in GC, vol. 1: col 90.

”8 Chronicon. 131. “A. episcopus litem movit et, tam timore Romanae curie. cui pre omnibus
aliis carus habetur

”9 Chronicon, 130—131. “Vicarii domini de Doalan, quorum supra fecimus mentionem, villam de
Nermon, sub titulo et nomine domini sui, multis retro annis, Mimatensi prepositure abstulerant; sub quo
intervallo, multis ecclesie propositis jam defunctis, nullus eorum non minus tamen predictam possessionem
interpellaverat. Cujus interpellationem audiens, A. episcopus, cum adhuc propositi ofﬁcio fungeretur, litem
tandiu sopitam denuo suscitavit et rem in judicium dejiciens predictam villam ab injustis detentoribus evicit
eamque et ipse et prepositura perpetuo possidendam recuperarunt.” This incident took place before
Aldebert was elevated to the ofﬁce of bishop, when he was the provost of the church of Mende. There are
no surviving court records from this suit.

46

seigneurie lay in two events that deeply affected the pontiﬁcate of Aldebert’s successor,
Guillaume de Peyre (1187 — 1222): the mortgage of the viscounty of the Gévaudan by
the king of Aragon to the count of Toulouse in exchange for a large sum of money, and
the Albigensian wars that profoundly compromised the counts of Toulouse and the kings
of Aragon. As we shall see in the following chapter, it was in the context of the bishops’
struggle with the French crown to assert their secular and jurisdictional rights in their

diocese that the court book was created.

47

CHAPTER 2

The Secular Lordship of the Bishops of Mende

This chapter considers the emergence of the episcopal lordship in the Gévaudan
from the mid-twelfth century on. Episcopal seigneuries were quite common in southern
France; the bishops of Le Puy, Béziers, Lodéve, Rodez and the archbishop of Narbonne
exercised considerable temporal power.1 The Latin word dominium usually is rendered
as “lordship” in English, although its meanings and connotations often are vague. Robert
Fossier deﬁnes lordship as a customary form of social, political, and economic alignment
that established between its members a contract, generally tacit, of mutual aid and
protection in the absence of public power.2 Closely following Marc Bloch’s model,
Fossier describes the emergence of lordship around the mid-eleventh century as a
consequence of the slowing of Viking, Magyar, and Saracen pillage and its attendant
breakdown of central authority, a decline in slavery, and a demographic regrouping

which allowed for “domains of ﬁnancial exploitation.”3 In the eyes of Susan Reynolds,

 

' On episcopal secular lordship in northern France see Olivier Guyotjeannin, Episcopus et comes:
Aﬁirmation et déclin de la seigneurie e’piscopale au nord du royaume de France (Beauvais-Noyon, Xe -
debut Xllle siécle) (Paris, 1987). For southern France see Etienne Delcambre, “Le paréage du Puy,” BEC
92 (1931): 121-169, 285-344; Henri Vidal, Episcopatus et pouvoir épiscopale a Béziers a la veille de la
croisade Albigeoise, 1152-1209 (Montpellier, 1951); Ernest Martin, Histoire de la ville de Lodéve depuis
ses origines jusqu’a la Revolution, 2 vols. (Montpellier, 1900); Jean-Louis Biget, “Les évéques du
Roguergue et de l’albigeois (Xe-Xle siecles),” in La Catalogne et la France meridionale autour de l’an
mil. Colloque international C.N.R.S. Hugues Capet 987 - 1987, la France de l’an mil (Barcelona, 1991),
181-199; Jacqueline Caille, “Origine et développement de la seigneurie temporelle de l’évéque de
Narbonne (IXe — Xlle siecle),” in Narbonne, archéologie et histoire (45c Congrés de la Federation
Historique du Languedoc méditerranéen, Narbonne, 1972), vol. 2 (Montpellier, 1973), 9-36. The situation
in Le Puy was slightly different from elsewhere because the bishop obtained royal concession of comital
prerogatives in the tenth century.

2 Robert Fossier, “Seigneurs et seigneuries au Moyen Age,” in Seigneurs et Seigneuries au Moyen
Age. Actes du l 1 7e Congre’s National des Sociétés Savantes, Clermont-F errand, 1992 (Paris, 1993), 9.

3 Ibid., 13.

48

lordship often (although not always) accompanied a deﬁned jurisdiction that may have
been delegated by a superior authority. Although lawyers attempted to deﬁne theories
and terminology of lordship, in practice variations in individual circumstances and
inconsistencies existed, which often were highlighted by overlaps of jurisdictional
authority.4 Stressing familial lines of inheritance, Thomas Bisson argues that lordship of
the twelfth century was the exercise of power — deﬁned as coercion, command, or force -
that usually was justiﬁed by an inherited right to claim dominium. Therefore, for Bisson,
familial networks of inheritance legitimized lordship.5

From late antiquity, bishops assumed many public responsibilities of governance
in their cities. Invoking and probably taking advantage of the instability of the times,
bishops throughout France claimed numerous powers and rights, whether by royal grant
or simply by custom. For instance, with or without royal grants, bishops often built
fortiﬁcations to protect against the depredations of rival lords; drawing on Roman law,
they exercised jurisdictional authority in matters of canonical obedience, institution,
deprivation, and censure.6 In the Gévaudan, indications of the bishops’ exercise of
secular lordship in the early eleventh century are evidenced in the bishops’ role, shared
with the viscounts, in the organization of the peace. Furthermore, as we shall see, in the
mid-twelfth century the royal concession of the right of regalia transformed the bishops’

perception of their right to exercise judicial rights and control castles and fortiﬁed

 

’ Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities, 219-222.

5 Thomas N. Bisson, “Introduction,” in Cultures of Power: Lordship, Status, and Process in
Twelfth-Century Europe, ed. Thomas N. Bisson, (Philadelphia, 1995), 2.

6 Colin Morris, The Papal Monarchy: The Western Church from 1050 — 1250 (Oxford, 1991), 531,
citing Greg. IX, Drecretals, 1.31.16.

49

buildings, making them virtual sovereigns in their diocese.7 As if to underscore episcopal
pretensions to sovereignty, the earliest records of the curia episcopi in the Gévaudan
mirrored the royal model, by using agents such as the seneschal to administer episc0pal
lordship, an ofﬁcial to conduct juridical business, and a writing ofﬁce to record and
preserve episcopal written records.8

The great threat to episcopal secular lordship was the expansion of royal
machinery of justice. Through the end of the reign of Louis VII, members of the kings’
household and important barons, prelates, and knights rendered royal justice. Philip II,
backed by sizeable increases in royal revenues resulting from the acquisition of
Normandy, Maine, Anjou, and Touraine, created a formidable bureaucracy of baillis and
séne’schaux who administered royal justice and collected royal revenues. Beginning with
Louis IX, substantial augmentation of the judicial apparatus occurred. To address
complaints of extortions and injustices by royal baillis and to improve local
administration, Louis IX established the enquéte as a system of investigation, whereby
petitioners could appeal to representatives of the king for an investigation into, and
compensation for, misdeeds committed by royal agents.9 Enquéteurs brought royal
justice to ordinary people; their sessions were held in convenient locations, court
procedure was informal, petitioners could plead in the vernacular, women were allowed

to petition, and testimony by juveniles was permitted. The right of appeal to the king as

 

7 Jean Gaudemet, Jean-Francois Lemarignier, and Guillaume Mollat, Institutions ecclésiastiques,
vol. 3 of Histoire des institutions francaises au moyen age, eds. Ferdinand Lot and Robert Fawtier (Paris,
1962), 179-185.

81bid.,180-l81.

9 William Chester Jordan, Louis IX and the Challenge of the Crusade: A Study in Rulership
(Princeton, 1979), 51-64.

50

overlord had always existed in theory, although in practice, before the implementation of
the enquéteurs, royal ofﬁcials did not hear the majority of causes. With the advent of the
enquéteurs, appeals became more frequent and royal administration of justice spread,
along with a generally favorable view of King Louis, often at the expense of local lords
and ofﬁcials“)

Furthermore, important organizational changes had been made to the central royal
court. By the mid-1250s, a permanent royal court, Parlement, held regular sessions in
Paris. Although professional jurists disposed of routine cases and the peers attended to
important cases, Louis IX never allowed Parlement to operate impersonally and he
intervened and reversed decisions or arbitrated settlements. Therefore, although
Parlement did not function as a fully institutionalized and depersonalized apparatus of
government, the administration of the central judicature became more specialized and
systematic under Louis. 11 The machinery of central royal governance expanded
throughout the thirteenth century. For example, under Philip IV (1285—1314) receipt of
monies by the royal treasury was managed by a permanent body of professional clerks in
the chambre des comptes. More important, by the end of the Philip’s reign, the king’s
right to act as the ﬁnal and supreme judge in all cases -- except those of a purely
ecclesiastical nature -- and the corollary right to appeal to the king for justice were well

established.'2 Over the course of the thirteenth century, the number of appeals coming

 

'0 Ibid., 62.

” Ibid., 35, 37, and 142-144.

'2 For the administration of royal justice under Philip IV, see Strayer, The Reign of Philip the Fair,
191-236. This is not to say, of course, that the king wished his courts to hear every appeal. Not only were

the resources to accomplish this inadequate, but also such an arrangement would have offended medieval
sensibilities.

51

before the king’s court rose steadily. In part, this was because of a general increase in
juridical activities at all levels, but the increase in business of the royal courts outstripped
that of baronial and ecclesiastical courts. The activities of the enqué‘teurs cannot account
for of all of the increase; enthusiastic efforts of royal procurators, pursuing infractions
against royal rights, also contributed. Professionalization of the administrators of the
royal courts and their capacity effectively to enforce their orders, therefore, contributed to
the expansion of royal judicial business at the expense of baronial courts.l3

In the south, royal power was enhanced by the acquisition, as a consequence of
the settlement of the Albigensian wars in 1229, of territories that stretched from Gascony
to Provence.l4 Lands formerly held by southern bishops of the Count of Toulouse
became part of the royal domain. In compensation for their losses, bishops usually were
given new, less strategically important lands, after swearing their fealty to the king. As a
result, beginning in the thirteenth century the authority of royal government was felt in
the south, as it had not been before. As we shall see, the Albigensian wars and settlement

indirectly, but decisively, affected the bishop of Mende and his county.

 

The most important business of the king’s court included issues regarding ownership of property,
rights of justice, and proﬁtable privileges such as the right to impose tolls, to control markets, to
monopolize mills, and the like. Cases of this sort concerned the king’s court because of the need to protect
royal properties and rights of government, from which revenues were drawn, and to prevent his lords from
extending their own rights and possessions. Strayer, The Reign of Philip the Fair, 196-197.

'3 Ibid., 202-203.

'4 Strayer, The Albigensian Crusades, 136—142.

52

Guillaume de Peyre (1187 — 1222)

Bishop Guillaume de Peyre energetically expanded and defended the episcopal
domain at the expense of the lords of the Gévaudan.15 His episcopate began under
adverse conditions, however; following his election, the citizens and canons of the church
ejected him from the city of Mende, complaining of unjust exactions and bad customs
instituted by Guillaume and Aldebert. They demanded that the bishop govern the city
according to the rights and customs of his predecessor Guillaume (Bishop Guillaume III,
1123 — 1150) “of good memory.”'6 Evidently, Guillaume had continued the policies of
Aldebert, notably his expansion of the episcopal lordship, and these efforts were met with
resistance. Unlike his very aggressive predecessor, who overcame challenges from rivals
with diplomatic, military, juristic, and even supernatural weapons, Guillaume, at least in
the early days of his pontiﬁcate, seems to have been less able to assert his authority.

Most of what we know about Guillaume IV comes from two types of sources.
The ﬁrst comes from diplomatic evidence arising from the vicissitudes of the Albigensian
wars. The second comes from various materials such as witness testimony and treatises

prepared in connection with an enqué‘te arising from a suit brought before Parlement of

 

’5 For the episcopate of Guillaume de Peyre see GC, vol. 1., 90-91; Etudes historiques, 363-368
and 205-220; Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy, 43-45; Pass, Source Studies, 196—197. I borrow the
expression “episcopal domain” from Porée (le domaine episcopal).

'6 This incident is described only in the continuation of Aldebert’s Chronicon, written in 1275 and
preserved in an inventory of titles of the bishop ADL G 8 fol 509v and as a fourteenth-century copy (ADL
G 274). The continuation is printed in Les miracles, Brunel, ed., 134-138. “In primis, statutum est quod
prefatus episcopus civitatem Mimatensem et populum pleno jure dominii, secundum jura et consuetudines
Guilhelmi bone memorie, predecessoris sui, teneat et regat; injustas autem exactiones et pravas
consuetudines que ab isto Guilhelmo episcopo et ab Aldeberto episcopo antecessore suo usurpate fuerant
penitus resecans ...” Chronicon, 134. A reference to the complaints of the inhabitants of Mende against
Guillaume de Peyre exsits in a charter issued 81 years later by then Bishop Etienne (1274-1278) that
conﬁrmed the concessions granted by Guillaume de Peyre against “injustas autem exactionses et pravas
consuetudines.” Porée, Le consulat, v-vii, 50.

53

King Louis D( of France by the bishop of Mende some forty-seven years after
Guillaume’s episcopate ended. Events leading to the enquéte will occupy our attention at
length below, but in brief, the suit sought to end interference with the bishop’s
jurisdictional rights and privileges by the royal seneschal of Beaucaire.l7 Testimony in
support of the bishop was taken in Florac and in Mende in March 1270, and testimony
supporting the royal prerogatives in the Gévaudan was heard in April 1271, February and
October 1272, and May 1277 in Anduze.18 Evidence from this testimony is augmented
by a treatise known as Mémoire relatifau pare’age, which was composed around 1301 or
1302 by the then bishop of Mende, Guillaume Durand the Younger (1296-1328).19 The
Mémoire argues on behalf of episcopal rights in the Gévaudan, drawing on the testimony
from the enquéte of the 12705. The second source of information for Guillaume de Peyre
comes from diplomatic evidence arising from the vicissitudes of the Albigensian wars.

Memory of Guillaume de Peyre ﬁgured prominently in the testimony of many of
the witnesses, of whom some testiﬁed that they recalled seeing him in their youth
exercising the duties of lordship. Seven of the ﬁfty-two witnesses mentioned de Peyre by
name, having known him personally. Of these seven, ﬁve describe Guillaume in a

military setting, asserting his rights of lordship, challenging baronial abuses, and

 

'7 The suit is analyzed in Etudes historiques, 281-331. For the interaction between the seneschals
of Beaucaire, the barons of the Gévaudan, and the bishops of Mende see Michel, L’administration royale,
146-153; 175-182; 326-277 and 454-458.

'8 The testimony is found in AN 1 894, no. 9. Partial records of the episcopal witnesses are found
in ADL G 735 and for the king in ADL G 736. Porée has summarized and calendared the testimony in
Etudes historiques, 302 -13. Some testimony has been published in Michel, L’administration royale, 456-
458. A second inquiry into the dispute between the bishop and the king was carried out from 1281 to 1291,
but no records of that enquéte survive. Etudes historiques, 289-290 and 321-322.

’9 The Mémoire of Guillaume Durand the Younger is preserved in ADL G 730 and printed in

Mémoire relatifau Paréage de I 307 conclu entre l ’e’veque Guillaume Durand II et le roi Philippe—le-Bel
(hereafter Mémoire), ed. Abel Maisonobe, 2 vols., (Mende, 1896).

54

restoring order in the Gévaudan.20 For instance, Raymond de Serres, a priest from St.
Germain de Calberte, recalled that he had ridden with a cavalcade led by Guillaume.2|
The bishop led the pasiarii, or peace militia,22 which he used to enforce the peace, backed
by the sworn oaths to serve the peace of many of the barons, castellans, and nobles of the
Ge’vaudan.23 Naturally, peace can be an expensive business, and by reason of
Guillaume’s lordship (ratione majoris dominationis) he could levy a countywide peace
tax, or compsensum pacis, to meet his expenses,24 without permission from an assembly
of barons.25 Guillaume Durand cites the testimony of the lord of Altobraco to describe
how the tax was collected. In the parishes, the compensum was collected under the
supervision of laymen and clerics and brought to Mende, where it was placed in a chest.

The bishop held a key to the chest and a baron held another.26

 

2° Etudes historiques, 302-330, nos. 6, 16, 25, 26, 42, 46, 49.

2' Mémoire, 313-314. “Quod G. de Petra Episcopus Mimatenesis, tanquam major dominus,
faceret cum Baronibus et aliis hominibus Gaballitini cavalcatas contra dampnum dantes et injuriam aliis
facientes, probatur per sextum testem Episcopi domicellum. . .”

22 Etudes historiques, 303-304, no. 16. On the pasiarii in southwestern France see Bisson,
Assemblies and Representation, 1 14-1 15, 121, and 125.

2" Mémoire, 220-223. “Quod, tempore domini G. de Petra Episcopi, jurarent Barones, Castellani,
et nobiles Gaballitani se servaturos pacem. . .” The lord of Altobraco testiﬁed that . .dominus Guigo
Mesquini, dominus Astorgius de Petra, et alii Barones Gaballitani, de quibus non recordatur, juraverunt
pacem inmanu predicti domini G. Episcopi..”

2" Mémoire, 224 — 227. “Quod Episcopi Mimatenses, tanquam majores domini Gaballitani,
consueverint, ratione majoris dominationis et ratione sup. ..[text breaks off] in conservatione pacis
faciendorum, facere levari compensum per totum Gaballitanum, probatur per secundum testum...” Ibid.,
224.

25 Bisson, Assemblies and Representation, 1 15.

26 Mémoire, 225. . .interrogatus in quo casu, respondit inter cetera, quod in eo quod faciebat
levari compensum per Gaballitanum, preponendo cappellanos parochiarum cum uno layco in qualibet
parochia ad levandum dictum compensum. Et vidit ipsum levari in parochia Sancti Salvatoris de Petra et
potari M[imata]m et reponi in quadam archa, cujus quidem archa Episcopus tenebat unam clavem, et
quidam Barones Gaballitani tenebant aliam; et audivit dici quod idem ﬁebat in aliis parochiis. Et dixit se
audivisse quod de predicto compenso faciebat dictus Episcopus suas cavalcatas pro pace, sive Gaballitano,
sive extra.” The bishops of Mende continued to levy the “penny of St. Privat” (Denarius Beati Privati) into

55

Guillaume seized every opportunity to expand the episcopal domain. The practice
of partible inheritance, which divided inheritance equally among heirs, forced heritors to
share revenues from a single estate, which often left them with reduced resources.27 In
fact, few castles in the Gévaudan had one lord. Most were held as co-seigneuries.

During the episcopate of Guillaume, this included many of the most important lordships
in the Gévaudan: Garde-Guérin, Chirac, Nogaret, Montrodat, Cénaret, St-Chély-du-Tarn,
Randon, Ribennes, Servette, Montmerle, St-Julien-d’Apron.28 Over time, the practice of
naming multiple heirs tended to impoverish baronial families, while the episcopal domain
continued to expand, little affected by the rhythms of life and death except when testators
left all or part of their wealth to the church. Guillaume purchased the portions of estates
from barons impoverished, thereby considerably expanding the episcopal domain. For
instance, in 1202 when Guillaume de Merle needed money to travel to Jerusalem, he gave
the portion of his rights in the castles at Servette and Montmerle to God, St. Privat, and

Guillaume de Peyre for the sum of 2,000 sous pougeois provided by the bishop.29

 

the fourteenth century in recognition of the inhabitants’ submission (ratione servitius quam suberant
homines beato Privato) to the church of St. Privat and the overlordship of the bishop (ratione majoris
dominii et altioris potestatis ab ipsis Episcopis levabatur). Mémoire, 213.

27 On the practice of partible inheritance in southern France generally, and the Gévaudan
particularly, see Etudes historiques, 365. Paul Ourliac and Jean-Louis Gazzinga, Histoire du droit privée
francais de I ’an mill au code civil (Paris, 1985), 118-1 19, 326, and 329 describe southern France as the
land of partible inheritance and coseigneuries. Having analyzed notarial records of the Gévaudan from the
fourteenth and ﬁfteenth centuries (later than the period currently under consideration), Philippe Maurice
provides an alternative view. He found that only about 19 percent of wills named more than one primary
heir. Maurice, La famille, 125-126.

28 Etudes historiques, 365, n. 2.

29 The transaction is recorded in ADL G 575 and described brieﬂy in Etudes historiques, 365-366.
The document essentially is a will in which Guillaume de Merle named the bishop as his heir. The
testament notes that Guillaume received 2,000 sous from the bishop, in warrant against the debt, in
exchange for the rights and goods that he possessed. As for monetary values, Maurice provides the
following equivalencies for the fourteenth-century Gévaudan: each pound was equivalent to 20 sous, each
sous was equivalent to 12 deniers (or pennies), the demier was comprised of two iboles, and the ibole was

56

Likewise, in 1207, Guigon and Garin de Chateauneuf mortgaged their parts in the castle
of Randon in exchange for 3,000 sous pougeois from the bishop.30 The bishop enjoyed
Guigon and Garin’s portions of the revenues from the castle of Randon while the “loan”
went unpaid. In fact, there is no evidence that these debts were repaid, so that they
amount to virtual alienations of property to the beneﬁt of the episcopal domain.
Although Aldebert III and Guillaume de Peyre exercised considerable secular
lordship in the region, we must remember that since 1172 nominal rights of lordship
rested with the crown of Aragon.31 However, the foundation of Guillaume’s secular
lordship in the Gévaudan was greatly strengthened vis-a-vis the Aragonese by
developments during the Albigensian wars. In 1204 the king of Aragon, Peter 11 (1196-
1213) pledged the county of the Gévaudan to the count of Toulouse Raymond VI in

exchange for 3,000 silver marks, a considerable sum.32 Aragon did not give up the claim

 

equivalent to two pites. The designation sous pougeois (or, of Puy) is in contrast to sous tournois.
Maurice, La famille, annexe iv, 454.

3° ADL G 146, fol. 2, printed in Etudes historiques, 487-488. “.. .ego Guido de Castronovo,
renuncians in hoc facto exceptioni non numerate pecunie et omni canonico vel legitimo auxilio, suppono
tibi pignori prenominato Guillelmo Mimatensi episcopo eas partes et ea jura universa quecumque ego aut
Garinus de Castronovo habemus in castro de Randone et in toto mandamento vel pertinentiis ipsius castri
pro tria milia solidis pogensium quos a te metuo accepo atque earn pecuniam tibi ea causa mutui per
stipulationem promito.” The transaction is found in a register that contains copies of diverse oaths sworn
by lords of the Gévaudan to the bishop.

3’ Recall that in 11 12, the viscounty of the Gévaudan passed to the hands of the count of
Barcelona Raymond Berenger III, by his marriage to Douce, the sole heir of the last viscount of the
Gévaudan. When Raymond Berenger III’s granddaughter died without issue, the county passed to his
uncle, Alfonso II, the king of Aragon.

32 The pledge also included the county of Millau. Peter 11 was strapped for cash due to his pending
marriage to Marie de Montpellier and his upcoming trip to Rome for his coronation. He had agreed to
submit to the pope and to pay tribute of 250 mazmudins each year. Etudes historiques, 201 . The text of
Peter’s pledge is printed in HGL, vol. 8, 518-522. Peter 11 of Aragon had allied with Raymond VI of
Toulouse as part of a strategy to expand Catalonian-Aragonese inﬂuence in Languedoc. Raymond had
married Peter’s sister and later Peter’s daughter married Raymond VII. Aragonese ambitions in southern
France did not fare well in the face of the Albigensian wars and Peter was killed at Muret in 1213. On
Peter II’s ambitions in Occitania see Bisson, The Medieval Crown of Aragon, 38-39 and Strayer, The
Albigensian Crusades, 88-95.

57

 

to the viscounty itself; the Count of Toulouse did not assume the title viscount of the
Gévaudan, but he gained control of the castles possessed by the king of Aragon within
the viscounty of Grezes, giving Raymond de facto power in‘the county.33 The long-term
effect of the pledge was to exacerbate confusion as to who possessed the right to govern
the county. In the short term, the royal baillis of Aragon were replaced by baillis of the
count of Toulouse. However, the situation changed dramatically in 1209 when events,
which could not have been foreseen in 1204, came together to bring the county into the
hands of Guillaume de Peyre.

An army of crusaders left Lyon on 24 June 1209, traveled down the Rhone, into
the valley of Valence, and arrived at Montpellier by 20 July.34 On 22 July, the army
began the siege of Béziers that resulted in the infamous massacre there. Following the
terror at Béziers came the capitulation of Carcassonne. Fear of the crusading army,
spreading throughout Languedoc, penetrated the Gévaudan. Anticipating that Raymond
of Toulouse would not be able to protect him from the advancing crusading army, the
king of Aragon rescinded his pledge to Raymond VI and placed the county under the
protection of the bishop.35 Evidence that in 1209 the barons of the Gévaudan also had
misgivings about their ties to Raymond V1 is found in the testimony from an enque‘te into

the claims of the crown of Aragon to the Gévaudan that was begun in 1262.36 To cite one

 

3" Pass, Source Studies, 24-25.

3" Strayer, The Albigensian Crusades, 60-72.

35 Etudes historiques, 206-208.

36 There were two enquétes into Aragonese claims to the Gévaudan, in 1262 and 1272. The claim
was not upheld in either process. The records of both processes are preserved in ADL G 457 and ADL G

736 and are printed in Etudes historiques, 233-266. They offer an interesting view into the period of
Aragonese domination in the Gévaudan from 1172 to 1258.

58

 

deposition, typical of many, Bertrand de Rocherousse testiﬁed that, at the time that the
crusaders came to Béziers, Bernard de Sala, a knight, held the castle of Grezes of the
count of Toulouse. The men of the castle, out of fear of the crusaders, placed the castle
under the protection of the bishop of Mende, saving the rights of the king of Aragon.37 In
1211, the crusade was declared against the count of Toulouse. Peter H, alarmed by the
growing power of Simon de Montfort in southern France at the expense of his own
interests in the region, allied with Raymond. However, in 1213 Simon’s forces defeated
the two allies at Muret, where Peter H met his death. The following year, the church
conﬁscated Peter’s lands in the Gévaudan, which the bishop had been administering in
the king’s name, as the estate of a deceased heretic. On 6 June 1217, a bull issued by
Pope Honorius III declared that the county of the Gévaudan was placed under the
protection of the bishop, who had been overseeing this territory since 1214.38

What followed was a confusing and prolonged struggle involving the bishop,
Peter II’s successor James I, and the count of Toulouse over competing claims to the
Gévaudan.39 At times, the dispute erupted into military conﬂict. For instance, in 1219,

Guillaume de Peyre, at the head of a baronial army and after a fourteen-day siege, took

 

37 Etudes historiques, 237. . .quando Crucesignati venerunt apud Biterrum, eo tempore [quo]
Bemardus de Sala, miles, teneret dictum castrum de Gredona pro dicto comite Tholosano, homines dicti
castri de Gredona, timentes dictos Crucesignatos, abstulerunt dictum castrum dicto Bernardo de Sala et
tradiderunt eum ad custodienum domino episcopo Mimatensi qui cognominabatur de Petra, salvo jure regis
Aragonum in omnibus.” Of nine witnesses, six testiﬁed that baronial fears of the crusading army (propter
timorem Crucesignatorum) caused them to place their possessions into the hands of the bishop for
protection. In 1209, the count of Toulouse was still pursuing a policy of appeasement with the church and
the rupture between the two had not yet occurred. Baronial apprehensions no doubt arose from their
suspicions, shared by Innocent III, his legate Milo, and Amaud Amaury, that Raymond’s promise in 1209
to aid the goals of the crusade was sincere and that it was only a matter of time before the crusade turned
toward his lands. Strayer, The Albigensian Crusades, 57-60.

38 Etudes historiques, 208-209. The bull also conferred the county of Millau to the bishop’s care.
Honorius’s bull is printed in RH, vol. 19, 633.

39 The ebb and ﬂow of the conﬂict is described in Etudes historiques, 209-227.

59

back the city of Marvéjols from the bailli of the king of Aragon, one Guillaume de St.
Vincent, who had taken the city from the bailli of the bishop a few months earlier.”0
Astorge de Peyre, a knight and nephew of the bishop, and Bernard de Cénaret, a knight,
testiﬁed at the enqué‘te of 1270 that they had been with Guillaume ﬁfty years earlier when
he led the army in the siege of Marvéjols.“ Guillaume had the support of most of the
important barons of the Gévaudan, the Toumel, Florac, and Randon, who a few months
earlier had sworn in the Cathedral of Mende that they recognized the lordship.42
Guillaume took Marvéjols and later the heavily fortiﬁed castrum of Grezes, about 10 km.
west of Mende. Ultimately, Honorius III intervened in this phase of the dispute between
the bishop and the king of Aragon, ordering the bishop to pay restitution to the king and
to return both disputed castro to J ames.43

Some time between 1221 and 1223, old age forced Guillaume to resign his
episcopal ofﬁce to the papal legate; he did so with episcopal secular authority clearly in

evidence.44 During his pontiﬁcate, he had expanded seigniorial rights of the bishop well

 

’0 Mémoire, 313-317 and Etudes historiques, 212-214. A witness reported that “Guillemus de
Petra, episcopus Mimatensis, cum magna milicia et baronibus Gaballitani obsedit Marologium et
expugnavit dictum castrum Marologii cum machinis et castris de lignis per quatuordecim dies et postea
recissit.” Etudes historiques, 214.

4' Etudes historiques, 302 and 307.

’2 Etudes historiques, 213. Guillaume’s nephew, the archdeacon of the cathedral of Mende,
actually received the oath in the absence of the bishop. “Dixit quod cum dictus dominus Guillelmus de
Petra fuisset ultra mare et dimisisset dominum G. vicarium loco sui, archidiaconum Mimatensem, nepotem
suum, vidit quod barones Gaballitani, videlicet dominus Odilo Garini, dominus Raymundus de Andusia,
dominus Guigo, pater domini Randonis, dominus Garinus Apchier, dominus A. de Petra, coram altari beate
Marie, producto capite Beati Privati et textu Evangeliorum, juraverunt dicti barones dicto vicario
recognoscentes se tenere regaliam Gaballitani pro eo tanquam pro vice dicti episcopi.” The oaths of the
three barons are preserved in ADL G 92, 118, 130.

’3 Etudes historiques, 215-216.
4" Regesta Honorii Papae III, ed. Petrus Pressuti, vol. 2 (Rome, 1895) no. 3450. “Episcopo

Portuensi Apost. Sedis Legato. Ut cessionem G. episcopi Mimatensis, si eum regimini ecclesiae propter
suam senectutem minus sufﬁcientem invenerit, recipiat, et ecclesiam ipsam per electionem provideri

60

beyond the range of Aldebert. Like his predecessor, Guillaume continued the practice of
minting money and maintaining safety on and repair of public roads.45 He exercised
appellate jurisdiction over the entire county; he levied a tax over the county that was paid
in recognition of his overlordship; he had enhanced the episcopal domain at the expense
of many of his barons, his rivals for lordship in the county.46 When Guillaume rode out,
leading the cavalcade in a military offensive against the king of Aragon, carrying before
him the scepter of St. Privat, he presented such an imposing ﬁgure that more than ﬁfty

years later men still remembered his aggressive defense of his rights."7 Although he

 

faciat.” The year of Guillaume’s retirement is uncertain. Honorius III ordered the papal legate to receive
Guillaume’s resignation in 1221 according to Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy, 44, n. 49; in HGL, vol. 4, 392,
GC, vol. I, 90 his resignation is dated to 1223; Gams, Series episcoporum, 576 gives the start of Etienne’s
episcopate as 1223; Pass, Source Studies, argues for the 1223 date.

’5 Mémoire, 254. “Quod Episcopi Gaballitani, ratione majoris dominii et tanquam majores domini
Gaballitani, cognoverit et cognoscere consueverint et punire de furtiis, violenciis, depredationibus,
maleﬁciis et raubariis in stratis publicis Gaballitani commissis et perpetratis...” Mémoire, 306. “Quod
Episcopi, ratione majoris dominationis fecerint et sint in possessione seu quasi possessione faciendi
reparare stratus in Gabllitano, quum reparatione indigebant. . .” Mémoire, 307. “Quod Episcopus
Mimatensis, ratione majoris dominii et regalium, monetam propriam cuderit et cudere possit et consueverit,
probatur per compositionem cum beato Ludovico factum super Vice comitatu Gredone, que in judicio est
producta. ...Prohibuerit et prohibere consueverit cursum Turonenesium Nemausensium et alterius monete
regie per Gaballitanum. .

’6 Mémoire, 212-213. “Quod Episcopi Gaballitanorum consueverunt, singulis annis, levare et
percipere, ab omnibus hominibus Gaballitanis, nobilibus et ignobilibus, unum denarium, qui Denarius
Beati Privati appellabatur, et ratione majoris dominii et altioris potestatis ab ipsis Episcopis levabatur.”

For the oaths of homage sworn by the barons, see ADL G 70, 74, 81, 86, 91, 92, 104, 105, 117,
118, l 19, 130, 146, 147, 149, 463. Oaths to Aldebert III and Guillaume de Peyre speciﬁcally are found in
ADL G 104, 1 17, and 146 and are printed in Les plus anciennes chartes ed. Clovis Brunel, nos. 26, 46, 49,
68, 69, 70 and “Documents linguistiques de Gévaudan,” ed. Clovis Brunel, nos., iiii, vi, vii, 2, 3, 10, 12, 13,
14, 26, 70. The oaths are analyzed extensively in Pass, Source Studies, 194-252 and 261-270 and LPB, x.

Evidence for the bishop’s jurisdiction in this period is indirect. The oaths to Guillaume sworn by
many lords offer evidence of his expanded rights, including the right to render justice if the lord was
unwilling or unable to do so. In fact, the lords often swore to render their castle to the bishop to aid him in
distraining enemies. Pass, Source Studies, 267-268 cites Documents linguistiques, 26 — 27. “Atressi els
chastels que li geisa tenria segon los davan digs covinens nos deu entrametre de clams 0 de justicias, fora
batallas de tracio, se 11 men home fosson chavaller o altre, s’encolpavo, et en non o menava aisi con deuria
quar l’encolpamen de mos homes devo venir devan me. . .”

47 Mémoire, 335. “Quod, ratione et in signum regalium et majoris dominationis, Episcopus habeat
et ah antiquo habuerit ceptrum regale, quod in signum regalium stat et stare consuevit in altare beati Privati
et in ymaginis beati Privati et in solempnitatibus ante caput beati Privati, coram Episcopo portari
consuevit. . .”

61

faced some challenges to his authority -- the king of Aragon still controlled the viscounty
of Grézes -- there can have been little doubt in anyone’s mind that Guillaume controlled
the secular lordship in his diocese.48 It was left to his successor to complete the
consolidation of seigniorial rights in the Gévaudan at the expense of the king of Aragon;
Guillaume had laid the foundation for lordship so successfully that this was accomplished
easily within four years of his retirement. Indeed, the promise of the Golden Bull, which
appeared to grant the bishop sovereignty in the Gévaudan, seemed to be realized. As
Guillaume Durand the Younger noted, no French overlordship was felt in the Gévaudan
in this time.49 Yet, as we shall see, Guillaume’s successor, Etienne de Brioude, was
unable to maintain the achievement of Guillaume in the face of the aggressive expansion

of the king of France.

Etienne de Brioude (1222 — I 24 7)

The pontiﬁcate of Etienne de Brioude witnessed both the apogee and the

beginnings of the decline in the episcopal secular lordship.50 Paradoxically, both

 

’8 In 1222 the viscounty of Grezes, which was the area still held by the king of Aragon, was
limited to the western portion of the Gévaudan, centering on the castle of Grezes and bounded by the towns
of Marvéjols, La Canourgue, and the castle of Chanac. In 1217 and 1218, a survey of the king of Aragon’s
possessions in the Gévaudan was prepared. It survives as ADL G 455 and is printed in Etudes historiques,
228-232.

’9 Mémoire, 411. “Quod toto tempore predicti G[uillaume] de Petra Episcopi non fuit aliquis
Gallicus dominationis causa in Gaballitano.”

5° The important sources for the pontiﬁcate of Etienne de Brioude are GC, vol. I, 90-92 and vol. I,
Instrumenta 25; Etudes historiques, 368, 216—227, 410-432; Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy, 45-49; Michel,
L'Administration royale, 117, 146-153, 162—165 and 175-181; Pass, Source Studies, 253 passim. Although
written in the early fourteenth century, the Mémoire of Guillaume Durand the Younger, a treatise written as
a defense of episcopal rights in the Gévaudan, also is a source for the thirteenth century bishops Guillaume
de Peyre, Etienne de Brioude, and Odilon de Mercoeur.

62

developments were set in motion by relative newcomers to the affairs of this
marginalized region: the king of France and the papacy. In fact, Etienne himself was an
outsider, not elected “from the bosom of the church of Mende” (assumptus non fuerat de
gremio ecclesiae Mimatensis);51 from Brioude, he was not a member of the local nobility
that had long dominated the episcopate in the Gévaudan.52 The cartulary of the
archbishop of Bourges records the election of Etienne, magister scholarum, by the
chapter of the church of Mende in 1223 and his consecration in Rome.53 The cathedral
chapter held an election by order of the papal legate who had received Guillaume de
Peyre’s resignation, and Etienne seems to have owed his election, at least in part, to his
learning.54 However, his election was not without complications. Innocent 111 had issued
a dispensation to Etienne to excuse his illegitimate birth at the time of his ordination to
the priesthood, with the stipulation that he not be elevated to the episcopate without
further papal permission. Therefore, his election as bishop required a special

dispensation from Honorius 111. Furthermore, since the archbishop of Bourges, Simon,

 

5' GC, vol. I, Instrumenta 25. Brioude is located in the volcanic dome region, about 50 km. north
of Mende

52 The election of Etienne de Brioude broke the virtual monopoly that local noble families held on
the episcopal ofﬁce. Never again would the bishop of Mende come from either of the two most powerful
noble families, the Peyre and the Toumel, with the exception of Aldebert de Peyre who was bishop for two
years from 1441-1443. Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy, 46, n. 57. The shift is indicative of the growing
independence of the episcopate from baronial power and control.

53 Ibid.

5’ Regesta Honorii Papae 111, vol. 2, no. 3540. “Episcopo Portuensi Apost. Sedis Legato. Ut
cessionem G. Episcopi Mimatensis, si eum regimini ecclesiae propter suam senectutem minus sufﬁcientem
invenerit, recipiat, et ecclesiam ipsam per electionem provideri faciat. Nearly every document produced
concerning Etienne’s election and consecration describes him as a “magister scholarum.”

63

had not received the pallium, Etienne was consecrated in Rome by the bishop of
Chartres.5'5

Therefore, two points concerning Etienne’s election-are signiﬁcant. The ﬁrst,
Etienne was not of the Gévaudan’s nobility and he did not bring to his pontiﬁcate the
ready-made networks of alliance that characterized the pontiﬁcates of his predecessors.
Second, Etienne’s election involved the papacy in ways unprecedented in the Gévaudan.
The papal legate who had received Guillaume’s resignation ordered the cathedral chapter
to hold an election. Guillaume was the ﬁrst bishop of Mende consecrated in Rome and
his election was regularized by curial dispensation.56 Etienne would face further
intrusion in his diocese by no fewer than ﬁve papal legates, armed with the full authority
of the pope, who were sent to combat heresy.57 He was also the ﬁrst bishop to experience

the papacy’s growing tendency to tap diocesan revenues in order to settle debts that the

 

55 “...cum quo a vitio natalium dispensatum fuit ab I[nnocent III] Papa, quem ipsi, recepta

[Willelmi] eorum episcopi cessione, in ipsius locum elegerunt, habita prius licentia a [Conrado] Portuensi
episcopo tunc Apost. Sedis Legato ut per electionem canonicam comm ecclesiae de pastore providerent,
obedientiam et reverentiam tamquam patri et pastori impendant.” Regesta Honorii III, vol. 2, no. 4841.
“Concedit ei ut, non obstante quod episcopatui Mimatensi sponte cesserit, cum episcopi diocensani licentia
possit cum pontiﬁcalibus insigniis divina ofﬁcia celebrare.” Ibid., vol. 2, no. 4851. On the involvement of
the bishop of Chartres with the consecration, see GC, vol. I. Instrumenta 25 and Hierarchia catholica medii
et recentioris aevi, vol. 1, ed. Conrad Eubel (Patavii, 1913), 357, n. 2.

56 Upon his election, Etienne received that special exemption from Honorius III. Regesta Honorii
Papae III, vol. 2, no. 4841. “Ut S[tephano], olim magistro scolarum deinde sacristae Brivatensi, et cum
quo a vitio natalium dispensatum fuit ab I[nnocentio Ill] Papa, quem ipsi, recepta [Willelmi] eorum
episcopi cessione, in ipsius locum elegerunt, habita prius licentia a [Conrado] Portuensi episcopo tune
Apost. Sedis Legato ut per electionem canonicam comm ecclesiae de pastore providerent, obedientiam et
reverentiam tamquam patri et pastori impendant.” Regesta Honorii Papae III, vol. 2, no. 4851,
“W[illelmo] episcopo quondam Mimatensi. Concedit ei ut, non obstante quod episcopatui Mimatensi
sponte cesserit, cum episcopi dioecesani licentia possit cum pontiﬁcalibus insigniis divina ofﬁcia
celebrare.”

57 The Gévaudan produced no evidence of heretical activity, although as we have seen, the
Albigensian wars, and their settlement did play a signiﬁcant role in the political life of the diocese. The
papal registers of Leo IX and Innocent IV record the sending of papal legates across the region. Those
papal commendations that speciﬁcally mention Mende are found at Les Registres de Gregoire IX, ed.
Lucien Auvrey, vol. 1 (Paris: Albert Fontemoing, 1896), no. 1 172, 1474, 1477; Les Registres de Grégoire
IX, ed., Lucien Auvrey, vol. 2 (Paris: Albert Fontemoing, 1907), no.43 l 7; Les Registres d ’Innocent IV, ed.
Elie Berger, vol. 1 (Paris: Ernest Thorn, 1884), no. 31.

64

dioceses themselves had not incurred. From 1232 to 1239, Gregory IX made three
requests for contributions from southern French dioceses, including Mende, to pay for the
considerable debts incurred by Simon de Montfort.58

If papal interference in diocesan affairs increased during this period, it was not
always to the detriment of episcopal authority. Recall that in 1204 Peter of Aragon had
mortgaged the viscounties of Millau and Gévaudan to the Count of Toulouse. In 1214,
however, Innocent HI gave the viscounty of the Gévaudan to the bishop of Mende as part
of the estate of a deceased heretic after Peter was killed at Muret ﬁghting against Simon
de Montfort. The situation was confused further in 1217, when Honorius III ordered the
bishop to restore the viscounty of Millau to Aragon. When Etienne was elected in 1223,
the Aragonese still had control of the castrum of Grezes although most of the Gévaudan
was under the control of the bishop. It was left to Etienne to consolidate episcopal
authority.

In consolidating episcopal lordship, the bishop was, once again, helped by the
geographic conditions of the Gévaudan; the region no doubt was too distant, poor, and
mountainous to draw much attention from James I of Aragon. Although Aragon
attempted to assert a claim to the Gévaudan by appealing to Honorius, in 1225 the pope
handed the dispute to his legate, who then appointed two councilors, Hugues Carbonnier,
a knight, and Foulques of Toumel, the master of the Aragonese Hospitallers, to

investigate the matter.59 By a charter issued in Tortosa in Catalonia dated October 1225,

 

53 Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy, 46, n. 60. In two instances, there is no record of the amount
requested. In the third, the church of Mende was asked to pay 80 pounds tournois out of 10,000 demanded
from the southern dioceses, certainly a moderate amount.

59 Etudes historiques, 220; RH, vol. 19, 776.

65

James surrendered the castle of Grézes and all lands in the Gévaudan claimed by the king
to Etienne and the church of Mende, declaring that he was a vassal of the bishop.60 The
following year, backed by the “crusade” called by the papal legate to rid Mende and four
other dioceses of Toulousan inﬂuence, Etienne led a military action against the remnants
of Raymond VII’s forces and captured the castle of Grézes.“ The bishop was now, in
effect, the lord of the Gévaudan, having reversed the earlier situation: the former
overlord of the viscounty was now his vassal and the Count of Toulouse had been driven
from the county, all with endorsement from the papacy.

In 1226, Etienne had realized the zenith of episcopal power, but his vulnerability
to Capetian expansion was soon exposed. A few months after the expulsion of
Toulousan forces from the Gévaudan, Louis VIII declared that the rights of the Count of
Toulouse in the county were still valid and, as successor to the count, Louis claimed
those rights.62 In 1227, Louis named Be’raud de Mercoeur castellan of the castle of

Grézes; the bishop received 3,000 sous tournois in compensation for his expenses.63 This

 

6° Etudes historiques, 220-223 and 367. The charter (ADL o 70) is printed in Etudes historiques,
221 n.2. In spite of James’s charter, the Aragonese claim to the Gévaudan was not quite dead. In 1258, the
Treaty of Corbeil conﬁrmed Capetian claims over the Aragonese in the Gévaudan, although the Aragonese
revived their claim in 1262 and Louis IX launched an enquéte to investigate the matter.

6' Ibid., and GC, vol. I, Instrumenta: 25. Many witnesses, including the former castellan of
Grezes, one Pierre Bonnaud, vividly recalled the capture of Grezes some thirty-six years earlier. Pierre
testiﬁed that while he and the bishop were negotiating the fate of the castle, episcopal forces sneaked
around to the rear of the nearly impenetrable castle, stormed, and captured it. Shear cliffs protect Grezes
and a surprise attack while the enemy’s attention was diverted may have been one of the few ways to
actually take this forbidding castrum. Etudes historiques, 249-252.

62 Etudes historiques, 223-225; HGL vol. 4, 137 and vol. 8, 860; Michel, L’Administration royale,
117-118, 146-153, 162-165, and 175-181.

63 For the institution of Bérnaud de Mercoeur see LTC, vol. 2, 1 17, no. 1916. The payment is
mentioned in the testimony of Aymoin de Montrodat, knight, a witness in a 1262 enquéte, printed in Etudes
historiques, 243, no. 42. Marcellin Boudet claims that Bérnaud de Mercoeur was the brother of Odilon de
Mercoeur, the bishop of Mende following Etienne, although direct evidence for this is lacking. Marcellin
Boudet, Les Demiers Mercoeurs (Paris, 1906), 40-41.

66

arrangement, which left the king as overlord in the county, was conﬁrmed in 1229 by the
treaty of Paris, in which Raymond of Toulouse renounced all his claims in the
Gévaudan.64 In 1243, the bishop of Clermont, Hugues de la Tour succeeded Bémaud de
Mercoeur as the viscount of Grezes, after which the viscounty was administered by the
royal bailli in Marvéjols under the supervision of the seneschal of Beaucaire.65 There
seemed to be little the bishop could do to stop royal intrusion. In fact, quite to the
contrary, as an outsider, the bishop had few baronial allies upon whom he could call; and
when faced with challenges from the baron of Toumel, Odilon Guérin, he was forced to
call on the French king for help in maintaining the peace in his diocese.

Etienne’s appeal for help went out in two stages.66 First, in September 1227, he
appealed, with the consent of his cathedral chapter, to Rossel de Chalons, constable of
Louis D(, for aid. In exchange, Etienne offered half the proceeds from the compensum
pacis that came from the region.67 Then, in 1233, Etienne, accompanied by the provost
of the chapter, Armand de Peyre, traveled to Nimes and took the drastic step of appealing

to the seneschal of Beaucaire, Pelen'n Latinier, for military assistance in maintaining the

 

64 HGL, vol. 6, 634 and 637, no. 2 and vol. 8, 883-893.
65 Etudes historiques, 225.

66 Royal intervention in the Gévaudan is discussed in Michel, L'adminsitration royale, 116-126,
146-153, 162-165, 175-181; Etudes historiques, 223-235 and 410-432; Documents historiques, vol. 1, 8-9;
Balmelle, Précis d’histoire du Gévaudan, 136-146; Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy, 47-49; Pass, Source
Studies, 256-258. Porée treats the subject extensively, relying on testimony from the 1270 enquéte in
which Etienne’s successor, Odilon de Mercoeur appealed to the Parlement to remove the royal interference
in his jurisdiction. The appeal will be discussed extensively below.

67 The appeal to Rossel de Chalons exists in a fourteenth century copy [ADL G 29], which is
printed in Michel, L’adminstration royale, 147, n. 1. Another copy from about the same time [ADL G
1466] follows the Miracles de Saint-Privat. Seventy-three years later, Guillaume Durand the Younger
described Etienne’s appeals for help in his Mémoire. 41 1-415.

67

peace for a period of three years, claiming he was unable to restrain his barons.68
Etienne’s difﬁculties arose from his role as the head of the paizade, or peace militia; he
was unable to collect the tax that was used to raise the militia from many of the barons
south of the Tarn.69 In exchange for seneschal’s aid in preserving the peace, the bishop
again promised half the revenues from the compensum pacis and half of any proceeds
derived from the campaign. He made this appeal without the consent of his barons, even
though the invitation to the seneschal drastically altered the peace structure.

Pelerin Latinier did not jump at the chance to intervene in the affairs of Mende.
He had not received instructions from the crown to interfere in the Gévaudan, except for
the lands of Pierre Bermond, which had been conﬁscated by the crown because of his
alliance with the count of Toulouse. Instead of coming to bishop’s aid, the seneschal
arranged to give Etienne a response in Anduze, after he had received his instructions
from the king. On the appointed day, Armand de Peyre, provost of Mende, met in
Anduze with Latinier, where he learned, not surprisingly, that the seneschal had received
royal permission to preserve the peace, punish those who broke the peace, and to make

restitution to the victims of peace-breakers in Mende and Le Puy.70

 

68 Mémoire, 417. “Predictus dominus Stephanus existens Mimate presentibus comptoribus
Gaballitani dixit predicto domino Peregrino senescallo hec verba: ‘Ego non possum compescere istos
nobiles et ideo feci vos participem in pacem et dedi vos pacem ut per vos possim eos distringere, rogo vos
ut vel vos distringatis eos vel detis mihi aliquem qui eos distringatis.”’ The 1233 agreement between
Etienne and the seneschal does not survive, but the subsequent renewal of the agreements in 1239 [ADL G
29] is printed in Michel, L’administration royale, 384-386.

69 Etienne’s troubles were especially acute in the Cévennes, the mountainous southern region of
the diocese. In 1228, Pierre Bermond VII de Sauve held the castle at St-Etienne-Vallee-Francaise, but he
had fought on the side of Count of Toulouse, and as a result, all his possessions were conﬁscated, except
for the castle at Roquedur. A royal bailli was installed in St-Etienne-Vallee-Francaise. Hence, many
barons looked to the royal representatives as keepers of the peace rather than the bishop; in their view, the
peace tax funded a private army of the bishop, one of their rivals for power in the diocese. Etudes
historiques, 413-415.

70 Etudes historiques, 418.

68

Assured by the royal mandate, Pierre Latinier acted without hesitation. He
arrived in Mende that same year with the royal judge, Bertrand Ravain, jurisperitus,
Pierre Alméras, Bernard de Montusargues, one of his councillors, and a large collection
of knights and men of arms. The seneschal called a convocation of the major barons.
The rebellious baron of Toumel, Odilon Gue’rin appeared, leading three powerful
members of his family: his son Guigues de Toumel, his brother Guigues Meschin, the
baron of Randon, and his nephew Randon de Chatueauneuf. Pons of Deux-Chiens,
Astorge de Peyre, Garin d’Apcher, and his uncle Bernard, the dean of the church of Le
Puy also attended. Latinier explained the reason and terms under which he agreed to
intervene in affairs in the region. Evidentially, his presence, and his royal backing,
commanded sufﬁcient authority that all the barons, except for the troublesome baron de
Tournel, acquiesced in the new arrangement. The royal servants went to work
immediately: for breaking the peace, the judge ordered Guérin d’Apcher to pay one
thousand pounds, and Pons des Deux-Chiens was ﬁned one thousand sous and forfeited
his castle at Charnbon.71 As for the seneschal, he launched a campaign against the lords
of Servissac in Le Puy, leading an army composed of his own knights, the censured
barons and their men, plus the bishop and the peace militia that he had managed to
raise.72 After this campaign, which must have made a strong impression on the unruly

barons, Latinier left Mende; before departing he installed a knight named Mercadier as

 

7' Ibid., 420.

72 Ibid., 421.

69

the ﬁrst royal bailli in Marve’jols, to keep the peace in his name, and admonished the
barons that they should obey the royal bailli as they would him.73

The royal presence, once established, never yielded: Mercadier and his
successors maintained the peace with dedicated tenacity, sometimes as an ally of the
barons, at other times as an enemy. The baillis led campaigns against the Peyre, Apcher,
Anduze, Randon, Toumel, and Chirac; they gave military protection to barons against
aggression from rival barons; they conﬁscated castles; they held assizes; they imposed
truces. They mobilized many of the barons to campaign against the Count of Toulouse.
In short, they kept the peace and exhibited the rights of lordship more effectively than the
bishop had. In 1236, the agreement between Etienne and Pierre Latinier was about to
expire and it seems likely that the bishop had misgivings about renewing it. Capable
enforcement of the peace by royal agents diminished the bishop’s prestige and his
revenues from the collection of the compensum pacis. As for the barons, they seemed
ready to back the position endorsed by Odilon Gue’rin in 1233, who refused to consent to
“foreign” intrusion into their region. When Etienne gathered his barons to take their
advice concerning the renewal of the agreement, Raymond of Anduze expressed the
barons’ resentment to the intrusion of royal agents into their splendid isolation, declaring,
“We are of great blood and it is not good that we are being sold like pigs or sheep.”74 To

convince the bishop of the need for continued royal assistance, Mercadier encouraged a

 

73 Ibid. Citing ADL G 735, “...Voluit et precepit omnibus quod obedirent Mercaderio quem ibi
dimittebat pro se” and “Dominus Pelegrinus tunc ad pacem conservandam posuit Mercaderium loco sui.”

7" Etudes historiques, 425 n.3 citing ADL G 735 “Alio vero, vidit quod dictus dominus episcopus
convocavit barones coram se et preciit consilium ab ei utrum expediret dari pacem Petro de Amancort,
senescallo. 1n quo audivit quod dominus Raymundus de Andusia dixit: ‘Nos sumus de magno sanguine et
non est bonum quod vendamur sicut porcus vel muto.”’

7O

minor insurrection by the baron of Canillac against the bishop’s property in Canourgue.75
The bishop, with insufﬁcient support from vassals or barons to deal with his internal
enemies, turned once again to the seneschal of Beaucaire for help and renewed the
agreement in 1237.76 The agreement again was renewed with Pierre Latinier’s successors
in 1239 and 1241. As Charles Pore’e explains, “Thus the bishop had become, little by
little, the prisoner of his protectors.”77
As the influence of the royal bailli expanded in the Gévaudan, Etienne’s position
grew increasingly untenable. At various times, Etienne attempted to assert himself and
resist royal encroachment. For example, he once had Mercadier arrested, he defended the
lordship of the baron of Florac against a campaign by seneschal, and, at least once, he
demanded that the banner of St. Privat precede that of the king when he embarked on a
military expedition with the seneschal. Yet, because of his weakened position vis-a-vis

the barons and the energy with which the bailli undertook his task, the erosion of

episcopal power was irresistible. In 1243, Louis IX replaced the viscount of Grezes,

 

7’ Etudes historiques, 426. Citing ADL G 735, “Audivit dici quod, post terminum elapsum a
tempore dicte concessionis dicti domini Pelegrini, dictus dominus episcopus, ad instanciam aliquorum
baronum et preposit et archidyaconi Mimatensis ecclesie, revocavit concessionem factam, ita quod, post
triennium ad quod facta fuerat dicta consessio, dictus episcopus noluit ei iterum concedere. Post paululum
autem temporis audivit dici quod Caniliacus, ad suggestionem Mercaderii, bajuli Guaballitani, cavalgavit
supra Chanac et inde accepit boves et vaccas et alia animalia. Et cum varones nollent juvare episcopum
sicut vellet, iterum concessit pacem dicto domino Pelegrino ad illiud terminum.”

7° Ibid., 425-426.

77 Ibid., 426. “Lévéque était devenu ainsi, peu a pen 1e prisonnier de ses protecteurs.” Guillaume
de Pian succeeded Mercadier as bailli and carried out his mission in the Gévaudan with the same, if not
more vigor than his predecessor. For instance, he ﬁnally addressed the threat from Guigues de Toumel
using, as a pretext, the baron’s protection of highwaymen and robbers. Witnesses claimed that the bailli
scoured the barony, pillaging and destroying all that he found. He imposed penalties of restitution against
the baron of Randon, intervened in a dispute between Pons of Deux-Chiens and his wife, Odile, defended
the episcopal castra at Serverette and Randon, and launched a major military initiative against the Apcher.
Etudes historiques, 427-429.

71

Bérnaud de Mercoeur, with Hugues de la Tour, the bishop of Clermont.78 That same
year, Etienne refused to renew the agreement with then seneschal Pierre d’Emaucourt.
He then attempted to collect the compensum pacis for himself, as he and his predecessor
had done. However, Hugues de la Tour refused to allow the bishop to levy this tax in the
lands of the king. The compensum pacis simply was abolished because the king was now
keeping the peace and Hugues sent knights against the bishop in Mende and his other
territories.79 This was the beginning of the end for Etienne. He was unable to defend
Mende and had to ﬂee to the protection of the noble family that had resisted, from the
ﬁrst, royal intervention in the Gévaudan - the Toumel. He died three years later, having

witnessed the realization of the promise of the Golden Bull and its demise.

Odilon de Mercoeur (1247 - 12 74)

When the cathedral canons met to elect a new bishop, they were deadlocked
between two men, both from inﬂuential baronial families of the Gévaudan: Armand de
Peyre, provost of the church of Mende, and Bernard d’Apcher, dean from the church of

Le Puy and canon of Mende.80 In 1247, both men renounced their candidacy for the

 

78 Etudes historiques, 433. Almost nothing is known about Bérnaud de Mercoeur as the viscount
of Grézes. He seems to have made little impression on the witnesses of the 1270 enquéte although as Porée
points out, the viscount must have regarded the 1233 agreement (and subsequent renewals) between the
bishop and the seneschal of Beaucaire as something of a threat to his authority in the viscounty. If so, there
is no record of his involvement in the agreements. Porée believes Bérnaud did not die before 1258. Etudes
historiques, 433, n. 2 citing Cartulaire du prieuré de St-Flour, ed. Marcellin Boudet (Monaco, 1910).

79 Etudes historiques, 433-434. Citing AN J 894, no. 5 “Pro conservatione pacis, vidit rex faciebat
levari compensum in villa de Canocica, et ipse testis solvit et audivit dici quod idem ﬁebat in toto
Gaballitano; sed dominus episcopus Clarimontis fecit cessare dictum compensum, tempore quo incepit
tenere Gaballitanum pro domino rege.” Porée points out that although the barons of the Gévaudan resent
royal intrusion, they were probably not unhappy to be relieved of the compensum pacis and, in fact, there
had been baronial resistance to paying it from the beginning of Etienne’s reign.

3° GC, vol. 1, 92.

72

episcopal seat to Pope Innocent IV in Lyon, clearing the way for the pope to appoint
Odilon de Mercoeur, dean of Bourges cathedral.8| Odilon’s pontiﬁcate is characterized
by the aggressive assertion of his jurisdictional rights over those of his rivals, whether the
seneschal of Beaucaire, the barons, or the inhabitants of Mende. He had advantages in
regaining and defending episcopal rights that Etienne never enjoyed.82 On one hand,
with Odilon, there were no questions of legitimacy, as there had been with Etienne;
Odilon came from a very prestigious baronial family of the Auvergne that had produced
bishops, abbots, counts, and seneschals for more than a century.83 He was neither lacking
in vassals nor dependant on the compensum pacis, as Etienne had been. In addition,
Odilon was elected amid the growing recognition among the barons that episcopal and
baronial interests were both served by resisting royal encroachment. The common cause
between bishop and barons against royal infringement was evident even at the end of the
Etienne’s reign when he was forced to seek asylum with the Toumel, certainly no friends

of the bishop.

 

8' Sources for the episcopate of Odilon de Mercoeur are GC, vol. I, 92-94; HGL, vol. 4, 393;
Etudes historiques, 71-79, 196-197, 237, 267, 282-287, 293-299, 302, 304-306, 310, 313, 318, 370, 373-
377, 435-453, 456, 460-461, 465-467, 470-471, 476, 494-495, 498-509; Michel, L’administration royale,
177-181, 454-458; Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy, 49-55, 68, 70-71; Pass, “Source Studies, ” 14-20, 28-30,
259; Mémoire, throughout.

82 Etudes historiques, 436-437.

83 Recall that Bémaud de Mercoeur received the viscounty of Grézes from in 1227 from Louis IX.
Bérnaud was also the seneschal of Bourbon and constable of the Auvergne. The family Mercoeur provided
bishops to the sees of Clermont, Le Puy, and Mende. On the family de Mercoeur see Marcellin Boudet,
“Les Demiers Mercoeurs: Béraud VII de Mercoeur, Connétable de Champagne, 1272-1321,” Revue
d’Auvergne, 21 (1904): 1-20, 93-127, 241-266, 373-396, 453-60 and 22 (1905): 47-63, 97-123, 161-178;
Marcellin Boudet, “Les Deniers Mercoeurs: Les Mercoeurs seigneurs de Gerzat, leurs auteurs et leur ﬁn,”
Revue d ’Auvergne, 22 (1905): 179-192, 244-272, 333-346, 373-389; Marcellin Boudet, Les Demiers
Mercoeurs (Paris, 1906).

73

Therefore, in terms of prestige, ﬁnance, and vassalic and baronial support, Odilon
stood on more solid ground than did his predecessor, and his episcopate began with a
string of successes. By 1249, with support from the baron of Florac, Raymond of
Anduze, he had subdued by military action the rebellious barons Guigues de Toumel and
Randon de Chiiteauneuf.84 Both swore homage to the bishop; Guigues de Tournel
renewed the oath of reddition sworn by his grandfather to the bishop in 1219, recognizing
that he held his castles of the bishop; Randon paid indemnities for damages done to the
Raymond of Anduze.85 Furthermore, after successful military engagements against his
two long-time rivals, the Apcher and the de Peyre, Odilon received an oath of homage
from the Apcher, and, for the ﬁrst time, the de Peyre recognized episcopal suzerainty in
1261.86 To strengthen his secular lordship, Odilon also used the authority of his
episcopal court to enforce the peace, mediate disputes over tolls and public roads, and
summon barons to appear. For example, in 1257, the episcopal court imposed a sentence

of a ﬁne against Garin d’Apcher, the son of the count of Rodez and various other men for

 

8" Odilon’s assertion of episcopal power over his barons is covered in Etudes historiques, 435-452.
Porée draws on testimony from the enquéte of 1270 [ADL G 735], which is discussed at length below.

8’ Etudes historiques, 435-436. Raymond of Anduze was a valuable and indefatigable ally of
Odilon de Mercoeur. Loyalty to the bishop was considerably less evident in Guigues de Tournel, who ﬁve
years after giving homage to Odilon, once again took up arms against him. Odilon Guerin, the grandfather
of Guiges de Toumel, submitted to Bishop Guillaume de Peyre in 1219 along with Raymond of Anduze
(Baron of Florac), Guillaume of Chateauneuf (house of Randon), Guigues de Meschin and his wife
Valborge. Gregory Pass points out that the oaths in 1219 were far more than merely an oath of reddition;
they signaled recognition of the bishop’s regalia. Therefore, the renewal of the oath that, in effect,
acknowledged submission to the bishop in 1249 by his most formidable challenger was quite a signiﬁcant
demonstration of episcopal suzerainty. Pass, "Source Studies, ” 262. The 1219 oath of Odilon Guerin is
printed in André Phillipe, La baronnie du Toumel et ses seigneurs du début du Xllle siécle a la ﬁn du X Ve
siecle (Mende, 1903), l-1 1 and in A. Chazaud, “L’évéque de Mende et les seigneurs du Toumel,” BEC 16
(1855): 309-321. The other four oaths are printed in Clovis Brunel, “Documents linguistiques de
Gévaudan,” BEC 77 (1916): 22-29. A discussion on the nature of oaths of reddition in the Gévaudan is
found in Pass, “Source Studies, ” 208-224 and 262.

86 Etudes'historiques, 435-441. Astorge de Peyre declared that he held the castle de Peyre of the
bishop for nine of twelve months.

74

carrying arms in the diocese of Mende.87 Around 1263, the baron of Deux-Cheins turned
to the episcopal court for redress when a group from Grandrieu attacked his agents, who
were trying to collect a toll on the road from Chﬁteauneuf to Saugues. The episcopal
judge, Laurent de Condat, investigated and resolved the matter.88 Six years later, the
same judge investigated and then issued a denunciation against two men for occupying
and appropriating a public road.89

Controlling barons was not the only challenge confronting Odilon. In 1261 and
1262, he faced a rebellion mounted by inhabitants of Mende, who, with encouragement
from seneschal of Beaucaire, attempted to establish a communal government.90 A group
of citizens seized the walls and gates to the city, attacked the episcopal palace, expelled
the bishop from his city, appointed syndics, and proclaimed that Mende was a free and
independent commune.9| Odilon overcame his adversaries with a vigorous counterattack,

excommunicating those involved in the insurrection and obtaining condemnation of the

 

8’ Ibid., 433.
88 Ibid. Laurent de Condat will be discussed at length in the following chapter.

3" See ADL o 963, 37v-38r for the inquisitio by Laurent de Condat and ADL o 964 for the
condemnation. In his argument supporting episcopal lordship in the Gévaudan, Guillaume Durand the
Younger considered maintaining the safety, and even the passability, of public roads as an important
indication of legitimate public authority. Mémoire, 306.

90 On the attempt to establish a consular government in Mende see Porée, Charles. Le consulat et
l’administration municipale de Mende, des origines a la Revolution (Paris, 1901 ), viii — xxiv and 1-49;
Gouron, “Diffusion des consulats méridonaux” 46-47; Grimaud and Balmelle, Pre’cis d’histoire du
Gévaudan, 170.

9' The seneschal, Guy de Rocheforte, used a royal agent to encourage barons to join the rebellion;
if the barons refused to join the insurrection, they were imprisoned. Etudes historiques, 446. Guy de
Rocheforte was seneschal of Beaucaire from 25 September 1262 to 14 August 1264. His tenure as
seneschal was curtailed when he was on the losing end of a quarrel with the bishop of Nimes. Michel,
L’Administration royale, 335.

75

rebels from royal court in Clermont. 92 After order was restored, episcopal judges
conducted an investigation into the rebellion; as a result, the ringleaders were forced to
swear an oath in public, before the doors of the cathedral, renouncing their attempts at
governmental innovation. Eventually, Odilon granted absolution to the rebels but not
before receiving their full submission to episcopal authority.93 Thus, the bishop, with
support from the royal court, prevailed over his enemies among the citizens of Mende
and against the seneschal of Beaucaire.

The bishop’s ability to resist challenges from his rivals for secular authority were
quite robust, but ultimately, he was not strong enough to withstand the royal advance.
Determined to consolidate royal authority by nullifying (or, at least, moderating) outside
inﬂuences in the areas affected by the Albigensian wars, Louis IX concluded the Treaty
of Corbeil with Aragon in 1258. By the treaty, Aragon abandoned its claims to all lands
north of the Pyrenees, excepting the lordship of Montpellier, and the surrendered its
rights to Provence, thereby ending for all practical purposes Aragonese inﬂuence in the
Ge’vaudan.94 However, in the Gévaudan, the situation was still not completely clariﬁed
because the king of Aragon himself was a vassal of the bishop, owing to the agreement of
1225.95 In December 1265, the bishop arrived at a settlement with the king over the

viscounty of Grezes in which he surrendered all rights to the viscounty of Grezes and

 

92 Porée, Le consulat et l ’administration, ix. The court also ordered Guy de Rochefort to recall his
agent who had been fomenting rebellion and to release all the recalcitrant barons who had been imprisoned
by him. Etudes historiques, 446.

93 The acts lifting the excommunication are printed in Porée, Le consulat et l’administration, 1-8.

9" Strayer, Albigensian Crusades, 164.

95 Recall that in 1225 the James of Aragon had surrendered the castle of Grézes and all lands in the

Gévaudan claimed by the king to the bishop and the church of Mende, declaring that he was a vassal of the
bishop.

76

recognized royal conquests southeast of the Gévaudan.96 In exchange, the king ceded to
the bishop lands and castles in the Cévennes, along with an annual rent of 60 pounds
toumais, and Louis conﬁrmed, once again, the Golden Bull of 1161.97 For Odilon,
dedicated to the assertion of episcopal lordship, it had to seem a bitter compromise: the
achievement of episcopal secular lordship, which was accomplished by Bishop Etienne
de Brioude, had been reversed completely and apparently irrevocably, forty years later.
Furthermore, apart from the recognition of the Golden Bull, the agreement of 1265 did
nothing to address jurisdictional interference by the seneschal of Beaucaire in the diocese
of Mende.

The seneschals of Beaucaire had been eroding the secular authority of the bishops
of Mende since 1233, when Etienne ﬁrst appealed to the royal ofﬁcials for their
assistance against troublesome barons. Incursion by royal ofﬁcials into the bishop’s
temporal jurisdiction was not unremitting and without obstruction. As we have seen,
Louis IX conﬁrmed the Golden Bull twice; Louis enjoined the seneschal to refrain from
encouraging the rebellious citizens of Mende in 1261; in 1266, the Parlement of
Pentecost declared that seneschal Amould de Courfraud had unduly interfered with the
bishop’s right to mint silver coins within his diocese; the royal court prohibited the

seneschal from demanding service of barons of the Gévaudan and from calling them

 

9° The correspondence generated by the negotiations between Odilon and Louis is published in
various locations, none of them a complete account. HGL, vol. 8, 1,550-l,552, LTC, vol. 4, 164, 179, 180;
Burdin, Documents historiques, vol. 1, 357-359.

97 Michel, L’Administration royale, 179-181; Etudes historiques, 450-452; Fasolt, Council and
Hierarchy, 51.

77

before their courts.98 Although the royal courts upheld episcopal rights and jurisdictions
in these instances, the complaints of the bishop speak to the menacing presence of the
seneschal and an ongoing struggle for temporal authority in the Gévaudan. In December
1269, Odilon brought a complaint before the Parlement of King Louis IX of France that
sought to end harassment of the bishop’s jurisdictional rights and privileges by the royal
seneschal of Beaucaire.99

Six principal documents are relevant to the process of the dispute. The ﬁrst
contains the seventeen articles (articuli) that began the suit in December 1269 in which
Odilon enumerates for the Parlement in Paris the encroachments made by the seneschal
of Beaucaire in the Gévaudan.‘00 The second and third are schedules of intentiones, or
propositions presented by each side, 30 by the bishop and 24 by the seneschal, which
each party intended to prove. The intentiones were presented at preliminary hearings
convened by the royal procurators, Pierre Almeras and Raymond de Hauterive, whom the

king appointed to investigate the charges in 1270.lOl By proving the intentiones, the

 

98 Michel, L’Administration royale, 179; Etudes historiques, 442-449. Odilon enumerated the
offences committed by the seneschal of Beaucaire and his agents against his secular jurisdiction to Louis
IX in February 1264. The letter is printed in Etudes historiques, 500-507.

99 The suit is analyzed in Etudes historiques, 281-331.

'00 AN J 894 no. 9 fols., 205r—206r. The text is printed in Michel, L'administration royale, 455-
456 and in Pass, “Source Studies,” Appendix I. A translation into French is found in Etudes historiques,
294-296.

'0‘ AN J 894 no. 9, fols., 208r-211v. Printed in Pass, “Sources Studies,” Appendix II and
translated into French in Etudes historiques, 297-299. The manuscript is in very poor condition and
intentiones I - V virtually are lost. Porée accommodates the loss by reconstructing the text based on
witness testimony that speciﬁcally addressed the missing intentiones. Pass prefers to rely on Guillaume
Durand the Younger’s recapitulations of the intentiones in Mémoire, 87-88. Odilon and the seneschal
Philippe de Sause-Bemard were present in Anduze in February 1270 when the episcopal intentiones were
presented. In response to the presentation of episcopal intentiones, the seneschal presented his own
intentiones before the inquisitors, but only after failing to answer three summonses, in July 1270 in
Anduze. Porée, Etudes historiques, 282, 284.

78

bishop intended to demonstrate that he held temporal and spiritual jurisdictional rights in
the Gévaudan, which the seneschal had violated. The fourth and ﬁfth documents are
collections of witness testimony for the two parties.102 The sixth record of the dispute is
not diplomatic evidence, but rather a treatise known as Mémoire relatifau paréage
composed sometime between about 1301 and 1307 by the bishop of Mende Guillaume
Durand the Younger (1296-1328). '03 In this treatise, in order to support his position,
Durand presents extensive arguments on behalf of episcopal rights, the testimony of the
witnesses called during the enquéte, and a history of the bishops of Mende. Therefore,
the Mémoire is an important record of the process of the suit and an elaborate statement
of the arguments supporting the bishop’s position. The dispute was not concluded until
February 1307, when the two parties reached an agreement called the pare’age, which
distinguished three jurisdictional domains: that of the bishop, that of the king, and a
common area in which causes were heard by judges named in concert by both parties.
Thus, the paréage ﬁxed the rights of the king and bishop in the diocese as equals (pares,

pairs, peers) rather than assigning power to one or the other.104

 

Pierre Alméras and Raymond de Hauterive received their appointment on 17 December 1269 from
the king. Both men were professionally trained jurists, having been judges in the court of the seneschal of
Beaucaire. Porée, Etudes historiques, 282 and Michel, L’administration royale, 433-435.

'02 The witness testimony is found in AN J 894, no. 9. Partial records of the episcopal witnesses
are found in ADL G 735 and for the king in ADL G 736. Porée has summarized and calendared the
testimony in Etudes historiques, 302—313.

'03 The Mémoire relatifau paréage of Guillaume Durand the Younger is preserved in ADL G 730.

104The pare’age is found in an early fourteenth-century copy in ADL G 743. The text of the
paréage is printed in Ordonnances des roys de la troisieme race, vol. 2, ed. Busebe Jacob de Lauriére, et
al., (Paris, 1723-1849), 369-403; Documents historiques, vol. 1, 359-376; LPB, appendix 1, 173-195. An
early fourteenth-century parchment register titled F euda Gabalorum found in ADL G 757 concerning
investigations into the territory in the Gévaudan belonging properly to the king and bishop and their ﬁefs
mouvants has been published in F euda Gabalorum, ed. Henri Boullier de Branche, 3 vols. (Nimes, 1938-
1940). The most complete studies of the paréage are undertaken within the larger discussion of career of
Guillaume Durand the Younger, who was bishop of Mende at the time of the settlement and who argued
strongly for episcopal rights in the Gévaudan. See Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy, 86-95; Léon Gallet, Les

79

In the articuli of 1269, which launched the suit, Odilon argued that episcopal

‘05 The ﬁrst item of

secular lordship was based on ancient custom and royal concession.
the articuli cites these precedents as the foundation of episcopal sovereignty and all
justice and temporal jurisdiction.106 The Golden Bull was the cornerstone of episcopal
assertions of secular lordship because it cites the ancient origins of the bishop’s
ecclesiastical and secular lordship in his diocese, indicating that the bishop imposed
ecclesiastical censure when necessary and even rendered judgment by the sword. ’07
Furthermore, the Golden Bull conceded the regalia to the bishops of Mende in perpetuity.
If the Golden Bull provided diplomatic evidence of the bishop’s secular lordship, in the
second item of the articuli the bishop cites the practical evidence. This second item

states that by reason of these privileges and ancient custom, if any noble who held lands

or castles, either from the bishop or anyone else, then he was accustomed to answer

 

traités de pare’age dans la France féodale (Paris, 1935), 94-106; Joseph R. Strayer, “La Noblesse du
Gévaudan et le paréage de 130 ,” Revue du Gévaudan 13 (1967): 67-72; Etudes historiques, 465-483. For
the wider inﬂuence of the paréage and its implications for late medieval theories of sovereignty, see Joseph
R. Strayer, Medieval Statecraft and the Perspectives of History (Princeton, 1971), 259, 261 , 298, 301, 345.

'05 Michel, L'Administration royale, 455; Pass, “Source Studies,” 274; translated into French,
Etudes historiques, 294. “ab antiquo et antiqua consuetudine et ex concessione regali.”

'06 Ibid. “ Dicit et proponit episcopus Mimatensis contra Senescallum Bellicadri quod totus
Gaballitanus exceptis hiis que dominus rex habuit ab co in eodem epsicopatu per compositionem inter eos
factam, ad ipsum episcopum nomine ecclesie sue Mimatensis ab antiquo et antiqua consuetudine et ex
concessione regalia et per privilegia sibi indulta pertinet pleno iure quoad majus dominium seu omnem
jurisdictionem et districtum temporalem.”

'07 LTC, vol. I, 168. “... in potestate episcoporum semper exiterit, non tamen ad faciendam
ecclesiasticam censuram, sed etiam ad iudicandum in gladio super illos quos culpa sua monstrabat sic
redarguendos.” The Golden Bull was issued in 1161 and in the wake of the ideological conﬂicts of the
eleventh and early twelfth centuries, the evocation of the two-sword image is not surprising, since it was
used frequently within the debate over simony and lay investiture (although the two sword image has its
origins in early patristic writing). In this context, the expression “in gladio” clearly refers to the temporal
sword, since in the next sentence the expression materialis gladii, material sword, is used in reference to
judgments made by Aldebert.

80

before the bishop in any civil or criminal matters.108

Therefore, the bishop asserts that
exercising his right to do justice in his court was a clear demonstration of his lordship.
In the bishop’s thirty-ﬁve intentiones, the idea of the nobles appearing before the
episcopal court in civil and criminal matters also is cited as “proof” of the bishop’s
secular lordship.'09 Intentiones 4-13 refer to the superiority of episcopal jurisdiction in
the Gévaudan.“0 Odilon claims that he will prove that the episcopal courts, by virtue of
regalia and majus dominium which has existed from time immemorial, had heard causes
of barons, castellans, and ecclesiastics; had exercised the right of inquiry into crimes and
offences; had imposed forfeitures, penalties, and other constraints upon barons and
castellans; had summoned barons and their subjects to appear before the court.l ”
Therefore, a signiﬁcant aspect of Odilon’s argument for secular lordship was that
the Golden Bull of 1161 granted it and that his exercise of judicial rights conﬁrmed it.
Conﬂicts between the customary rights of independent local lords and the king’s
sovereign rights in his kingdom were a subject of interest to thirteenth-century jurists,

although “theories of sovereignty” were still quite ﬂuid in 1269 and usually were

discussed within the geopolitical context of the papacy, the monarchies, and the

 

'08 Michel, L’Administration royale, 455; Pass, “Source Studies,” 274; translated into French,
Etudes historiques, 294. “Item, quod ratione dictorum privilegiorum et antique consuetudinis, si quis
nobilis in dicta diocesi Mimatensi habeat terram seu castrum aliquid quod nec ab ipso episcopo nec ab alio
teneat ratione regalium consuevit respondere coram ipso episcopo in personalibus et realibus
quibuscumque.”

'09 Although the ﬁrst ﬁve intentiones have been partially lost due to the deterioration of the
manuscript, they have been reconstructed, using the methods described above by Gregory Pass and Charles
Porée.

”0 Etudes historiques, 297-298; Pass, “Source Studies,” 276-277.

'” Pass, “Source Studies,” 276.

81

empire.”2 Odilon de Mercoeur’s strategy was that if he could provide evidence that he
held jurisdictional primacy in the Gévaudan, that it was his right to act as judge in all
causes, then he could legitimize the concession of the Golden Bull. It is in this context
that the court book of Mende was created. In the following chapter, we shall examine the
court book in detail in order to access its signiﬁcance within the speciﬁc context of
Odilon’s suit, the general history of record keeping, and the diffusion of legal culture in

southern France.

 

”zFor an introduction, see Kenneth Pennington, The Prince and the Law, 1200 - 1600 (Berkeley,
1993); Kenneth Pennington, “Law, Legislative Authority, and Theories of Government, 1 150-1300,” in The
Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought, c. 350-1450, J. H. Burns, ed. (Cambridge, 1988), 424-
476; J. P. Canning, “Ideas of the State in the Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Commentators on Roman
Law,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 33 (1983): 1-27; Walter Ullmann, “The Development
of the Medieval Idea of Sovereignty,” English Historical Review 64 (1949): 1-33.

The conﬂict between a local lord’s exercise of his jurisdictional rights over that of the king would
receive more attention later in the thirteenth century, as Philip IV attempted to assert his royal jurisdictional
rights. Strayer, The Reign of Philip the Fair, 191-236. The kings of France faced formidable challenges to
their rights as supreme judge from many local lords, who were virtual sovereigns in their principalities,
such as Flanders and Aquitaine. However, challenges came from men of lesser status as well. For
instance, the count of Foix was not always cooperative with assertions of the supremacy of royal justice
and the bishops of Le Puy was engaged in a long-running dispute with the crown over jurisdictional rights
in their dioceses. Strayer, The Reign of Philip the Fair, 192 and Guyotjeannin, Episcopus et comes, 54-55.

82

CHAPTER 3

The Court Book and the Bishop’s Court

In this chapter, physical characteristics court book will be described in order to
assess what they reveal about the circumstances in which this new type of documentary
record was created. Properly a matter of res diplomatica, evaluation of internal as well as
external characteristics of content, composition, handwriting, and style present
information about the history of the court book, how it was used, who were the personnel
of the episcopal chancery, and how they were trained.I In addition, analysis the cases of
the court book reveal what sort of business occupied the episcopal court. As we shall see,
this is not an easy task, because the book has an unusual organizing principle that
sometimes makes following the processes of each case very difﬁcultz. Furthermore,
because the court book occupies the unique position as the earliest surviving example of
this type of ecclesiastical record, analysis of the cases reveals information about the daily

operation of the episcopal court about a century earlier than other court records.

 

' Res diplomatica was the terminology adopted by the Maurist Jean Mabillon (1632-1707) who
regularized the art of studying diplomata and instrumenta in the second half of the seventeenth century.
For an introduction to the art of diplomatics see Leonard E. Boyle, “Diplomatics” in Medieval Studies: An
Introduction, 2d ed., ed. James M. Powell (Syracuse, 1992) 69-101.

2 One reason why the book has not drawn systematic attention of scholars may be that it is
exceptionally difﬁcult to use. Until this study, no one has successfully navigated its organizing principal.
Porée tried to transcribe a case from the court book, but made errors in trying to follow the labyrinth of
cross-references. Etudes Historiques, 267-280. In his study, Pass does not even attempt to penetrate the
court book, and, in fact, despite its relevance to his argument, does not mention it at all. Pass, “Source
Studies.”

83

The Court Book

In 1268, one year before Odilon brought his suit, scribes of the episcopal
chancery recorded the ﬁrst entry in a register of cases litigated in the bishop’s court.3
The court book documents about 276 cases, concerning both spiritual and seigniorial
matters, the preponderance from the 1268-1270, although a few entries originated in
1271. This register has never been part of a scholarly work, and so its physical
characteristics will be surveyed.

The book consists of twelve quires comprising 186 paper folia; it is approximately
27 cm. long, 22 cm. wide, and 6 cm. in thickness, 1 cm. of which is taken up by the
binding. It has a wood and tooled leather binding, with metal bosses, or small circular
plaques, attached at the comers to the front and the back of the binding. The practice of
attaching bosses to the binding’s board was common after the ﬁfteenth century; therefore,
the binding tentatively can be dated to the ﬁfteenth century or later.4 The paper quires
were gathered and sewn together onto cords; the loose ends of the cords were channeled
into grooves cut into the binding boards to carry and conceal the cords.5 The ﬁrst and last
folia are missing and the binder may have used them as pastedowns to conceal

channeling and other mechanics of binding.

 

3 Use of the term “chancery” in this instance should be clariﬁed. An episcopal chancery, or
writing ofﬁce, was a differentiated secretarial ofﬁce charged with the recording of episcopal acta under the
direction of an ofﬁcer or chancellor. In thirteenth-century Mende, a writing ofﬁce with a dedicated writing
staff cannot be distinguished within the episcopal household. Therefore, the term chancery is somewhat
artiﬁcial, a term of wissenschaftliche Hilfskonstruktion, to borrow the phrase from Benoit-Michel Tock,
Une chancellerie épiscopale, 173.

4 Charles Donahue suggests a ﬁfteenth-century binding. Donahue, Ecclesiastical Court Records,
81. For a description of metal bosses and their use, see Michele P. Brown, Understanding Illuminated
Manuscripts: A Guide to Technical Terms (London, 1994), 25.

5 Brown, Understanding, 38.

84 -

The writing block of the paper folia measures about 23.5 cm. x 17 cm., with about
35 lines of block text per page. Paper had been in use in Europe since the end of the
eleventh century although it was not commonly used for documents until after about
1400, since it was not as durable as parchment.6 In the late twelfth century, Italian
notaries were using paper registers to record minutes (imbreviatura) and by the early
thirteenth century paper was used in Occitania for merchants’ notes and notaries’
registers. 7 However, the use of paper for court documents was not common in the
thirteenth-century. This court book belongs to a group of registers from southern France
that deviates from this general rule.8 Other paper registers from this region include that
of the royal enquéteurs of the Seneschal of Beaucaire (1248) and the registers of the
episcopal court in LePuy (1270-1274 and 1274-1284). Therefore, the court book of

Mende is not at variance with other regional registers and its paper composition is

 

6 Giry, Manuel de diplomatique, 497-498. The earliest record of a royal chancery using paper for
its acts is found in Sicily in the courts of Roger 11, William I, and William II. By 1257, James of Aragon
transformed his chancery by using paper for most of the royal registers, making Aragon the ﬁrst European
government to embrace the use of paper. Robert Ignatius Burns, “Paper Comes to the West,” in
Europdische Technik im Mittelalter, 800 bis I400: Tradition und Innovation, ed. Uta Lindgren (Berlin,
1996), 416.

Techniques of paper manufacture spread from Muslim Spain into Occitania beginning in the late
twelfth century. On the history of paper manufacture see Robert Ignatius Burns, “Paper Comes to the
West,” in Europc'iische Technik im Mittelalter, 800 bis 1400: Tradition and Innovation, ed. Uta Lindgren
(Berlin, 1996), 413-422; Timothy Barrett, “Fifteenth-century Papermaking,” Printing History: The Journal
of the American Printing History Association 15 (1993): 33-41; Jean-Francois Bergier, “Production et
commerce du papier et du livre,” in Produzione e commercio della carta e del libro, secc. XIII-X VIII: Atti
della Ventitreesima Settimana di Studi, ed. Simonetta Cavaciocchi (Florence, 1992), 27-43; Richard L.
Hills, “Early Italian papermaking. A crucial technical revolution,” in Produzione e commercio della carta
e del libro, secc. XIII-X VIII: Atti della Ventitreesima Settimana di Studi, ed. Simonetta Cavaciocchi
(Florence, 1992), 73-97.

7 Armando Petrucci, Writers and Readers in Medieval Italy, ed and trans. Charles M. Radding
(New Haven, 1995); D. C. Grantham, Textual Scholarship: An Introduction (New York, 1994), 63; Giry,
Manuel de diplomatique, 498. Because it was less expensive than parchment, paper also was used in letters
close, mandements, ﬁnancial transactions, and accounts. Giry, Manuel de diplomatique, 498-499.

8 Giry, Manuel de diplomatique, 499.

85

consistent with an idiosyncratic pattern of using paper seen elsewhere in southern France
during this period.9

Foliation in the book appears to be medieval. Quire breaks occur between folia
l4v/15r, 30v/31r, 46v/47r, 62v/63r, 78v/79r, 93v/94r, 109v/110r, l26v/127r, l40v/l41r,
158v/159r, l74v/175r; neither catchwords nor quire numeration were used to indicate
proper collation of quires during binding. Folia 9 and 108 are missing; examination of
characteristics of ink, hand, and content on the facing pages (8v, 10r and 107v, 109r) is
inconclusive as to whether the pages have been lost or misnumbered since, in both
instances, blank pages precede and new cases follow the missing pages. Nonetheless,
since the conjugate leaves are intact, it appears likely that the missing pages are the result
of numbering errors, not the result of missing folia.IO The text on folia 87v and 186r is
inverted, no doubt the result of a scribe’s failure to notice that the unbound quire was
upside down when he began to write. Remnants of three small parchment tags are
afﬁxed to the fore edges of certain folia as bookmarkers; one tag survives intact on 116r
and still bears notations.H As we will see in Chapter 4, the tag marked a noteworthy
case, although its signiﬁcance was not evident for more than thirty years after it was
recorded.

In composing the court book, the scriptores of the episcopal chancery
experimented with various organizing principles, indicating the difﬁculty faced by the

scribes struggling to design a system of arrangement for this new type of archive.

 

91bid. AN J 889 and ADH-L 260 and 261.
'0 That is, the conjoint or conjugate leaves that are part of the same bifolium are intact.

n This case brought before the episcopal court in 1268 concerns payment of a dowry, that Guidon
de Sévérac demanded from his father-in-law Guidon Meschin.

86

Through the ﬁrst nine folia, processes such as libels, exceptions, positions, articles,
depositions, sentences, and appeals were recorded, apparently, in the order that they came
before the court. On 10r, this system seems to have been abandoned in favor of one that
attempted to gather the various processes from a single case under one rubric before
continuing on to the next case. Using this method, the scribe attempted to estimate how
much physical space each case would require in the book and left the anticipated number
of folia blank. For example, the causa on 10r, begun on the Tuesday after the Feast of
Johannis nativitas (24 June) in 1268 before the judge (index) of the episcopal court,
magister Laurent, concerns a disputed marriage contract between Pierre Ambland, the
husband of Delphine, and her father Benoit Chabram. The episcopal scribe estimated
that recording the various processes associated with this case would require three folia;
therefore, he does not begin the next case until 12v. Accordingly, the next causa,
Bertrand Bossa contra Guillaume Guerrejac, a dispute over the sale of three mules, begun
on the Tuesday after the octave of the Feast of St. Privat (21 August) commences on 12v.
However, the scribe overestimated the number of folia required for the recording of the
case between Pierre Ambland and Benoit Chabram, which only required one and a half
pages, leaving three and a half blank pages between the two cases. The method of
anticipating the amount of space required for each case met with limited success, as
evidenced by numerous blank folia throughout the book.’2 In total, out of 186 folia, or

372 pages, 12.6 % (47 pages) have no text whatsoever; of these 47 blank pages, 78.7 %

 

'2 Paper was much less costly than parchment, and since unused space was an outcome of this
organizing system, it was much less onerous than it would have been in a parchment register. In 1280,
paper was six times cheaper than parchment in Bologna. As paper manufacturing techniques spread into
Occitania, its use became much more widespread. In southern France, in the thirteenth century, the ratio of
paper usage to parchment was 1 to 41; in the fourteenth century, that ratio had changed to 1 to 7. Burns,
“Paper Comes to the West,” 417.

87

(37 pages) are on the verso of the page. Blank pages appear in every quire, indicating
that the practice of overestimating the required space was common at all phases of the
book’s use. In four instances, blank pages are found at the end (three instances) or the
beginning (one instance) of a quire, suggesting either that the scribes were reluctant to
begin a new case where there would be insufﬁcient room to complete the entry, or
perhaps that they were a type of ﬂyleaf at the beginning or end of the quire.

Blank pages were but one result of the failure to estimate accurately the amount of
space required of each causa. The organizational design was strained beyond its limit
when scribes did not allow enough space to complete the processes of a case, leading to
frequent and confusing cross-references. For instance, the case already mentioned
concerning a disputed sale of three mules begins on 12v and continues on sequential
pages through the bottom of 14v, when the scribes faced an awkward problem. The
following page, 15r, begins a case over a debt, commencing on the day after exaltatio
sancte Crucis (14 September) 1268. Yet, when they reached the bottom of 14v, the
scribes had not ﬁnished recording the dispute over the mules. Facing a breakdown in
their organizational system, they responded by cross-referencing the case to the next
available page. At the bottom of 14v, the scribe wrote, “continute in quinto folio,”
followed by a distinctive symbol composed of a circle, bisected horizontally and two
vertical lines. On 19r, the identical notation appears, followed by the word “remanate.”
Between 14v and 19r, four intervening cases were recorded; the mule dispute was
concluded on 19r, using only twelve lines of text and no further cross-references were
needed. In this instance, therefore, the necessary accommodation was accomplished

easily. However, this was not always the case.

88

Take, for example, the case beginning on 123r. This case, political in nature, is an
inquisitio into whether Raymond de Roquefort, priest and rector of the church in
Bédoues, and his brother Pons entered into a conspiracy against Bishop Odilon and his
castellan of Chabrieres. '3 Begun on the Thursday before Christmas 1268, before the
episcopal judge, magister Laurent, the case is a complicated one with lengthy testimony
from eleven witnesses. The case was recorded in sequential folia, 123r through 124v;
however, in the midst of the testimony of Roland de Coeurés, a knight, the scribe ran out
of allotted space. Since the case following that of Raymond de Rochefort was recorded
in a few lines, requiring only top half of 125v, the scribe continued to record the
testimony midway through 125v. However, at the bottom of 125v, the scribe still was
recording testimony from this case. Perhaps, noticing that many blank pages existed
from earlier cases where scribes had overestimated the required space and wishing to
make efﬁcient use of all pages, the scribe noted on the bottom of 125v “quaere supra
post XIIIIfolia.” Therefore, the case continues fourteen pages above, on 111v and
thereafter was recorded on sequential pages until the case’s ﬁnal entry on 112v, which
was written on the Wednesday before Palm Sunday.14 As a result, the confusing situation
arose in which the case was recorded in the order 123r — 124v, 125v, and then jumping

back to 111v — 112v, so that the recording of the end of the case precedes its beginning.15

 

'3 This case will be analyzed in depth below.

'4 As with many cases, there is no disposition of this case; the record simply breaks off with the
entry, “Et ad procedendum de jure fuit eidem domino Raymundo, nomine suo et nomine dicti Poncii,
fratris, assignata dies Mercurii ante Ramos Palmarum.”

, 15 The situation certainly appears to have confused André Porée. He discusses this case in Etudes
historiques, 267-280, but he has trouble following the cross-references. Instead of going back fourteen
pages to 111v, he goes to 109v, evidently confused by the cross reference to another case indicated on the
top of the page.

89

Continuing cases forward in the book was a solution commonly used by the scribes. Of
about 276 cases in the book, twelve (4.3 %) required cross-references, of those twelve
cases, ﬁve were cross-referenced to pages before the beginning of the case.”

In the court book, we see the episcopal scribes working through formidable
problems associated with the regularization and preservation of court documents. In
carrying out their task, they faced added difﬁculties in that no earlier model was available
to them. The court book is the earliest extant example of its type, that is, a record of a
continuous run of cases before an episcopal court.17 Whether the ecclesiastical court of
Bishop Odilon consciously invented this new method of record-keeping, or whether some
earlier versions existed, which did not survive cannot be determined. In England,
innovations in ecclesiastical record-keeping were patterned after those ﬁrst undertaken in
royal and papal chanceries.l8 There, the chancery of bishops of Winchester kept
systematic accounts in pipe rolls from, at least, 1208 and it was the ﬁrst to date its acta
following the system used in the king’s government. The bishops of Lincoln began the

earliest episcopal register before 1217, following models of the royal chancery.19

 

'6 Cases are counted as cross-referenced if they are not recorded on sequential pages, and therefore
intervening cases appear in the midst of the chronological sequence of the processes.

'7 Donahue, Medieval Ecclesiastical Courts, 27-28. In 1989, Charles Donahue published a survey
of medieval ecclesiastical court records of the Continent. He and his researchers canvassed the
ecclesiastical archives in Austria, France, Germany, certain provinces of Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Spain,
and Switzerland. Their determination is that the court book of Mende is the earliest extant example of its
type. On the unique status of the court book, see the discussion above in the Introduction.

'8 Cheney, English Bishops’ Chanceries I 100 — 1250, 104- 105 and Clanchy, From Memory to
Written Record, 74-78. Although acknowledging some Anglo-Saxon precedents, Clanchy traces the
earliest “instance of deliberate record-making” within the context of royal governance to the ofﬁce of chief
justiciar Hubert Walter in 1195 and his use of the tripartite chirograph. The third copy, or the “foot of the
ﬁne,” was preserved in the royal treasury. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, 68-69.

'9 Cheney, English Bishops’ Chanceries l I 00 — 1250, 104-105. The earliest English epiSCOpal or

archiepiscopal registers from Lincoln (Bishop Hugh of Wells) and York (Archbishop Walter de Gray) were
constructed by stitching together tail to head parchments in the manner of the royal chancery. Only “I the

90

Although the English episcopal records share some common characteristics with the
court book of Mende, they do not quite replicate it. The English episcopal registers
record ecclesiastical business of the bishoprics, primarily institutions to beneﬁces and
ordinations of clergy, but also royal writs, injunctions after visitations, correspondence
concerning temporalities, extracts from taxation assessments, synodal statutes, and
private letters.20 Unlike the court book of Mende, they are not registers of
chronologically continuous cases brought to the bishops’ court.

Governmental bureaucracies strove to create and to modify their record-keeping
practices to address the contingencies of governance throughout the thirteenth century.
East of the Rhine, under Emperor Frederick 11, the 1235 Statute of Peace (Mainzer
Reichlandsfriede) laid down certain regulations concerning the drafting and preserving of
records. Imperial judges were to have a scribe to carry out essential writing tasks of the
court. He was to record the accusations, the names of proscribed persons and plaintiffs,
and the names of those who were freed from proscription. He was to receive and keep all
letters from parties engaged in suits, to keep lists of those who were declared criminal but
to delete their names if they were declared innocent and to record all important sentences
in order to provide a precedent for similar issues. These functions suggest that the

organizers of the imperial chancery wished to have a chancery in which the records

 

second half of the thirteenth century did the English bishops’ registers begin to follow the book pattern
used in papal and Continental episcopal chanceries.

2° Cheney, English Bishops’ Chanceries I I 00 - 1250, 101-102. The ﬁrst English register to
classify its entries by type of transaction, rather than chronologically, was that of Archbishop John Pecham
1279-1292. Decima Douie, ed., The Register of John Pecham, Archbishop of Canterbury, 12 79-1292, vol.
65 (Canterbury, 1969), vii.

91

searchable.2| No government bureaucracy functioned at this level of efﬁciency anywhere
in Europe and the “super-chancery” outlined in this statute never came to fruition. There
are no thirteenth-century records from such an archival powerhouse, although the
foresight to envisage such an organization perhaps is exemplary in itself. The earliest
approximation appears in the fourteenth century when town councils often kept
Stadtbu'cher, which recorded the workings of the municipal courts. In the same century,
ducal law courts began to issue F ronbucher, which was a session-by-session record.22
These examples of secular law court systems of record-keeping commence a century after
the court book of Mende.

Practices of the French royal chancery did not replicate the organizational
structure of the court book either. In 1263, Jean de Montlucon, a clerk and judge in the
curia judicialis of Louis IX began to collect certain judgments that he considered to be of
importance in the Olim.23 Beginning with a judgment from the previous decade, the Olim
recorded in parchment registers summaries of dits, or rulings, that were written in
response to oral and written pleas to Parlement, from 1254 through 1319.24 The records
in the Olim are arranged in chronological order; however, there was a high degree of

selectivity, and many cases simply were not recorded.25 Therefore, the Olim was

 

2' Herwig Weigl, “What to Write in Court: Literacy and Lawsuits in Late Medieval Austria,” in
Charters and the use of the Written Word in Medieval Society, ed. Karl Heidecker (Tumhout, 2000), 64.

22 Ibid., 66-67.

23 Jordan, Louis IX, 144. For a published version of the Olim based on ﬁrst four registers, see A.
Beugnot, ed., Les Olim ou Registres des arre‘ts rendus par la cour du roi (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1846).
Four books survive of seven original books. The title derives from the ﬁrst word of the second book. J. H.
Shennan, The Parlement of Paris (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1968; reprint, Sutton: Thrupp, Stroud,
1998), 15 (page citations are to the reprint edition).

2" Shennan, Parlement, 15.

25 Jordan, Louis 1x, 144-145 and 209, n. 156.

92

intended not to provide a comprehensive register of the rulings of Parlement but to
extract certain decrees from the parlementaire rolls, which recorded the proceedings.26
Furthermore, although the Olim uses chronology as its organizing principle, it also groups
certain types of actions together. The arré‘ts (decrees) are recorded separately from the
enquétes (inquests) although the designation is a bit misleading since both sections
include ﬁnal decrees.27
Although the ecclesiastical court in Mende found no model in the French royal
chancery for its court book, perhaps other ecclesiastical courts in France were
undertaking innovations in record keeping similar to those in Mende. From northern
France, numerous charters and acta from episcopal and archiepiscopal chanceries are
preserved; the earliest original charter dates from 983.28 Yet, episcopal courts of northern
France did not develop the practice of recording episcopal court cases in registers until
the fourteenth century. Of the episcopal sees north of a line from Bordeaux to Geneva,

there are no surviving registers of court cases from the thirteenth century and only nine

from the fourteenth.29 There is great variety in what is recorded in these fourteenth-

 

26 Sherman, Parlement, 15. The parlementaire rolls from the thirteenth century do not survive.
Although the ﬁrst entry in the Olim is from 1254, it is likely that the parlementaire rolls were kept for
many years before, but not selected for inclusion in the Olim. Shennan, Parlement, 15 and Jordan, Louis
IX, 144.

27 Sherman, Parlement, 75.

28 Brunel, “Chartes et chancelleries épiscopales,” 230. The original 983 charter is from Senlis. In
the northern French dioceses of Amiens, Arras, Beauvais, Cambrai, Chalons-sur-Marne, Laon, Noyon,
Reims, Senlis, Soissons, Therouanne, and Toumai, 292 eleventh-century acts exist, of which 99 (34 %) are
originals.

29 The extant registers are from Cerisy (1314-1457 ofﬁciality of the abbey of Cerisy-Ia-Forét);
Langres (1337-1343, ofﬁciality of the bishop); Paris (1355-1366, ofﬁciality of the archdeacon); Paris
(1384-1387, ofﬁciality of the bishop); Chartres (1380-1383 and 1398-1401, ofﬁciality of the ‘great’
archdeacon); Bordeaux (1382-1383, ofﬁciality of the archbishop); Beauvais (1382-1383, ofﬁciality of the
bishop); Troyes (1389-1396, ofﬁciality of the bishop). Donahue, Ecclesiastical Court Records, 63-115.
Two fourteenth-century northern French registers have been published. Gustave Jules Dupont and Leopold

93

century ecclesiastical registers. The earliest, from the monastery of Cerisy-la-Forét,
records some proceedings of the exempt monastery, but visitations by the ofﬁcial to
towns within the jurisdiction of the abbey dominate. Records from other registers include
lists of ﬁnes, an episcopal notary’s book of debts and sentences, lists of assignationes and
emende; the register from Langres is comprised almost entirely of one case, an appeal by
the ofﬁcial to papal judges delegate. Only one surviving register, from the ofﬁciality of
the bishop of Paris (1384-1387), is a continuous chronological register of cases. These
are criminal cases litigated before the episcopal court, and it is from 115 years after the
ﬁrst entry in the Mende court book.

In the south, the situation in episcopal courts was quite different from the north
because in the Midi the notariate dominated legal writing.30 A notary, appointed to draft
records for an ecclesiastical court, often kept his records with his other notarial notebooks
in his own archive. The practice of maintaining court records in private notarial
collections has led to modern misidentiﬁcation and misclassiﬁcation of court records,
whereby ecclesiastical court records have been categorized in the notarial fonds or

series.“ The situation was complicated further by the rise of consular government in

 

Delisle, “Le registre de l’ofﬁcialité de Cerisy,” Mémoires de la Société des antiquaires de Normandie, 3e
sér. 10 (30) (Caen: Société des antiquaires de Normandie 1880), 271-662; Jean Breban, “Registre de
l’ofﬁcialité épiscopale de Troyes 1389 1396” (These droit: Paris, 1954).

30 The notarial tradition was established more ﬁrmly in Italy than in southern France, of course.

3' This problem is even more acute in Italy, where bishops drew almost exclusively on notaries for
drafting and preserving the business of their sees. Robert Brentano has pointed out that there is no
corollary in Italy to the English bishop’s register because of this practice. Brentano, Two Churches, 292-
95. In southern France, records from the ofﬁciality of the bishop of Marseille, including numerous
fourteenth- and ﬁfteenth-century registers, were classiﬁed in series E, the notarial fonds. They have since
been reclassiﬁed in series 5G and are housed in the Archives departmentales des Bouches-du-Rhone.
Donahue, Medieval Ecclesiastical Records, 67-73. The problem of the misidentiﬁcation of court records
recorded in the notebooks of civil notaries is described in Gero Dolezalek, “Une nouvelle source pour
l’étude de la practique judiciaire au XIII siecle: les livres d’imbréviatures des notaries de cour,” in
Conﬂuence des droits savants et des juridiques: Actes du Colloque de Montpellier (Milan, 1979), 255-241.

94

southern French towns in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which coincided with
the growing use of the notariate in municipal courts.32 For instance, in 1174 the bishop of
Béziers conceded to Bernard de Caussinoijouls the power of making charters for the
whole town, describing the ofﬁce he was conferring as the “tabellionate.” The ofﬁce was
conferred in exchange for an annual fee to be paid in cash and kind every year at
Christmas. Thus, the ofﬁce of the notary, from its early manifestations in Béziers, was
linked to the exercise of secular political power by the bishop.33 No records from the
ecclesiastical court in Be’ziers survive, although we know that the bishop was well
acquainted with the ofﬁce of the tabellionate from, at least, 1174. By the second half of
the twelfth century, twenty—one notaries practiced their art in Montpellier and near-by
towns; yet, in this consular town no records survive from the ofﬁciality of the bishop.34

In fact, in southern France ecclesiastical court records of any type dating from before

1400 exist from only eleven courts and of these, only four are registers.35

 

32Lesné-Ferret, “The Notariate in the Consular Towns,” 4-21.

33 Ibid., 45. Lesné-Ferret places signiﬁcance in the fact that it was the bishop rather than the
viscount of Béziers who ﬁrst named conferred the ofﬁce, suggesting that this is an indication of the rise of
the bishop’s secular power over that of the viscount.

3“ Ibid., 7.

35 Registers survive from four episcopal ofﬁcialities: Mende (1268-1272 and 1340-1345), Le Puy
(1270-1274 and 1274-1284), Pamiers (1338-1348) Cavaollon (1351-1355) and Vaison (1377-1378).
Donahue, Medieval Ecclesiastical Records, 63-1 15.

Of course, this assessment of the surviving records of the ofﬁcialities of southern France is based
on extant documents. It is impossible to know to what degree the surviving records reﬂect the medieval
composition of the episcopal archives. The survival of the any medieval episcopal records from Mende is
astounding. The Protestant Captain Merle captured the episcopal city and on Christmas night 1579, his
troops publicly burned the records of the episcopal archive that concerned the bishop’s lordship.
Evidentially, some records escaped the ﬂames and the vicar general ransomed them for 500 écus. He
placed nine chests under the care of the grand clocher of the cathedral, where they remained until the end
of the revolution. Michel Chabin and Héléne Latour, Guide des archives de la Lozere (Mende, 1979), 73-
74.

95

Thus, the scribes of Mende lacked a contemporary model on which to base their
organizational system. The scribes in Mende likely would not have had access to
registers to act as models from other secular or ecclesiastical chanceries, but the
originality of the court book speaks to the issue of inﬂuence and training. Training of
archival scribes was both formal and informal. That is, some chanceries employed men
professionally trained in the notarial art and these men were schooled in drafting
documents with precision that gave their instrumenta the force of law.36 Since there are
no similar contemporary examples of a court book, the assumption is that professional
writers were not trained, at least at this time, to prepare this type of record. Furthermore,
if the more senior chancery personnel passed on practices to their less-experienced
colleagues in the manner of informal training, then this type of record would be found in
other chanceries’ records, as a result of the diffusion of scribes and their techniques.
When they set about to create this new kind of ecclesiastical court record, it seems that

the scribes in Mende did not have a model to work from and their ideas about organizing

the episcopal archive seem to have been locally inspired.

Types of Cases

In order to survey the activities of the court, the cases were classiﬁed into sixteen

categories with the following criteria in mind. The categories should describe at least 1%

 

36 Although they were more common in southern France and Italy, notaries public also worked in
northern France and England, in secular and ecclesiastical courts. On the use of notaries public in England,
see Christopher R. Cheney, Notaries Public in England in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries
(Oxford, 1972).

96

of the total cases (three cases) but no more than 25 % of the total (69 cases).37 The
category must be in keeping with the procedural workings of the medieval ecclesiastical
court. In other words, categories must not impose groupings upon the records that had no
contemporary foundation by demanding of the sources meanings they were never
intended to convey. With these principles in mind, the cases are analyzed in the
following categories: Assault, Condemnation, Confession, Debt from a sale/contract,
Debt, unspeciﬁed, Ecclesiastical Issues, Rights of Lordship, Marriage, Procedural,
Property, Sentence, Summons, Testament, Testimony, Theft, Unknown.38 Table 1
illustrates the breakdown when the 276 cases in the court book are distributed into these

categories.

 

37 Classiﬁcation of cases is far from a straightforward task, since often the accusations are
multifaceted and ambiguous. For instance, on the Wednesday after the Feast of All Saints in 1269,
Guillaume Picot accused Peter Praslas of striking him in the head with a spade or a shovel (pala) in a
dispute over a debt. ADL G 963 146r. This case was classiﬁed as an assault, since that was what brought
the two parties before the court. The categories selected are broad enough to include cases with common
characteristics under civil or ecclesiastical procedure, and yet narrow enough to differentiate between
ambiguities and divergences.

38 “Debt from a sale/contract” refers to a case that speciﬁcally mentions a disputed sale of goods
or contract; “Debt, unspeciﬁed” refers to a case in which no speciﬁc circumstances are given for the debt.
“Ecclesiastical Issues” include cases that address issues speciﬁc to the clerical ofﬁce, such as the right to
say mass in a particular church. Categories of “Condemnation,” “Confession,” “Sentence,” “Summons,”
and “Testimony,” are all “stand alone” entries, in which the scribe has recorded this aspect of the court’s
business, but little else. Typically, “Procedural” cases are those in which a procurator is assigned or
perhaps an extension is granted. “Rights of lordship” are some of the most complicated cases in the court
book and concern issues such as enforcement of rights to ovens, levying tolls, bearing arms in episcopal
towns, etc. “Unknown” refers to cases that are illegible to the point that the matter before the court cannot
be discerned.

97

TABLE 1. TOTAL CASES BY TYPE

 

 

Type Number of cases Percent of total Rank
Assault 33 12.0 3
Condemnation 7 2.5 9
Confession 6 2.2 10
Debt from a Sale/Contract 25 9.1 4
Debt, Unspeciﬁed 62 22.5 1
Ecclesiastical Issues 3 1.1 12
Lordship, Rights of 22 8.0 5
Marriage 7 2.5 9
Procedural 18 6.5 6
Property 10 3.6 7
Sentence 5 1.8 11
Summons 3 1.1 12
Testament 6 2.2 10
Testimony 5 1.8 l 1
Theft 8 2.9 8
Unknown 56 20.3 2
Total 276

 

Analysis of the top ﬁve categories, which make up 71.7 % of the total (198 cases),
illustrates what sorts of business came before the bishop’s court. Certainly, debts
dominated; Debts of an unspeciﬁed nature ranked as the largest category, with sixty-two
cases (22.5 % of total) and debts resulting from a sale or a disputed contract ranked
fourth, with twenty-ﬁve cases (9.1 % of total). Together the two debt categories account
for 31.5 % of the total cases. The second-ranked category, 56 cases (20.3 % of total), is
comprised of cases of unknown nature. Several factors account for the cases in this
category. The most important is that certain pages, or portions of pages, are illegible due

to faded ink, wonnholes, tears, water damage, and other impairments. In other instances,

98

insufﬁcient information was recorded to determine the nature of the case.39 The third
ranked category is assaults (33 cases, 12 % to total) and the ﬁfth concern cases of rights
of lordship (22 cases, 8 % to total). Furthermore, in eighteen cases (6.5 % of total), one
or more parties to the litigation were clerics."0 The types of cases involving clerics are
consistent with, although not identical to, the overall distribution of cases presented in
Table 1. Among cases involving clerics, unspeciﬁed debts dominated (5 cases, 27.7% of
total) followed by assaults (4 cases, 22.2 % of total) and property (3 cases, 16.6 % of
total).

One conclusion to be drawn from this analysis is that much of the business of the
episcopal court at Mende concerned issues that often were not within the jurisdiction of
an ecclesiastical court, which usually addressed cases having to do with marriage, family,
testaments, or sexual behavior or involve one or more ecclesiastics.4| Moreover, secular
courts vigorously protected their jurisdictions, and usually resisted any encroachment by
an ecclesiastical court.42 Yet, in this ofﬁciality, the jurisdictional frontier between secular

and ecclesiastical courts appears to have been very ﬂuid. As Table 1 indicates, cases

 

39 For instance, ADL G963 158r, under the rubric “Johannes Masseri contra Jehan Molin” a case is
enregistered with only the following information: “Anno Domini M° CC° LXX°die Mercurii post festum
Pentecostem conpervenit.” At this point, the text breaks off and the court book contains no further
reference to the two individuals named in this incomplete entry. Another case is enregistered further down
on the same page; however it is clearly a different case.

’0 Of the eighteen cases, eleven men were identiﬁed as clericus, ﬁve as presbyter, one as presbyter
et rector, and two as canon. In only two cases were both parties clerics. This analysis should not be
confused with the category “Ecclesiastical Issues” which deals with issues of clerical behavior.

4' Brundage, Medieval Canon Law, 72. Canonists had been concerned with jurisdiction since, at
least the eleventh century. Inﬂuenced by Roman law, canon law deﬁned jurisdiction as potestas de publica
introducta cum necessitate iuris dicendi et sequitatis statuendae. It carried with it the authority to intervene
to safeguard the public good. Charles Lefebvre, “Procedure,” in Dictionnaire de droit canonique,
contenent tous les terms du droit canonique, avec un sommaire de l ’histoire et des institutions et de l ’état
actuel, vol. 7, ed. R. Naz (Paris, 1935-1965), 286.

’2 Brundage, Medieval Canon Law, 2.

99

concerning marriage and ecclesiastical issues ranked 9 and 12 respectively, comprising
only 3.6 % of the total cases recorded in the court book and the bishop’s court was active
in civil matters like debts and contracts, and criminal matters like assaults, all of which
typically were tried in secular courts. Furthermore, the ofﬁciality heard twenty-two cases
concerning issues related to the enforcement of the lucrative rights of lordship, typically
reserved for the secular courts. As we will see in Chapter 4, evidence suggests that the
ecclesiastical court in Mende had an extensive archive and perhaps they cases typically
reserved for ecclesiastical court jurisdiction were grouped together and recorded in one or
more books. Yet, even if that were the case, it does not alter the fact that the court of the
bishop heard cases normally reserved for secular jurisdiction. Why is the court book of
Mende, so exceptional in its precocity, also apparently unencumbered by the usual
jurisdictional limits?

The answer lies in the bishop’s exercise of secular lordship in the Gévaudan.
Although elaboration of the episcopal potestas iurisdictionis had been an ongoing
concern of canonists since, at least the late eleventh century, the jurisdiction exercised by
Odilon was much more extensive than that allowed by the canonists.43 The bishop’s
claim to lordship in the Gévaudan, very close to a claim to sovereignty within the county,
was demonstrated by his dominance over the often-competing jurisdictions of the secular
and feudal authority.44 Recall that in the intentiones he presented in 1270 to the royal
agents assigned to hear his suit, Odilon expressly emphasized that his lordship within the

diocese was granted by the Golden Bull of 1161 and conﬁrmed by the exercise of his

 

‘3 Benson, The Bishop-Elect, 43-55 and 97-1 15.

4" J. P. Canning, “Introduction: politics, institutions, and ideas,” in The Cambridge History of
Medieval Political Thought c. 350 - c. I450, ed. J. H. Burns (Cambridge, 1988), 350-351.

100

seigniorial jurisdictional rights. The intentiones asserted that the bishop’s court claimed
jurisdiction over feudal disputes and criminal offences, and his court had the authority to
summon barons to appear before the court in these and other matters.45 The earliest cases
in the court book are contemporary with Odilon’s appeal to end royal interference with
his exercise of rights of secular lordship within the Gévaudan. In 1270, at the enquéte
that was initiated as a result of Odilon’s suit, his intentiones clearly indicate that the
exercise of his jurisdictional rights demonstrated his lordship. It seems very likely, given
this sequence of events, that the court book was created to provide written proof of the

assertion that the episcopal court heard cases of canon and civil law.

Legal Expertise in the Bishop ’3 Court

Men trained to draft and preserve documents had been at work in southern France
since the twelfth century although it is unclear exactly where early notaries received their
training.“ The earliest evidence of notarial activity in Mende consists of a fragment from
what was undoubtedly a notarial register from 1283.47 I examined this fragment, which is
in very poor condition and was unable to determine a date; however, in 1957, the director

of the departmental archives dated the fragment to 1280.48 The earliest complete notarial

 

’5 For the discussion on Odilon’s suit and the intentiones see Chapter 2.

’6 By the late thirteenth century, legal training was available in Toulouse, Béziers, Avignon,
Monpellier, Orange, Lyons, and Arles. The emergence of the public notariate in southern France during
the thirteenth century preceded the teaching of canon law in the southern French universities of Toulouse,
Montpellier, and Avignon. André Gouron, “The Training of Southern French Lawyers during the
Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries” Studio Gratiana, 15 (1972): 223 — 227.

‘7 ADL 3B 6410.

’8 . Repertoire des minutes de notaires série III-E, ed. H. Boullier de Branche (Largentiére, 1957),
21.

101

register, that of a notary named Daguileria, dates from 1290-1303.49 Internal evidence in
the court book indicating that the writers were trained notaries public is absent; no sign
manuals were drawn and the notarial style of using invocative, injunctive, prohibitive,
reservative, obligative, denunciative formulaic phrases, datum clauses, or subscriptions,
common to charters after the twelfth century, do not appear.50 Yet, the writers of the
court book -- I believe there to be ﬁve different hands at work in the book -- clearly were
trained and accustomed to the workings and procedures of the court. Few lineouts occur
and, when they do, they generally clarify or illuminate rather than interpose an
overlooked point. For instance, in the above-mentioned case of the conspirators, the
scribe inserted an extra bit of information in superscript above the line in which he
recorded the denunciation of Raymond and Pons.5| He writes, “Ad aures curie domini
episcopi pervenisse quod Poncius de Rupeforti et dominus Raymundus frater ejus,
conspiraverunt et conjuraverunt. ” At this point he adds, above the line, “Dictus Poncius
pro se et pro dicto fratre suo,” and then continues with the rest of his sentence, “Cum
quibusdam aliis ad auferendum seu subripiendum castrum de Chabreira quod tenet

dominus episcopus ad manum suam.”52

The amendments in the court book are generally
of this nature; they suggest scribal desires for clariﬁcation more often than an untrained

hands.

 

‘9 ADL 3B 1110.
50 Giry, Manuel de diplomatique, 531-621
5' ADL G 963 123r.

53 Ibid.

102

Although we cannot discern direct evidence of notaries, or even know the names
of the scriptores who created the court book, quite a lot of evidence points to legal
professionals at work in the bishop’s court. Many of the entries in the court book refer to
the presence of men styled magistri, jurisperiti, oﬁ‘iciali and judices. Of these, two men,
Pierre la Bladie and Laurent de Condat, stand out as exceptionally active in the episcopal
court. They merit special attention because they appear with greater frequency than any
other ofﬁcers of the court do. Usually styled judex or magisterjudex and once oﬂicialis,
Laurent is named 13 times and Pierre 27 times in 39 causae of various types.53 Laurent
was active primarily in 1268, the ﬁrst year of the book. Pierre’s activity spans the range
of dates from 1268 through 1270. Table 2 illustrates, by judge, what types of cases they
heard.

TABLE 2. PERCENTAGE OF CASES BY TYPE, BY JUDGE

 

53 In the case beginning on 46v, the scribe indicates that both judges were present. Throughout
this paper, the cases are arranged into the following categories: Assault, Condemnation, Confession, Debt
from a sale/contract, Debt unspeciﬁed, Ecclesiastical, Procedural, Marriage, Property, Rights of lordship
(enforcement of secular rights of lordship, such as rights to tolls, enforcement of right of way, rights to
mines, ovens, mills, etc), Sentence, Summons, Theft, Testimony, Testaments, Unknown.

103

 

 

Laurent Pierre

Number of Percent of Number of Percent of

cases total cases total
Assault 2 15.4 -- --
Condemnation -- -- 7 25.9
Confession l 7.7 -- --
Debt, sale 1 7.7 4 14.8
Debt, general 1 7.7 7 25.9
Marriage 1 7.7 -- --
Property -- -- 1 3.7
Rights of lordship 4 30.8 1 3.7
Sentence 1 7.7 -- --
Summons 1 7.7 1 3.7
Theft 1 7.7 2 7.4
Testimony -- -- 1 3.7
Unknown54 -- -- 3 1 1.1
Total 13 -- 27 --

 

Table 2 suggests that, perhaps, Laurent and Pierre presided at different types of

cases. For example, Laurent heard four cases concerning the rights of lordship, whereas

Pierre is identiﬁed in only one case. There are twenty-two cases concerning the rights of

lordship in the court book (see above, Table l) and Laurent is named in 22 % of them.5

5

The cases of lordship were of some importance: the case beginning on 37v is an

inquisition against various people who are accused of occupying a public road, which, as

the secular lord of the Gévaudan, the bishop of Mende maintained; the case beginning on

113r is a dispute between the consuls of the castrum of Garde-Garin and Guillaume de

Beauvoir over payment of tolls that Guillaume imposed; on 123r begins the case

concerning the allegations of a conspiracy entered into by two brothers against the

 

5’ All the cases termed “Unknown” are written by the same hand. They are of illegible due to

deterioration of ink, paper, or quality of writing.

55 Pierre heard one case, and seventeen cases did not name a judge.

104

bishop; l67r concerns a dispute over the rights to an oven. These cases litigated before
Judge Laurent involved enforcement of rights of lordship and/or revenues and so were
important to the bishop and his assertion of secular rights. On the other hand, Pierre was
present in more cases that concern debt than was Laurent. If the two debt categories are
combined, Pierre presided at eleven, Laurent, only two. There were eighty-seven debt
cases in the court book (see above, Table l); of those, Pierre is named in 11.5 %.
Furthermore, of the cases in which Pierre is named, 40.7 % concern a debt.

Although the numbers are small, and we must use caution in pushing this
observation too far, Table 2 seems to suggest that differentiation of responsibilities
existed in the bishop’s court. Laurent most often heard cases pertaining lordship, and
Pierre presided over cases concerning debts. It is tempting to hypothesize that the
speciﬁcity of cases was a result of individual expertise, which speaks to a high degree of
professionalization, although the sample is so small that such a conclusion cannot be
established absolutely. Legal specialists acting as judges had been used commonly in
episcopal courts since the end of the twelfth century.56

In Table 3, analysis of the dates in which the two men presided over cases reveals
that they were not present in court on the same days; this is hardly surprising since
Laurent was much more active in 1268 than Pierre, and Pierre was most active in 1270.
Therefore, the analysis does not support the unlikely scenario of one judge stepping aside

if a case concerning the other’s specialty came before him. Rather, it is more probable

 

56 Paul Foumier, Les oﬁ‘icialitie’s au moyen dge: Etude sur 1 ’organisation, Ia compétence et la
procedure des tribunaux eccle’siastiques ordinaires en France de I I 80 d I 328 (Paris, 1880), 2-4. These
legal specialists usually can'ied the title of ofﬁcial (oﬁ‘icialis). The term for the man to whom the bishop’s
judicial power was delegatedcame from the ofﬁcium of the Roman magistrate. James A. Brundage,
Medieval Canon Law (London, 1995), 121-122.

105

that -- if there was specialization -- it came about as a result of complaints being directed
to one or the other judge. In the court book it is possible to glimpse, perhaps, differing
levels of expertise among the judges, which has important implications for the study of
legal cultures, the function and the relationship between the scribes and judges, and
southern French legal culture in which these men undoubtedly were trained. Not merely
an administrative document of strictly juridical value, this book is an important source for
understanding the professionalization of writing, the spread of legal culture, and the daily
operations of an ecclesiastical court nearly a century before this is possible any place else

in Europe.

106

TABLE 3. ANALYSIS OF JUDGE’S APPEARANCE IN COURT BY DATE

 

 

Folio Date Subject
Laurent 10r 26 June 1268 Marriage dispute
Laurent 113r 24 July 1268 Lordship
Laurent 15r 15 September 1268 Debt from a sale
Laurent 2r 13 October 1268 Summons
Laurent 119v 13 October 1268 Assault
Laurent 20r 16 October 1268 Sentence
Laurent 46v 23 October 1268 Debt from a sale
Pierre 176r 13 November 1268 Condemnation
Laurent 3r 15 December 1268 Debt
Laurent 123r 20 December 1268 Lordship
Laurent 32v 24 December 1268 Assault
Pierre 181r 29 January 1269 Debt
Pierre 152r 18 March 1269 Property
Laurent 6r 1 April 1269 Confession
Pierre 174v 21 October 1269 Debt from a sale
Pierre 181v 26 November 1269 Unknown
Pierre 187r 4 December 1269 Debt from a sale
Pierre 88r 5 December 1269 Theft
Pierre 6r 15 September 1269 Unknown
Pierre 183V 19 December 1269 Debt
Pierre 179v 27 March 1270 Debt
Laurent 167r 7 May 1270 Lordship
Pierre 170v 4 July 1270 Lordship
Pierre l77r 14 July 1270 Unknown
Pierre 178r 17 July 1270 Debt
Pierre 182v 26 July 1270 Debt from a sale
Pierre 83r 23 August 1270 Debt
Pierre 177v 23 October 1270 Summons
Pierre 3v No date Condemnation
Pierre Sr No date Condemnation
Pierre 5v No date Condemnation
Pierre 5v No date Condemnation
Pierre 5v No date Condemnation
Pierre 5v No date Condemnation
Pierre 87v No date Testimony
Pierre 175v No date Debt
Laurent 37v Unknown -- 1268 Lordship
Pierre 176r Unknown -- 1269 Debt
Pierre l80r Unknown -- 1269 Debt from a sale

 

107

Another fond, ADL G 964 presents further information concerning the
functioning and the personnel of the court. This is a miscellany of loose documents of
both secular and ecclesiastical jurisdiction consisting of ﬁve parchment and thirty-ﬁve
paper documents. Some of the items are not dated. Of those with dates, the range covers
1268-1326. The documents concern various activities of the court; for example, a letter
dated 1268 from the ofﬁcial of Mende (who is not named) to the chaplain of St. Flour in
Pompidou ordering him to publicly summon Guillaume Amal of Mas-Aribal in the parish
church to appear before the judge in Mende; an undated denunciation by Guillaume
Guerrajat against Pierre, the butcher (lanius) of Mende, for having chased him with a
knife in his hand; a complaint by the men of Garde and of Raschas against Lord Guigon
de Toumel and the Lord of Chateauneuf Randon claiming that they were forced to pay a
toll at Villefort. Apart from offering an interesting view into quotidian life of the
ordinary folks in Mende (e. g., the knife wielding butcher), we can make important
aspects of court procedure out in this collection of miscellaneous documents.

In these forty documents, Judge Laurent de Condat is named three times not only
as the judge of the court of the bishop of Mende but also as a canon of Mende.
Therefore, at least one judge of Mende was also a canon of the cathedral church.
Furthermore, the fond offers insight into the workings of the episcopal court and its
authority. In a letter from 1268 addressed to Laurent de Condat (Viro sapienti provido et
discreto magistro Laurentio de Condat judici et canonico Mimatensi), Guigon Meschin,
lord of the castle of Toumel (domino castro de Tomello), asks the judge to excuse him if
he is unable to answer a summons to appear in court (aperere) because he has urgent

business that requires him to travel to Montpellier. The obverse of this letter reveals that

108

the document was trifolded, the ends into the center, and sealed.57 Thus, ADL G 964
demonstrates the manner in which correspondence with the episcopal court was
transacted and the authority of Laurent de Condat, canon, judge, and legal specialist, to
summon lords before the episcopal court. Although he is never styled as such, it seems
likely that based on the his activities evidenced in the court book and in this loose
collection of documents, Laurent de Condat fulﬁlled a role very close to what other
episcopal courts refer to as an ofﬁcial-principal. This ofﬁcial was charged with
overseeing the judicial bureaucracy, the court’s staff of clerks who copied and produced
documents, the court’s other judges and auditors, and the judicial calendar.58

Finally, ADL G 964 offers additional evidence of professionally trained men
working as notaries public in the episcopal chancery. Three documents, written on
parchment, contain the distinctive notarial sign manual.59 All of the acta date from the
12603 or 12708 and one notary public, Guigon de Chameri, wrote two of the three.
Guigon did not style himself an episcopal notary; his dating clause uses the regnal year of
Louis IX, and his sign manual does not incorporate the cross that is typical of episcopal
notaries. The other notarial document, however, is that of an episcopal notary named
Benoit de Arenis, notarius publicus. He styles himself “notary public of Mende,” and his
style manual is of the distinctive episcopal design. The act was drafted in 1269, and

nominates Odilon Astorge of Rochblano, squire (domicellus), as the proctor in a causa

 

57 Although the seal is no longer extant, remnants of an oval wax seal clearly remain. Five of the
forty documents in G 964 have vestiges of seals afﬁxed to them; three of the ﬁve are addressed to or sent
from Laurent de Condat.

58 Brundage, Medieval Canon Law, 122. Ofﬁcials-principal differed from the ofﬁce of the
chancellor, who presided over the writing ofﬁce of the bishop, overseeing his correspondence and diocesan
business. Cheney, English Bishops’ Chanceries 1100 -— I 250, 22-43.

59 The parchments measure 16.5 cm. x 11 cm.; 18 cm. x 11cm.; 17.5 cm. x 11 cm.

109

against Raymond of Anduse before the unnamed ofﬁcial of Mende (coram nobis oﬁiciali
mimatensi). Odilon’s notarial hand does not appear in the court book; it seems likely that
the episcopal notaries public worked along side the episcopal chancery, drafting acta for
clients who had business with the episcopal court.

Therefore, the men who drafted documents and heard cases in the bishop’s court
were men who were professionally trained and their presence speaks to the diffusion of
legal culture in southern France. We cannot say with any degree of certainty where these
men received their training, but their expertise is visible clearly in the surviving
documents. What sorts of cases occupied the men of the episcopal court? To answer this

question, we turn again the to the court book.

Examples: Cases of Assault, Theft, and Rights of Lordship

The episcopal court in Mende employed Romano-canonical procedure.”0 Broadly
speaking there are two categories of cases: the ﬁrst, and most common, is identiﬁed by
the scribe as causae. In these cases, the plaintiff brought suit against the defendant.

They are roughly analogous to the modern category of civil litigation. The second is
identiﬁed as inquisitio; in these cases, the court, ex ofﬁcio, initiated the action against the
accused. In practice, a clear distinction between the two categories is not always evident,

since an inquisitio might be begun as a response to an accusation made by an aggrieved

 

6° Romano-canonical procedure is so-called because it draws primarily on Roman law however
not to the exclusion of Germanic and customary law inﬂuences. Lefebvre, “Procedure,” 286.

110

individual.“ Most of the cases in the court book begin with a heading (capitulum)
indicating the parties in the matter, beginning with the name of the individual bringing
the complaint (the plaintiff), followed by the name of thedefendant. For example, the
case on 79v carries this heading: “Causa domini Petri de Sancta Enimia contra
Dominum Stephanum de Montelauro.” If the case was an inquisition, the heading
typically followed the form of the example found on 123r: “Inquisitio contra Dominum
Raymundum de Rupeforti et Poncium, fratrem ejus.” Generally, after the heading, the
ﬁrst information recorded in the case was the libellus, in which the plaintiff, defendant,
and judge (if named) are listed followed by a brief description of the accusations brought
by the plaintiff and the remedy sought. If the case proceeded, this section usually ended
with a clause indicating when the case would proceed and sometimes a list of witnesses
who would be summoned. Depending on how many witnesses were interrogated, the
testimony might last for weeks, and often delays or postponements were granted. After
the testimonies were recorded, another date was set for the judge to pronounce his
sentence. Most often, however, the case abruptly ends, presumably because the dispute
was settled or the plaintiff abandoned the suit.

Although, as one would expect, each case is distinctive, an example that embodies
many typical characteristics of an inquisition into an assault case is an inquisitio that
began in 1268.62 At the top of the page, a heading indicates the essential information:

Inquisitio contra Johannem Besso. The scribe drew a line beneath the heading, and

 

6' L. R. Poos, “Introduction,” in Lower Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in Late-medieval England: The
Courts of the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln, 1336-1349, and the Deanery of Wisbech, 1458-1484 (Oxford,
2001), xlv-xlvi.

‘2 ADL G 963 22r.

lll

beneath that, he began to record the case. The proceedings began before an auditor (who
is not named) of the court of the bishop (ad auditorem curie domini episcopi). Jean
Bessos of Balsieges was investigated for having rolled a stone (lapis) from the side of a
mountain in Changef‘ege striking Guillaume Crosier, son of Raymond Crosier, in the head
and causing his death.63 The court, ex oﬁ‘icio suo, ordered a process of inquiry be
conducted on the Thursday after the octave of the Feast of St. Michael, when Jean would
appear before the court and would be interrogated under oath. In his testimony,
comprising about ﬁfteen lines of text, Jean acknowledged that the stone rolled from the
summit and struck Guillaume, but he denied that the incident caused Guillaume’s death.64
The text stops abruptly, with no further testimony and no sentence or ruling by the judge
auditor was recorded.

A case about three stolen mules offers more insight into the operation of the
episcopal court than the inquisition into the unfortunate death of Guillaume Crosier.65 In
this causa, Etienne Aribaldi of Barre brings a complaint against Gaucelin de Chavanon,
squire (domicellus), for having taken off with three mules belonging to Etienne and
leaving them with Guillaume (tres mulas vecturas a Guillaumo). A petition presented

to the judge of the court (who is not named) described the nature of the complaint and

 

”3 Today, Changelége is a small village atop a precipitous peak, which one ﬁnds at the end of a
terrifyingly steep and narrow road, about 5 km. southeast of Mende. Balsiéges, located about 10 km.
southeast of Mende, is situated in the valley of the Lot and its strategic location made it an important cite in
Odilon de Mercoeur’s military plans to dominate the valley. The bishop constructed one of a number of
castra in the valley; the one at Balsieges is no longer extant, although a tower still stands as a vestige of
episcopal authority in the valley. Darnas, Les chdteaux, 47.

6" ADL G 963 22r “Requisitur dictum Johannes 51 ad diem quod lapis illa quique ipse sinisit pro
costa percusset et interferit dominum Guillaume craserii, dixit quod non.”

6‘ ADL G 963 45v-46v.

112

initiated the case.”6 The undated petition, which is not copied into the court book, was
drafted on paper by a hand that does not appear in the court book; it is preserved in the
collection of loose documents described above.67 This petition convinced the judge of
the legitimacy of the complaint and the parties were summoned to appear before the
judge; although the summons does not survive and it is not copied into the court book,
the next time we encounter the dispute between Etienne and Gaucelin, it is before the
bishop’s court under the heading “Causa S. Aribaldi contra Gaucelinum de Canano.’”58
The ﬁrst process before the court began in 1269. Off to an inauspicious start, the
causa began with a delay and a re-assignment of the day, the Monday after the quindene
of Pentecost, when Etienne and Gaucelin would come before the court. At that time,
before the court, Gaucelin denied, under oath, the charges in the complaint; whereas
Etienne swore that the complaint was true (dicta signiﬁcatione contra eum [Gaucelin]
tunc esse vera). From this point, under canonical civil procedure (ordo iudiciarius), it
was up to the plaintiff to prove the veracity of his complaint by presenting credible
evidence in support of his accusations. The defendant, on the other hand, attempted to
produce evidence that weakened or challenged the plaintiff’ 8 claim; the defendant, then,
had a somewhat easier legal undertaking since he merely had to demonstrate that the

complaint lacked adequate foundation in fact or law.69 The most convincing evidence

came from witnesses and both Etienne and Gaucelin provided the court with the names of

 

6" ADL G 964. “Signiﬁcat et proponit S. Aribaldi de Barre ...coram vobis domino judice
Mimatensi pro domino episcopo. . .”

“7 ADL G 964.
6“ ADL G 963 45v.

69 Brundage, Medieval Canon Law, 131.

113

witnesses they would produce to support their side.70 For Etienne, testimony would come
from Guillaume Tersseri; for Gaucelin, from Jean de Manso. The witnesses were ordered
to appear before the court on the Monday after the month. of Pentecost (dies Lune post
mensem Pentecostem). The ﬁnal item recorded that day concerned the naming of a
proctor (procurator) as Gaucelin’s legal agent to act fully on his behalf during the
litigation.7| All these procedures were transacted before the court in one day, and they
were enregistered by one hand in twenty-three lines of text (about two-thirds of a page).

This case demonstrates the organizational system that the curial scribes strove to
achieve. The next process, the oral testimony of witnesses, was recorded in the court
book immediately following the enregistering of the initial phase of the litigation even
though seven days separated the two procedures.72 A different scribal hand recorded that,
on the day ordered, Etienne and two witnesses, Guillaume Tersseri and Guillaume del
Fesquet appeared on his behalf. Although Guillaume del Fesquet had not been

mentioned before, the scribe recorded no explanation for his presence. Witnesses

 

70 J. PH. Levy, La hiérarchie des preuves dans le droit du moyen-a‘ge depuis la Renaissance du
Droit Romain jusqu 'd la ﬁn du XI Ve siécle (Paris, 1939), 68. Probatio plena or probatio vera, plena,
perfecta was established by two types of proof, that of witnesses and that of written acts. Jurists
approached literal proof, that is, proof from written documents, with more caution. Levy, La Hiérarchie,
72-79; andage, Medieval Canon Law, 132-133; Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, 260-263,
272-278, 295-299.

The principle that testimony must come from at least two credible witnesses who had seen and
heard the event or issue in question was well established in civil and ecclesiastical courts by the thirteenth
century. Around 1215, the Bolognese jurist Tancred wrote, “Per testes et per instrumenta probatur ...Et
nota quod hae duae probationum species magis proprie dicuntur probationes quam ceterae praecedentes.”
Tancred, 0rd0 iudiciarius, III, 5, § 6 cited in Levy, La hierarchy, 68, n. 5.

7' Proctors, men with a certain amount of legal expertise, were retained, for a fee, to act on behalf
of litigants and commonly were used by those who could afford them. In the initial complaint, Gaucelin is
styled as a domicellus, indicating that he was, perhaps, a man of some modest means.

’2 Christopher R. Cheney, Handbook ofDates for Students ofEnglish History (Cambridge, 1996),
88-89. In 1269 (old style), the important dates for this case to this point are 24 March (Easter), 12 May
(Pentecost), 27 May (Monday after the quindene of Pentecost), and 3 June (Monday after Pentecost
month).

114

testiﬁed separately, and the judicial examination began with Guillaume Tersseri, who
swore an oath to tell the truth.73 The record does not reveal who conducted the
examination, and all interrogatories and responses were recorded in third person. For
example, during his testimony, Guillaume Tersseri stated that Gaucelin had seized the
three mules from Etienne and sold them to Guillaume of Garde. The testimony
continues: “He [the interrogator] asked if said lord G[uillaume] of Garde received said
mules from the hand of said Gau[celine]; he [the witness] said yes.”74 In this way, using
indirect discourse, the same hand recorded the oral testimony of the two witnesses,
presumably all on the same day.

The next stage in the case occurred on the Thursday after the Feast of the
Exaltation of the Holy Cross (dies Jovis post festum Exaltationis sancte Crucis).75 On
this day, declaratory letters (littere publicatorie) were presented to the ofﬁcial of Mende,
a certain magister P., by the proctors for Etienne and Gaucelin.76 These documents are
not copied into the register nor do they exist in any other fond, but it seems likely that
they were written positiones, arguments that each side wished to present to the judge in
addition to the testimony of the witnesses. The same scribal hand that recorded the
testimony recorded this stage, with little detail, in seven lines. On the Tuesday after the

Feast of Saint Luke, twenty-one weeks after the ﬁrst process, the judge was ready to

 

73 ADL G 963 45v. “Ad quem dies Lune post mensem Pentecostem conperunt dictus Stephanus
Aribaldi et predicte testes G. Terterii et G. del Fesquet. Que juramenta pro versa parte veritatem.”

7" Ibid., 46r. “Requisitus si quod dictus dominus G. de Garde reciperet dictas mulas de manu dicti
Gau, dixit quod sic.”

75 The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross occurs on 14 September; in 1269, the Thursday
following this feast day fell on 19 September. Note that about fourteen weeks lapsed since between this

process and the one before it.

7° ADL G 963 46v.

115

declare his decision.77 Those present included Gaucelin, his proctor, Etienne, Laurent de
Condat, styled magister, judex, and ofﬁcialis, and Pierre de Bladie, who is styled judex.
The decision is given in a brief statement, without elaboration. of contradictions in fact,
ﬂaws of evidence, or arguments in law.78 The last item recorded in the causa, in the
same hand, indicates that this was written, ad diﬁnitivum on the Monday after the Feast
of All Saints.79

The case of the three mules illustrates several important points in the functioning
of the episcopal court. First, the various processes of this case follow the general pattern
of canonical civil procedure: the plaintiff petitions the court to hear his complaint;
assuming the court agrees to hear the complaint, it is presented to the court again, in
written form as a libellus, and both parties to the suit swear that they are presenting their
arguments fairly and truthfully; next, evidence in support of both sides of the action is
presented, usually in the form of witness testimony; after the testimony, the parties (or
their proctors) present positiones outlining their arguments; ﬁnally, the judge issues his
decision, which is read into the record. Although the case of the three mules embodies
many of the procedures of civil canonical procedure, cases in the court book often
deviated from the model and any semblance of neat categorization of the processes the

above case may suggest is deceptive. The case is also of interest because it offers insight

 

77 The Feast of Saint Luke falls on 18 October, therefore in 1269, the Tuesday after the feast
would have fallen on 22 October.

78 Although this case illustrates several important aspects about the functioning of the bishop’s
court and how the court book was created, the men involved in the case and its details are quite banal.
Nonetheless, curiosity demands to know how the case was decided: Gaucelin was ordered to pay
restitution to Etienne for the three mules, although, surprisingly, the amount or a date by which it must be
paid is not indicated.

79 ADL G 963 46v “Scribens die Lune post Festem Omnium sanctorum ad diﬁnitivum.”

116

into how the scribes in the episcopal chancery worked. Two hands are at work in this
case. The ﬁrst hand recorded the initial presentation of the complaint but the majority of
the case is recorded by a second hand. The ﬁnal sentence of this case, “Scribens die Lune
post F estem Omnium sanctorum ad diﬁnitivum” is signiﬁcant to understanding the
processes at work in the redacting of the text. From this phrase, it seems that scribes
drafted the court book as a fair copy, that is, a copy that was made from amended and
corrected that served as a “deﬁnitive” record of the case. The working method of the
scribes seems to suggest recognition of the importance of keeping all processes
concerning a case together. In the case of the three mules, the system worked well; the
procedures were recorded into the allotted space without the need for cross-references
and only about one half page was left blank after the scribe’s ﬁnal entry.

Efﬁcient use of space was not the result in the inquisition into an alleged
conspiracy, which addresses many issues of episcopal lordship in the Gévaudan.80 This
case, brought before judge Laurent (coram discreto viro magistro Laurentio, judice
Mimantensi) on the Thursday before Christmas in 1268, investigated an alleged
conspiracy against Bishop Odilon de Mercoeur and his castellan Raymond de Chavavon,
entered into by a certain Pons and his brother Raymond de Roquefort, a priest and rector
from the village of Bédoues, located near Florac, about 22 km. southwest of Mende, in
the heart of the Cévennes Mountains.81 The case opens with a denunciation made by the

castellan, Raymond de Chavanon, miles, in which the brothers are accused of conspiring

 

8° ADL G 963, 123r-124v, 125v, 1 12r, 112v. This inquisition is discussed and partially
transcribed in Etudes historiques, 267-280, although the cross-reference system seems to have confused the
very capable archivist Porée, and there are errors in his version of the text. The same hand recorded all the
processes associated with this case.

8|ADL G 963 123r. The heading for this case reads “lnquisitio contra Dominum Raymundum de
Rupeforti et Poncium, fratrem ejus.”

117

with others to seize the castle of Chabriéres, located in the parish of Be’doues.82 The
denunciation concludes with a statement that the court has accepted the denunciation and
that it will determine the veracity of the accusation through sworn testimony of
witnesses.83 The denunciation, all in the same hand, was written in ﬁfteen lines of text
and the declaration of the court required another ﬁve lines. Therefore, the preliminaries
of the case, which established the nature of the accusation, the court’s jurisdiction in the
case and its right to conduct an inquisitio, required about two-thirds of the ﬁrst page.
What follows is the testimony of eleven witnesses, beginning with the accused
brothers Pons and Raymond de Roquefort. The record of their testimonies is unusual
because they contain direct discourse.84 For example, Raymond claimed that on the
Sunday after the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, two men, who Raymond claimed were
unknown to him, approached him in church after mass.85 They insinuated that Raymond

ought to join with them in a conspiracy against the bishop who, they said, unjustly held

 

82 Ibid. “Poncius de Rupeforti et dominus Raymundus, frater ejus, conspiraverunt et conjuraverunt
...cum quibusdam aliis ad auferendum seu subripiendum castrum de Chabreira quod tenet dominus
episcopus ad manum suam.”

83 Ibid. “Et primo cum predictis fratribus et super hoc curia recepit ad eis juramentum, scilicet
quod ipsi dicant super predictis veritatem, ut principales in facto et ut testes in facto aliorum.”

8" Although the testimony was recorded in ﬁrst person, the scribe wrote the testimony in Latin and
the witness likely spoke in the vernacular, despite his clerical status. Herwig Weigl has argued that
although scribes in secular courts nearly always rendered charters in indirect discourse, “traces of orality”
in charters suggest that in their protocols scribes often took down direct discourse and then formalized the
organization of the proceedings to reﬂect formal correctness and legal validity. Herwi g Weigl, “What to
Write in Court,” 78-79. This case, with its frequent resort to direct speech, demonstrates nicely Brian
Stock’s concept of “textual communities,” in which literacy and orality were intertwined. Brian Stock, The
Implications of Literacy and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Princeton,
1983), 7-9, 12-87, 343, 346, 356-358, 366, 372, 391, 402-408, 455-457, 472, 497, 522-531.

85 ADL G 963 123v. In 1268, the Exaltation of the Holy Cross fell on Friday 14 September;
therefore, the Sunday after fell on 16 September. Cheney, Handbook of Dates, 1 18-119.

118

the castle of Chabrieres for one of his wards, Isabelle of Anduse.86 Raymond testiﬁed,
and the scribe recorded in direct discourse, that his angry response was “Ite! Talia dicitis
mihi. Ego sum clericus et beneﬁciatus donrini Episcopi et talia mihi dicitis.”87 Raymond
claims that the next day he and his brother traveled to Mende, where they met the
bishop’s ofﬁcial (who is not named) and informed him of the entire matter.88
Nonetheless, three months later, Raymond and his brother found themselves before the
bishop’s court, implicated in secret machinations against the bishop.

Testimony from another witness casts Raymond’s behavior in a different light and
enlightens us as to why the brothers were under suspicion of conspiracy. Raymond de
Sericis, a priest from Calberte [St-Germain-de-Calberte], was an acquaintance of
Raymond de Roquefort. Once again, the scribe uses direct discourse to record the
testimony, animating the words of the witnesses. Although he did not recall the exact
date, Raymond de Sericis testiﬁed that some time between the Feast of All Saints and
Christmas, the priest of Bédoues visited him in Calberte and complained that the castellan
of Chabrieres had seized and killed his livestock.89 To seek legal remedy for his loss,
Raymond de Roquefort told his friend that he was going to turn the seneschal of

Beaucaire, the bishop of Mende’s jurisdictional rival in the Gévaudan. Almost as if he

 

8° Isabelle of Anduse and her mother Raymonda became wards of the Odilon de Mercoeur
following the death of her father, the baron of Florac, Bernard of Anduse in about 1262. Therefore, Odilon
controlled their marriages and property, like the castle at Chabrieres. Etudes historiques, 267.

87 ADL G 963 123v. “Quo audito, dixit testis se increpasse eis et dixisse eis, ‘Ite! Talia dicitis
milhi. Ego sum clericus et beneﬁciatus domini episcopi et talia mihi dicitis.” Quotation marks indicating
direct quotation do not appear in the manuscript.

88 Ibid., “Et ipse Raymundus cum Puncio fratre suo venerunt in crastinum Mimatam et
nunciaverunt hec domino ofﬁciali.”

89 Under what pretense or conditions the castellan seized the livestock of Raymond de Roquefort

is not disclosed in this case, nor is a complaint concerning this incident registered elsewhere in the court
book.

119

were seeking conﬁrmation of his plan from his friend in Calberte, Raymond asked the
priest to advise him.9O Raymond de Sericis testiﬁed that he advised his friend to seek
justice in the court of his lord the bishop; small surprise that he should claim to have
counseled his friend this way while testifying before that very court.” There is no record
of whether Raymond followed up on his plan to bring the matter before the seneschal of
Beaucaire,92 but Raymond de Sericis concluded his testimony with a neat bit of testimony
by inference. He stated that, although his friend told him he was returning home to
Bédoues, Raymond de Sericis’s servant informed him that he had seen Raymond of
Roquefort later that day, not on the road to Bédoues, but heading in the opposite
direction, to St. Etienne [St-Etienne-Vallée-Francaise], where royal baillis had been in
place since 1228.93

Hence, Raymond de Roquefort was nursing a grudge against the castellan and he
had threatened to seek legal remedy, not in the court of the bishop of Mende, but from the
seneschal of Beaucaire. Who were the two unknown men who initially approached
Raymond in September whispering plots against the bishop and his castellan? The
testimony of Guillaume Ardoin and Deodat Plainard, men loyal to the castellan, reveals

the answer: The castellan hired these men to perform a kind of “sting” operation. The

 

9° ADL G 963 125v. . .venit Dominus Raymundus de Rupeforti apud Calbertam et pemoctavit
ibi cum eo et dixit ipsi testi: ‘Domine, dominus Raymundus de Cavano cepit bestiarium meum et occidit et
fecit redimi, et consulebant mihi aliqui quod hoc ostenderem domino Senescallo. Quid consuletis mihi?”

9' Ibid., “. . .invenerit jus in curia domini episcopi.”

92 As we will see in the next chapter, there is evidence from a source other than the court book that
Raymond de Roquefort did follow up on his complaint against the castellan’s conﬁscation, or perhaps theft,
of his livestock.

93 Ibid., “Dixit tamen quod idem dominus Raymundus Rupeforti dixit sibi quod reveniret ad
domum suam. . .et eodem die, dixit testis se audivisse dici a Petro Ricardi serviente suo, quod invenerit
ipsum dorrrinum Raymondum de Rupeforti apud Sanctum Stephanum.” On the presence of royal baillis in
St-Etienne-Vallee-Francaise, see above, the pontiﬁcate of Etienne of Briode.

120

castellan had heard that certain men, loyal to his enemies Eracle de Montlaur and
Raymunda, the mother of Isabelle of Anduse, had secretly plotted to take the castle at
Chabrieres. The source of the animosity between Eracle and‘Raymunda and Raymond de
Chavanon was the proposed marriage between Isabelle of Anduse, ward of the bishop of
Mende, and Pons de Montlaur, son of Eracle, which would have the effect of negating the
castellan’s tenure of the castle of Chabrieres.94 Raymond de Chavanon sent his men,
Guillaume and Deodat, throughout the Gévaudan to “test” the mettle of men whose
loyalty to the castellan -- and the bishop -- was in question by having them pretend to be
loyal to the castellan’s enemies.95 According to Raymond de Roquefort, despite his
quarrel with the castellan, he had remained loyal to his lord when these men approached
him pretending to foment rebellion, and his testimony, captured in direct discourse,
emphasized his indignation at the thought of betraying his lord, the bishop. The
testimony of Guillaume and Deodat does not support this.96 Hence, Raymond and his

brother were summoned before episcopal court to answer for their conduct.

 

9" On the dispute between Eracle de Montlaur and Raymond de Chavanon see Etudes historiques,
267-272.

95 ADL G 963 124r. “. . .dixit testis quod dominus Raymundus de Cavano, tunc domicellus, dixit
ipsi testi et cuidam alio qui vocatur Deodatus, qui moratur cum domino episcopo, quod irent per terram et
assentirent de voluntatibus hominum dicte terre super hoc. Et hoc audito, ipse testis et dictus Deodatus, cui
agromen dicit testis se ignorare, iverunt apud Bedoescum et ibi locuti fuerunt primo cum Poncio de
Rupeforti . . .”

96 Ibid., 125r. “Et dixit testis se [Deodatus] et dictum Guillelmum, socium suum, venisse apud
Bedoescum; et quando venerant cantabatur missa et, missa cantata, ipsi locuti fuerunt cum Poncio de
Rupeforti juxta capitem ecclesie, extra ecclesiam, et ibi dixerunt ei ‘Nos sumus servientes domini Eraclei
de Monte Lauro et venimus de Vallarauga, de domina Raymunda, et volumus loqui vobis.’ Qui respondit
‘bene veneritis.’ Et ipsi [Deodatus et Guillelmus] dixerunt ei, ‘Nos credimus vos habere magnam
societatam cum domina Raymunda et ideo dicimus vobis quod datum est nobis intelligi quod nos possemus
capere et retinere castrum de Chabriera si ipse et alii homines terre consentitent. Qui respondit quod ipse
libenter consentiret et faceret quisquid posset, et ipse et omnes alii quos ipse posset ad hoc concordare.”
Deodat sent Pons to bring his brother, the priest from the church and when Raymund appeared, Deodat and
Guiilaume said the same words to Raymund. His reply was “Bonum est se tenere cum potentioribus et
quod non erat bonum incipere quod non posset impetrare, quia possetis vos reprehendi et dare dampnum
domino vestro; tamen ex quo essetis infra castrum faceret bonum et honorem in et aliis rebus.”

121

As often happens, following the completion of testimony, the ﬁnal disposition of
this case is not recorded, perhaps because the case was an inquisition and following the
testimony, no further inquiry was needed. Perhaps this was because there had been a
settlement of some sort, in which the facts of the case had been agreed to, and the
inquisition was abandoned. Perhaps, despite what appear to be scribal efforts to keep all
processes of a case together, the pronouncement or condemnation of the court was
recorded elsewhere, in a register no longer extant. From the record, it is impossible to
determine. The ﬁnal lines of text indicate that testimony had been completed and that
Raymond and Pons were to appear before the court on the Wednesday before Palm
Sunday.97 Although we do not learn the fate of Raymond and his brother, this case
exempliﬁes many important characteristics of the court book. The scribal hand, that
recorded the entire inquisition often was associated with the presiding judge, Laurent de
Condat, who heard more cases concerning lordship than any other named judge in the
court book. The scribe recording the testimony had considerable difﬁculty arranging his
text to conform to the organizing principles of the court book. He had to resort to
breaking with sequential recording twice, the second time even jumping back, from 125r
to 111v, to complete his task. This raises a crucial issue. Why did the scribes of the
episcopal court consider it so important to keep the processes of various cases together

when organizing their material? In other words, given the obvious challenges, why not

 

97 ADL G 963 112v. “Et ad procedendum de jure fuit eidem domino Raymundo, nomine suo et
nomine dicti Poncii, fratris sui, assignata dies Mercurii ante Ramos Palmarum. Et quod magister
Raymondus de Campo recepiat testes quis jure dictum ejus presente volunt coram eo. Ad quemdam diem
conpervenit duos dominos Raymundus ipse fratris ejus parte procedem inquisitionem predictum.”

122

simply enter into the register the court’s activity for each particular day, without regard
for which case it concerned?

The answer lies in the ecclesiastical scribes’ efforts to impose order in the
episcopal archives, which demonstrates a utilitarian concern for need to retrieve
information. One consequence of organizing their material in the way that they did was
that it enhanced the likelihood of recovering all the processes concerning any one
particular case, a feat that all record-keepers, both ecclesiastical and lay, found
challenging throughout the Middle Ages because the systematic organization of
information and research tools was in its infancy. For example, in England, that
monument to Norman competence, the Domesday Book, languished and rarely was
consulted until the last quarter of the thirteenth century, two centuries after its
compilation, and then most often merely to prove ancient demesne.98 At about this same
time, in 1291, Edward I, desperate for documentary evidence to support his claim to
overlordship in Scotland, sent out an urgent call to search for documentation that would
uphold his “Great Cause,” not in his royal archives - which were extensive by the late-
thirteenth century — but rather in monastic archives.99 The royal request produced a
trickle of documentary evidence, most of it not very useful. Later that same year, Edward

requested that two Chancery rolls from the reign of Henry Ill be sent to him in England

 

98 Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, 33-35. Clanchy writes that there are only ten rather
oblique references to the Domesday Book before 1135. Not until the 12508 did royal agents occasionally
begin to cite the Domesday Book in cases concerning ancient demesne and obligations and not until the
reign of Edward I were records extracted from it with regularity. Therefore, the Norman kings and their
successors possessed an extraordinary archival resource that went virtually unused for nearly two hundred
years.

9" Ibid., 152—155.

123

from New Temple for the same purpose.100 These rolls were also of little use. Perhaps,
after learning a bitter lesson of the consequences of not being able to produce
documentary evidence, Edward commanded two notaries public to draft copious records
of the many diplomatic proceedings that took place over the issue of the Scottish
succession'm In other words, the objective of creating a searchable archive -- or at least,
being able to refer to existing archives in important matters -- had eluded even the most
developed thirteenth-century royal chancery, and the importance of controlling the
information stored in archives was only just beginning to be grasped.

During the thirteenth century, books organized to function as searchable research
tools appeared across Europe.102 For example, Biblical concordances, alphabetic subject
indices to the writings of Aristotle and the Fathers, and location book lists were written,
not as books to be read, but rather as research aids to be used as guides to other texts.‘03
What these systems of organization had in common was that they organized large blocks
of information into categories that were linked by a structure of associations and
classiﬁcations that aided in reference.104 Signaling a marked change in intellectual life of

the thirteenth century, works of this type ﬂourished amid shifting attitudes toward textual

 

'°°1bid., 153.

'0' Cheney, Notaries Public in England, 61-62 and 132-134. Cheney notes that the two tons
produced by the notaries are far from a shorthand reproduction of the proceedings. For example, the
speeches were probably “enriched” since they follow the principles of the oratio recta, using the rhythmic
cursus.

’02 Mary A. Rouse and Richard H. Rouse, “The Development of Research Tools in the Thirteenth
Century,” in Authentic Witnesses: Approaches to Medieval Texts and Manuscripts (Notre Dame, IN, 1991):
221-255; Carruthers, The Book of Memory, 80-121.

'03 Rouse and Rouse, “The Development of Research Tools,” 221.

'04 Carruthers, The Book of Memory, 14.

124

authority that witnessed the rise of practical applications of texts.” According to Mary
and Richard Rouse, one reason for this monumental shift was the expansion in
professionalism during the thirteenth century that coincided with the extension of
university learning. '06 If, as appears to be the case, the court book was organized to
facilitate practical uses such as retrieval of all information concerning a particular case,
and therefore it may be considered as part of the general phenomenon of new textual
applications that speaks to the desire for functional application within the context of a
professionalized episcopal chancery.

For Odilon de Mercoeur, one of the most important affairs of his episcopate, for
which he certainly would want the most efﬁcient reference tool at hand, was the suit
before Parlement in which he fought to reclaim and reestablish undisputed secular
lordship in the Gévaudan. Surely, he must have thought of the court book as a crucial
repository of evidence in his legal battle that could be searched to produce most of the
stages of the cases that were heard by his court. As we will see in the following chapter,
this was precisely how the court book was used, not within the lifetime of Odilon but
more than thirty years after the ﬁrst entry in the book. In his Mémoire, Guillaume
Durand the Younger culled cases from Odilon’s court book in a ﬁnal attempt to prove
episcopal secular lordship. In the next chapter, we also will investigate how the court
book preserved historical memory, which was later reorganized into a type of historical

narrative.

 

'05 Ibid., 222.

'0“ Ibid., 251-252.

125

CHAPTER 4

The Court Book, Historical Memory, and the Paréage

As we have seen, the ﬁrst entries in the court book correspond closely with the
initiation a suit before the Parlement in which Odilon de Mercoeur sought to end
harassment by royal ofﬁcials within his diocese. Odilon claimed that his exercise of
secular jurisdiction in the episcopal court proved his claim and it is very likely that he
regarded the court book as documentary evidence, although there is no indication that he
formally introduced the court book as evidence. Odilon’s legal strategy came to fruitition
some thirty-ﬁve years later, when then bishop Guillaume Durand the Younger, nephew of
the famous proceduralist who was also his predecessor, was able to extract the cases in
the court book and present them as evidence of the bishop doing spiritual and secular
justice in his court. Guillaume’s effort to win the case for episcopal sovereignty within
the Gévaudan ultimately was unsuccessful in the face of King Philip IV and his
ministers’ aggressive efforts to assert royal supremacy. However, as we will see,
Odilon’s archival record had preserved of hundreds of details of historical memory,
organized in discrete units by case, from which Guillaume sketched a sort of narrative

history in defense of episcopal secular lordship.

126

Challenges to the French Episcopate

When Odilon de Mercoeur died in 1274, his appeal to the Parlement and the
subsequent enquéte were still an ongoing process.l The pontiﬁcate of his successor,
Etienne 111 (1274-1278), was unremarkable and devoid of any major initiatives.2 No
records survive indicating that he interacted with the seneschal of Beaucaire in any way.
Thus, if there were any advances or retreats in the bishop’s efforts to assert his secular
lordship over his rivals for power, whether royal agents or barons, they are unknown.
The see remained vacant for seven years following the death of Etienne and the surviving
record is silent as to reasons why a successor was not elected. Whatever the reasons for
the prolonged vacancy may have been, we can be reasonably certain that the claim to
episcopal secular lordship in the Gévaudan was not pursued as strenuously as it had been
under Odilon and that the challengers to episcopal power, the barons and the seneschal,

likely gained ground.

 

' The year of Odilon’s death is uncertain. I have followed most modern historians in using the
1274 date. Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy, 54; Etudes historiques, 287; HGL, vol. 4, 393. CC, vol. I, 93,
Eubel, Hierarchica catholicae, vol. I, 357, and Gams, Series episcoporum, 577 give the year of his death as
1273. Pass, “Source Studies,” uses 1273 on page 28 and 1274 on page 98.

2 On the pontiﬁcate of Etienne 111, see Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy, 54; CC, vol. 1., 93-94. In
common with his predecessor, the year of his death is in dispute. GC, vol. I, 94, Eubel, Hierarchica
catholicae, vol. I, 358, and Gams, Series episcoporum, 577 date his death to 1278; Fassolt, Council and
Hierarchy, 54 follows A. Philippe, La Baronnie, lxxxv, in stating that as late as November 1283 Etienne
had purchased land from the Toumel. In this study, I use 1278, since the evidence provided by Philippe
that this was the Etienne who purchased the lands seems rather thin.

From the few surviving records in which he is mentioned, we know that on 8 December 1278,
Nicholas III ordered Etienne, the bishop of Rodez, and the abbot of Tulle (diocese of Limoges) to
investigate the chapter of Albi in response to their proposal to the curia that they change from regular to
secular canons. . .Prepositi et capituli ecclesie Albiensis ordinis Sancti Augustini fuit propositum coram
nobis quod licet hactenus eadem ecclesia ordinata fuerit regularis, ita quod ordo et regula ipsius Sancti
Augustini deberent inibi observari. . .” Les registres de Nicolas III, ed. Jules Gay (Paris, 1898- 1938), no.
192. Etienne also attended a provincial council in Orleans that same year. GC, vol. I, 93.

127

While the episcopal see languished, French bishops found their authority and
independence in their dioceses severely threatened by the two great forces for
governmental centralization in the thirteenth century, the papacy and the French king.3
The challenge from the papacy erupted over its support of the Mendicant orders. The
Mendicants had been a threat to the bishops since their papal recognition in the early
years of the thirteenth century. BishOps resented the that the Friars eclipsed their spiritual
authority to preach, to hear confessions, to grant absolution, and to act as papal
representatives in matters of ecclesiastical taxation. Perhaps most signiﬁcantly, bishops
begrudged the usurpation of episcopal revenues by the Mendicants. The simmering
threat came to a boil in 1281 and led to intense opposition by the French episcopate when
Martin IV published the bull Ad fructus uberes, which extended the privileges to the
Mendicants to preach and to hear confession.4 Through the 12805, French bishops met
repeatedly in national councils to organize a common course of resistance to the bull’s
intent. Episcopal hopes to effectively turn back the bull were dashed however, when, in
1287, Honorius IV died and Nicholas IV, former minister general of the Franciscans, was
elected to the papal seat.5

The challenge to the bishops from the French king was even more formidable.
Having ascended the throne in 1285, Philip IV had formed a sort of entente cordiale with
the papacy, in which the king of France agreed to assist the papacy in its efforts against

Aragon and the pope agreed to grant Philip a tenth.6 By 1290, with the consent of a pair

 

3 Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy, 57.
4 Ibid., 60.
5 .

Ibid., 61.

" Strayer, The Reign of Philip the Fair, 244.

128

of papal legates in France, one of whom was Benedict Gaetani, the future Boniface VH1,
Philip broadly deﬁned his rights of jurisdiction over the church, claiming that all prelates
could be judged by the Parlement and that appeals from episcopal secular courts were to
go to the Parlement even if the bishops did not hold lands from the king.7 Furthermore,
Philip claimed the right to seize ecclesiastical property, and asserted that in the areas of
the realm where exemptions from these royal claims had been extended, thereafter the
exemptions were disallowed.8 With the episcopal see of Mende vacant and the French
episcopate threatened by royal encroachment, it might seem as though Odilon’s suit was
doomed. The situation in Mende changed, however, with the election of a succession of

bishops Guillaume Durand the Elder and his nephew, Guillaume Durand the Younger.

Guillaume Durand the Elder (1285 - 1296)

The election of Guillaume Durand the Elder to the episcopal see of Mende, in the

words of Honorius IV, came “by way of compromise.”9

This is certainly a well-wom
phrase in describing elections, the exact circumstances that prompted Honorius’s remark
are not known, but it seems that the chapter had caused some consternation by their delay

in electing a bishop. In April of 1285, the archbishop of Bourges sent a letter to the

chapter expressing his unhappiness with the long vacancy, pointing out that the risks the

 

7 Strayer, The Reign of Philip the Fair, 245; Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy, 61 .

8 Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy, 61. On Philip IV’s relationship with the church in the late
12805, see Strayer, The Reign of Philip the Fair, 242-245.

9 GC, vol. I, Instrumenta, 26. “Die ad eligendum praeﬁxa, ut moris est, convenientes in unum,
spiritus sancti gratia invocata, et deliberantes in electionem futuri pontiﬁcis, per viam procedere
compromissi.”

129

chapter undertook by not attending to their obligation and hinting that the right of
provision might have devolved to him already.10 The chapter responded in a letter,
saying that they had already elected, unanimously and canonically, Guillaume Durand
(1285-1296), although what prompted the chapter to elect the papal favorite is
unknown.ll Nonetheless, the election changed this remote and isolated diocese from an
ecclesiastical backwater to the see of one of the most distinguished canonists and papal
servants of the age.

Guillaume Durand’s career and writings are well known and their details are
discussed in full e1sewhere.’2 When elected in 1285, he already had many
accomplishments: From obscure origins in the small town of Puimisson, located on the

Mediterranean coast near Béziers, he studied law in Bologna, where he earned his

 

'0 GC, vol. I, Instrumenta, 25. “Cum vestra Mimatensis ecclesia per longum tempus extiterit
pastoris solatio destituta, miramur quamplurimum super eo, quod si pastorem aliquem elegistis, nos certos
reddere non curastis et nobis metropolitano vestro electum vestrum minime praesentastis; si vero non
elegistis, cur tanto tempore distulistis? Hinc est quod cum damno irreparabili ecclesiae vestrae, si pro
defectu pastoris remaneat vidua, non immerito timeamus, dubitemus insuper an per lapsum temporis ad nos
fuerit devoluta provisio, juxta canonicas sanctiones.” Among the French clergy, Simon of Bourges was
active in opposing the bull Ad fructus uberes and perhaps wanted the see to be ﬁlled by a man on whom he
could count for support against its effects. Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy, 58-64 and 69.

" GC, vol. I, Instrumenta, 25. “...rescribens patemitati vestrae nos elegisse unanimiter et
concorditer, rite et canonice, virum venerabilem et discretum, dominum Guillelmum Duranti, decanum
ecclesiae Carnotensis, in episcopum et pastorem nostrae ecclesiae Mimatensis.”

Before the election of Guillaume Durand, the chapter had elected the archdeacon from Rennes,
who declined the position. CG, vol. I, Instrumenta, 26. “...postquam dilectus ﬁlius Guillelmus de
Narbona, archdiaconus Redenensis, in ecclesia Narbonensi electioni per eosdem capitulum celebratae de
ipso, in dicta ecclesia Mimatensi expresse renuerat consentire, vocatis omnibus qui voluerunt, debuerunt et
potuerunt commode interesse.”

We can speculate that the election of Guillaume Durand was, perhaps, a favor to the pope who had
desired to reward his servant for a job well-done, but since the pope refused to allow Guillaume to take up
residency in Mende for ﬁve years, claiming that his assistance was still required in Italy, perhaps another
motive was at play. Perhaps the accepting the minor, rather isolated bishopric was an offer of quiet
“retirement.”

'2 For Guillaume Durand the Elder, see Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy, 64-79; Brundage,
Medieval Canon Law, 228-229; L. Falletti, “Guillaume Durand,” in Dictionnaire du Droit Canonique, vol.
5 ed. R. Naz, (Paris, 1953), 1014-1075; V. Le Clerc, “Guillaume Duranti,” in Histoire litteraire de la
France, vol. 20 (Paris, 1842), 41 1-497; J. F. von Schulte, Die Geschichte der Quellen und Literatur des
canonischen Rechts, vol. 2, (Stuttgart, 1910), 144-156.

130

doctorate and later taught. In the 12608 he went to Rome and worked in the papal court
of appeals, the audientia causarum sacri palatii; here he became the protégé of the most
famous canonist of the age, Hostiensis. By the 12705, he had published the ﬁrst redaction
of his monumental work, Speculum iudiciale, a comprehensive summation of Romano-
canonical procedure, from which he drew the sobriquet “the Speculator.”l3 Dedicated
service to the papal curia and, no doubt, the patronage of Hostiensis, propelled Guillaume
Durand’s career toward administrative greatness. In 1274 he attended the second council
of Lyon; in 1276 he assisted the papal legate in Bourges, Cardinal Simon (the future
Martin IV); in 1280 he became rector et capitaneus generalis of the patrimony of St.
Peter; that same year, he moved to northern Italy where he engaged in military efforts,
including raising armies, buying weapons, and strategizing campaigns, to quell the
insurrection led by the Ghibelline Guido da Montefeltre. Finally, in 1284, one year
before his election to Mende, he was made the rector provinciae Romaniolae in
temporalibus and founded the Castrum Durantis, which was later renamed bishopric of
Urbania under Urban VIII.l4 Before his election, he had been endowed with canonries at
Beauvais and Narbonne and the deanery of Chartres, all of which provided a substantial
income and came with dispensations from pluralism and absenteeism. ‘5

Although elected in 1285, Guillaume did not make his way to his new diocese

until 1291 because Honorius IV required his continued service in northern Italy. When

 

'3 The Speculum iudiciale remained the standard reference on Romano-canonical procedure for
centuries. Guillaume Durand revised the work around 1287, after his election to the episcopal see in
Mende. Brundage, Medieval Canon Law, 229.

'4 Unless otherwise indicated, the information of the background of Guillaume Durand comes
from Falletti, “Guillaume Durand,” 1014-1075.

'5 The deanery at Chartres alone produced an annual income of 1,000 pounds tournois. Fasolt,
Council and Hierarchy, 67.

131

he ﬁnally took up residence in Mende, Guillaume was nearly sixty years old; no doubt,
he saw the move as a retreat from the demanding duties that he had previously assumed.
While he was in the Gévaudan, he wrote several of his important works, in particular the
Rationale divinorum oﬂiciorum. '6 Guillaume was strikingly different from his
predecessors: Even more than Etienne de Brioude, he was an outsider without familial or
other ties to the region. Moreover, his experiences before his election reveal nothing of a
man dedicated to the pursuit of local autonomy over the encroachment of a centralized
government. Guillaume Durand owed his success, not to his family connections, as did
Odilon de Mercoeur and Aldebert IH, but to his loyal and capable service to the most
centralized of all medieval governments, the papacy; therefore, it is perhaps not
surprising that Guillaume did not aggressively press the episcopal case with the king of
France.'7
However, even though Guillaume had built his career on the foundation of
obedience to a centralized master, the localized contingencies of the Gévaudan did not
disappear with his election. As with his predecessors, he faced baronial threats and
interference from the seneschal of Beaucaire and he was attentive to the rights of his

church. He sought to remedy some of the threats and abuses by appealing to Philip IV

for assistance. As a result, a series of ﬁve letters, all written on 18 October 1291, were

 

'6 The Rationale divinorum oﬂiciorum is a comprehensive description of the symbolism of church
ritual and architecture. While in Mende, he also wrote instructions and statutes for his diocese, dealing
with proper conduct and duties expected of a cleric.

'7 There are indications that Guillaume’s episcopal administration was slightly at odds with his
predecessors’ as well. For instance, in 1287, even before leaving Italy for Mende, Honorius IV granted
permission to Guillaume to override the customs of the chapter by appointing a canon without their
consent. Les registres d’Honorius IV, ed. Maurice Prou (Paris, 1888), no. 734. In 1289, he received
permission from Nicholas IV to appoint a clerk notary from the church of Mende as a notary. Les registres
de Nicolas IV, ed. Ernest Langois (Paris, 1886), no. 1855.

132

sent from the king to the seneschal of Beaucaire addressing the grievances of the bishop.
Philip wrote to the seneschal ordering him not to hinder the bishop’s exercise of justice.
In particular, the king ordered the seneschal and his agents not to prohibit notaries from
redacting contracts that included oaths and not to seize episcopal ﬁefs in order to force
the bishop to lift sentences of excommunication and interdict.18 He granted a special
grace to the bishop, exempting him from the jurisdiction of petty ofﬁcers of the seneschal
who were likely to be from baronial families and long-time adversaries of the bishop.‘9
The seneschal was prohibited from levying any new tolls, and he had to revoke the ones
he had already imposed; he was to appoint no new sergeants on the bishop’s land, and he
was not to summon subjects of the bishop into his courts.20 The seneschal was to treat
the bishop and his clergy favorably and should not continue with the proceedings against

the bishop who had tried to prevent a royal “show of arms” in Mende, but rather he

 

'8 LPB, 2-3. “...quodque vos et alii justiciarii vestri inhibuistis in ipsius episcopi prejudicium
notariis publicis et tabellionibus ne ipsi conﬁciant instrumenta super contractibus in quibus interveniunt
juramentum. Unde mandamus vobis quatinus super hiis observetis et teneatis illud quod hactenus ab
antiquo extitit continue in hujusmodi ﬁeri consuetum, jura nostra taliter observare studentes, quod per hoc
aliena jura non occupetis injuste. Super eo vero quod vos et gentes vestre dictum episcopum et ofﬁciales
suos per sua temporalia compellitis ad revocandum excommunicationis et interdicti sententias quas ipsi in
suos subditos proferunt, mandamus vobis quatinus de dictis sententiis nullathenus vos intremittatis, caveatis
tamen quod item episcopus vel gentes sue nostra jura vel jurisdictionem nostram injuste non occupent vel
usurpent.” The complaints that prompted Philip’s letters are not extant, so, apart from deducing that the
bishop alledged interference from the seneschal, the precise details of his complaints are unknown.

'9 LPB, 5-6. “.. .quod episcopus Mimatensis et ejus ofﬁciales de suis temporalibus respondeant
coram vobis, senescallo predicto, et coram vicariis Anduzie, Ucecie, et coram bajulis Marologii et
Mayrosii, scire vos volumus quod de speciali gratia placet nobis ad presens quod idem episcopus et ejus
ofﬁciales coram vobis, senescallo predicto solum modo, et non coram predictis vicariis et bajulis
respondere teneantur presentis gratie beneﬁcio quamdiu nobis placuit tantummodo duraturo." On the
strengths and weaknesses of Philip’s use of low-level royal ofﬁcials in local administration, see Strayer,
The Reign of Philip the Fair, 139-141.

20 LPB, 8. “Mandamus vobis insuper quatinus de vassallis, subditis ac justicialibus ejusdem
episcopi et ecclesiae sue et boni eorum nova guidagia seu novas commendas non recipiatis. Et, si jam talia
recepistis, ea prout rationabile fuerit, revocetis et in ejus feodis et justiciis custodes et servientes non
apponatis nisi in casibus ad vos spectantibus de consuetudine vel de jure, ejusque subditos non adjometis
coram vobis nisi in casibus quorum cognitio ad vos spectat, et eidem episcopo de suis subditis curiam
reddatis in casibus in quibus sibi reddenda fuerit, si super hoc fueritis requisitus.”

133

should send all the material relating to the incident to Paris so that the next Parlement
could decide the issue.2' In addition, perhaps most signiﬁcantly, the seneschal was
ordered to conclude his investigation into the royal rights over the Gévaudan and submit
the evidence to Paris so that a decision could be reached.22 There is no indication that the
seneschal acceded to this request.

Philip extended a magnanimous hand to Guillaume in these letters, but he never
surrendered substantial rights that would adversely affect royal sovereignty in the
Gévaudan. Instead, he subtly encouraged the seneschal not to permit the bishop to
undermine his jurisdiction.23 For example, he warns the seneschal to take care that the
bishop or his men do not usurp or encroach on royal rights or jurisdiction, and the
exemption from royal viguiers and baillis was only to last as long as Philip pleased.24
The king always attached qualifying phrases to his requests for the seneschal’s
moderation. The bishop’s men were not to be subjected to vexations “indebite”; new
tolls were to be revoked, except “prout rationabilefuerit”; no new sergeants were to be

appointed on episcopal ﬁefs, except “in casibus ad vos spectantibus de consuetudine vel

 

2' Ibid., 9. “. . .mandamus vobis quatinus eundem episcopum, ecclesiam et gentes suas
recomendatos habentes favorabiliter eosdem prosequamini, salvo tamen jure nostro et alieno. Item cum
vos, ut dicitur, gentes ipsius episcopi prosequamini super eo quod ipse mostram armorum per gentes
nostras indictam in civitate Mimatensi ...mandamus vobis quatinus indebite eas propter hoc non permittatis
vexari, set totius hujus facti seriem, certitudinem, et statum ac processum negotii nobis referratis vel
mittatis cum diligentia ad futurum proximo Parisius parlamentum. . .”.

22 Ibid. “Cum inter nos episcopum Mimatensem causa pendeat super pluribus articulis cujus cause
processus ad vos per nostram curiam fuit remissus pro habenda et facienda pleniori informatione et
instructione super quibusdam dubiis ejusdem processus, mandamus vobis quatinus si super hiis inquisivisti
ad plenum, totalem cause processum predicte, si completus sit, nobis mittatis.” It is unclear from Philip’s
letter whether the cause he referred to was the initial suit, launched in 1269 by Odilon, or the subsequent
enquéte, begun in 1281, of which no records survive. Etudes historiques, 289.

23 This analysis draws on Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy, 71-72.
2" See above, note 18 “caveatis tamen quod item episcopus vel gentes sue nostra jura vel

jurisdictionem nostram injuste non occupent vel usurpent,” and note 19 “teneantur presentis gratie
beneﬁcio quamdiu nobis placuit tantummodo duraturo.”

I34

de jure”; the bishop’s subjects were not to be called before the seneschal’s court, except

, . . . . 2
‘m caszbus quorum cognmo ad vos spectat,” 5

Therefore, although the bishOp
complained of royal interference, Philip extended only limited relief while the suit
dragged on in spite of the king’s request to expedite the procedure. Even the formidable
administrative skills of Guillaume Durand could not conclude the matter, and during the
reign of the Speculator, the independence of the autonomous diocese, with its episcopal
secular lord, became increasingly anomalous, as governmental centralization proceeded

apace. After only four years in Mende, Boniface VIH ordered Guillaume to return to

Rome, where he died a few weeks later, in November 1296.26

Guillaume Durand the Younger (1296 - 1330)

Since Guillaume Durand the Elder had died in curia, Boniface VIII invoked the
right of papal reservation, ﬁrst promulgated in 1265 by Clement IV inLicet ecclesiamm,
which claimed that the pope retained the right to dispose of all beneﬁces if the last holder
died while at the papal curia. He elevated Guillaume’s nephew, Guillaume Durand the
Younger to the bishop’s seat only a few weeks after his uncle’s death.27 With his

important family connections, Guillaume Durand the Younger was already a powerful

 

25 For the ﬁrst of these qualifying phrases, see above note 21: for the other three, see above note
20.

26 Guillaume Durand the Elder had returned to Rome at the request of Boniface VIII, and died
there shortly after his return, on 1 November 1296. I... Falletti, “Guillaume Durand,” 1028-1029.

27 Boniface appointed Guillaume Durand the Younger on December 17, 1296. GC, vol. I,
Instrumenta 26. Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy, 75, n. 14. In his letter announcing the papal appointment,
Boniface makes it clear where Guillaume was at the time of his death: “Nuper siquidem ecclesia
Mimatensis per obitum bonae memoriae G. episcopi Mimatensis, qui apud sedem apostolicam diem clausit
extremum.” GC, vol. I, Instrumenta 26.

135

man in the diocese of Mende.28 No doubt taking advantage of his uncle’s patronage, the
younger Guillaume was appointed rector, then ordinary in the parish of St. Médard in
Mende, he controlled the chapel of St. Michel of Garde, and he received income from the
church in Buxo. By the time of his election, he had added a prebend, and a canonry, and
he was the archdeacon of Mende.29 Like his uncle, he had studied law, although
precisely where is not known.30
Although he assumed his uncle’s position, the pontiﬁcate of Guillaume Durand
the Younger differed profoundly from his uncle’s in an important respect. While
Guillaume Durand the Elder had enjoyed a successful career as a servant of the papacy
and had been a spokesman for papal plentitude of power, his nephew was uneasy with

excesses of papal centralization. 3' He presented a radical plan that addressed the dangers

of concentrating the plentitude of power in the pope at the Council of Vienne (1311-

 

28 On the pontiﬁcate of Guillaume Durand the Younger, see P. Viollet, “Guillaume Durant le
Jeune,” in Histoire litteraire de la France, ed. Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, vol. 35 (Paris,
1921), 1-139; GC, vol. I, 95-97; Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy, 73-100; Brundage, Medieval Canon Law,
229-230.

29 Viollet, “Guillaume Durant le Jeune,” 5. These possessions are inferred from the list of
positions that Guillaume had to vacate upon his assumption of the episcopal ofﬁce.

30 Guillaume Durand the Younger condemned reliance on glosses, calling them a source of
confusion, ignorance, claiming that they created “contempt for the original.” Therefore, Constant Fasolt
argues that Guillaume did not study at the university at Bologna, where respect for glosses was strong. He
proposes, instead, a French university with a course of study stressing dialectic. Since the study of civil
law was prohibited in Paris, Fasolt offers Orleans as a possibility, where the study of law had to be
preceded by a degree in arts and where students were required to demonstrate knowledge of a dialectical, or
rational, approach to law. Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy, 74, n. 9.

3' On the degree to which Guillaume Durand the Elder relied on pronouncements of papal
supremacy, see Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy, 78-79.

Guillaume’s career was as stellar as his uncle’s was. He was sent by the pope to deal with the
ongoing problems in northern Italy. He was a member of the Parlement of Paris and served as a counselor
to a number of French kings. Pope John XXII and King Charles IV sent him to Egypt to prepare the way
for a future crusade; he died in July 1330 while returning from this trip on the island of Cyprus.

136

1312) in his work Tractatus maior.32 In his proposal, one of the ﬁrst to call for limits to
papal power, papal authority would be limited by the convening of regular general
councils that would meet every ten years; the general council would take responsibility
from the pope for the law of the church. Guillaume would have restricted the ability of
the pope to circumvent conciliar law by the issuance of dispensations, and he would have
tied the pope’s access to apostolic ﬁnances to compliance with the will of the council. In
support of these extreme ideas, he declared that “what touches all must, according to the
rule of both canon and civil law, be approved by all in common.”33 His ideas failed to
gain a signiﬁcant following. Although Pope Clement V had convened the council as a
forum to discuss church reform, he probably was not expecting the revolutionary ideas
expressed in Guillaume’s treatise. No doubt sensing papal displeasure, Guillaume
composed a more modest treatise while the council was in session, the Tractatus minor,
in which there was no mention of reform by means of a general council. 34

i From the beginning of his pontiﬁcate, Guillaume faced opposition from some
local barons and he turned to the king and his agents for help. In a letter from Philip to
the seneschal of Beaucaire dated 28 April 1298, no doubt in response to a request for
royal help, the king ordered the seneschal to investigate the occupation of episcopal

goods and rights by many barons and to restore to the bishop what had been unjustly

 

32 Guillaume’s ideas on this subject and their context are summarized in Fasolt, Council and
Hierarchy, 1-5.

33 Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy, 2, citing Tractatus maior, 1.4, fol. 7rb.

3" Other works attributed to Guillaume Durand the Younger include several acts prepared while he
was in northern Italy from 1305 to 1306 at the bequest of Clement V, again following in his uncle’s
footsteps, to subdue the conﬂict between Guelph and Ghibelline factions; an inquisition ordered by
Clement V in 1306 into whether or not Thomas Cantilupe was in a state of excommunication at the time of
his death, therefore barred from canonization; an addition to the lnstructiones et constitutiones written by
his uncle; and a mémoire concerning the preparations for the crusade, written no later than 1330. Viollet,
“Guillaume Durant 1e Jeune,” 64-138.

137

usurped.35 Although a number of barons had sworn homage to the new bishop in June,
July, and September of 1297, others resisted the imposition of lordship by the new
bishop.36 The important barony of Florac was especially troublesome, since Isabelle of
Anduze and Montlaur and her heirs were now under the wardship of the king and his
representative, the viguier of Anduze. This same Isabelle of Anduze ﬁgured in the
conspiracy case before the court of Odilon de Mercoeur in 1268, described in Chapter 3.
At that time, the bishop was the guardian of the barony of Anduze. Citing precedent, the
bishop declared that he was the rightful guardian of the barony and since he was prepared
to assure the peace in his domains, the wardship should be restored to him. The royal
lawyer Guillaume de Nogaret agreed with Guillaume, but the viguier and his wards
resisted. The matter ﬁnally was resolved when Guillaume threatened to refuse Christian
burial to Isabelle.”

Furthermore, relations between Guillaume and the canons of the cathedral chapter
appear to have been strained. In 1297 and in 1300, the canons and Guillaume exchanged
promises, secured by an oath on the Gospels, to respect the liberties and customs of the

church of Mende.38 A reciprocal promise of this nature at the beginning of a pontiﬁcate

 

35 LPB, l3. “Conquestus est nobis dilectus et fedelis noster episcopus Mimatensis quod nonnulli
barones de Guaballitano quedam bona et jura, spectantia ad Ecclesiam Mimatensem, irrationabiliter
occuparunt, et occupata detinent, in predicti episcopi et ecclesie sue Mimatensis predicte non modicum
prejudicium et gravamen. Quare mandamus vobis quatinus si vocatis evocandis vobis costiterit de
permissis, ea dicto episcopo et ecclesie sue predicte reddi et restitui faciatis, eidem episcopo super hoc
exibentes maturum justitie complementum.”

3" Viollet, “Guillaume Durant 1e Jeune,” 7. See ADL G 87, G 89, G 91, and G 123 for the oaths of
the lords of Cénaret and Randon.

37 This dispute is described in Viollet, “Guillaume Durant le Jeune,” 7-8. Guillaume’s request to
the viguier of Anduze that the barony of Florac should be turned over to him is found in ADL G 155. He
mentions that he had appealed to Nogaret and that in his judgment the barony should be transferred.

3“ Viollet, “Guillaume Durant le Jeune,” 6. ADL o 632.

138

is appropriate; renewal of the promise only three years later suggests mutual mistrust. To
increase his control over the chapter and its members, in 1297 Guillaume issued a statute
that denied a canonry to anyone who had violated the rights of the church of Mende or
who was related within the third degree of kinship to someone who had violated those
rights.39 In this way, Guillaume probably sought to control the pervasive and potentially
adversarial hold on the chapter by powerful baronial families. If this was his objective, it
is impossible to determine the degrees of success, but it is known that Boniface VIII
conﬁrmed the statute, and when Guillaume attended the Council of Vienne, he published
the statute as part of his proposition for church reform.40 Given Guillaume’s distrust of
centralizing papal power and his apparent comfort with reaching out to the king of France
and his ministers, it is not surprising that during his pontiﬁcate, the suit between the
bishop and Mende and the king of France ﬁnally was resolved.41

Events leading to the settlement began in about 1300, when the royal advocate
and counsellor Guillaume de Plaisians argued that the bishop’s pretensions in the

Gévaudan were without foundation.42 Throughout the thirteenth century, the royal

 

39 GC, vol. 1,95-96.
4" Viollet, “Guillaume Durant le Jeune,” 6.

4' This is not to say that Guillaume consistently sided with Philip IV against the papacy. During
the struggle between Boniface and Philip, Guillaume stayed on good terms with both parties and continued
to receive favors from each. What is important here is that Guillaume was accustomed to working with the
men of the royal court in matters large and small, as we will see below.

’2 Guillaume de Plaisians was one of a number of Philip’s ministers, trained in civil law, probably
at Montpellier, who strongly defended the supremacy of the secular state. Like his colleagues Guillaume
de Nogaret and Pierre Flote, Guillaume de Plaisians had ties to southern France; he had been the juge-mage
of Beaucaire for two or three years before he was called to Paris to work on behalf of the king. Strayer,
The Reign of Philip the Fair, 121. His involvement with the affairs in Mende is but a small part of his
career in service to the crown, which involved him in major events such as building the case against
Boniface VIII and the trial of the Templars. For information on the ideas and career of Guillaume de
Plaisians see Joseph R. Strayer, Les gens de justice du Languedoc sous Phillipe le Bel, (Toulouse, 1970),
I6, 22, 40, 57, 79 and Franklin J. Pegues, The Lawyers of the Last Capetians (Princeton, 1962), 12, 34, 39-
45, 56, 87, 102-103, 222-225.

139

advocates had been developing the concept of royal superioritas, which rested on the
dual premises that there was no right to appeal beyond the king and that, within the
kingdom, there was no legitimate challenge to his control over temporalities.43
Guillaume de Plaisians advocated extreme, almost overweening royal power. He argued
that everything, including all justice and lordship, in the kingdom belonged to the king
that he could elect to give, to receive, or to consume anything for the sake of the public
good and defense of the realm and that the king was imperator in regno suo.44 In other
words, Plaisians’s view was that the king was sovereign over all men and all property of
the realm, and therefore, the bishop’s case was untenable, and the process should not go
forward.45

In 1301, the canons of the cathedral chapter of Mende authorized Guillaume
Durand the Younger to seek a paréage with the king to settle the dispute.46 In response

to Guillaume de Plaisians’s argument, Guillaume Durand prepared an extensive legal

 

’3 Jean Dunbabin, “Government,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought c 350
-— c. 1450, ed. H. H. Burns (Cambridge, 1988), 490. Joseph R. Strayer, “The Laicization of French and
English Society in the Thirteenth Century,” in Medieval Statecraft and the Perspectives of History
(Princeton, 1971), 258-259.

4" A few years later, Guillaume Durand summarized Plaisians’s argument: “...omnia que sunt
infra regni sui sint domini Regis, saltim quoad protectionem et altam jurisdictionem dominationem et etiam
quantum ad proprietatem omnium singularum rerum mobilium et immobilium regni sui, quas idem
dominus Rex donare, recipere et consumere potest, ex causa publice utilitatis et deffensionis regni sui, et
vendendo etiam dominium transfert in excipientem. Item quod dominus Rex sit imperator in regno suo et
imperare posit terre et mari, et omnes populi regni sui ejus regantur imperio, et omnes etiam prelati et
clerici quoad temporalia legibus et edictis et constitutionibus suis ligentur, ergo multo fortis Gaballitani
Episcopus, qui non est de majoribus prelatis regni Francie, ut idem advocatus regius allegavit, cum esset
infra ﬁnes regni, erat imperio predicti domini Regis subjectus; et cum contrarium suggesserit, constare
videtur indultum regium, prout opposuit, esse nullum.” Mémoire, 521.

45 On Guillaume de Plaisians, Philip’s claims in the Gévaudan, and the episcopal suit see Strayer,
La Noblesse du Gévaudan,” 66; Strayer, “The Laicization,” 259 n. 9, 261 n. 16; Strayer, “Defense of the
Realm and Royal Power in France,” in Medieval Statecraft and the Perspectives of History (Princeton,
1971), 291-299.

’6 ADL G 741; Viollet, “Guillaume Durant le Jeune,” 13.

140

brief, in which he outlined in detail all aspects of the bishop’s case, drawing on
arguments from canon and civil law, contemporary political theories, the testimony from
the enquéte, and the records from the episcopal archives. This work, preserved as ADL
G 730, bears no title; its modern editor titled the work as the Mémoire relatifau
pare’age."7 Although the manuscript, a register of 207 parchment folia, bears no authorial
notation, most historians attribute the work to Guillaume Durand, because of its elevated
level of sophisticated argumentation and extensive legal knowledge.48 The date of the
manuscript also is uncertain. The text of the Mémoire does not contain an explicit date;
but, in the introduction to the treatise, the author writes that it has been four years since
the beginning of the suit.49 This would date the work to 1273, a date that all modern
historians reject outright. Since the text addresses the arguments raised by Guillaume de
Plaisians, all modern historians agree that the Mémoire was composed after Guillaume de
Plaisians wrote his opinion and before the paréage, that is, between 1300 and 1307, but

further precision is not possible.50

 

’7 The word Mémoire in the title, given to this work by its modern editor, is the French masculine
noun, meaning something like report or memorandum. It does not have the same meaning as the feminine
French noun, which has a meaning closer to “memory.”

48 That someone with legal expertise wrote the Mémoire is evidenced, not only by the method of
argumentation, but also by the facility with which the author cites authorities throughout the treatise.
Scripture makes an appearance, and also Roman law, Gratian, Hostiensis, and the Liber sextus, compiled
only a few years earlier by Boniface VIII.

There is not universal agreement among historians that this treatise is the work of Guillaume
Durand the Younger. The work’s editor, Maisonobe does not attribute it to Guillaume, nor does Viollet.
However, Porée, who succeeded Maisonobe as the archivist of the Lozere, gives no hint of doubt that it is
the work of Guillaume Durand and Pass, while acknowledging the uncertainty, follows Porée, as does
Fasolt. If the Mémoire is not the work of Guillaume, then no doubt he closely supervised the work.

’9 Mémoire, 20. “. . .Usque nunc sententia extitit prorogata, et iam quadriennium est elapsum quod
curia ista mandavit originalia in causa ista producta. ..”

50 For some conjectures on possible dates, see Etudes historiques, 325-326 and Pass, “Source
Studies,” 31, n. 46.

141

The Mémoire Relatifau Pare’age

The author of the Mémoire divided the work into four parts. Part 1, which is
subdivided into ﬁve sections called particule, presents the “facts” of the bishop’s case.
The ﬁrst particula begins with an historical introduction, titled De facti narratione, which
presents an historical overview of episcopal lordship in the Gévaudan ranging from the
episcopate of Aldebert 111 until 1300; the remaining four particule of Part I analyze the
evidence, written and oral, that demonstrates the exercise of secular lordship by
Guillaume de Peyre, Etienne de Brioude, and Odilon de Mercoeur. Parts 2 and 3 are
much shorter. They are devoted to rebuttal of objections raised by the king and
Guillaume de Plaisians, whom the author mentions by name.5 I Part 4 is a summation and
conclusion.

Although the cathedral chapter had given Guillaume authorization to seek a
settlement with the king, the Mémoire is not conciliatory in tone. Rather it is a thorough
recapitulation of the process up to that time and a synthesis of all aspects of the bishop’s
argument. It is intended to win the episcopal case. The incipit of the work states that the
information rendered to the court by the bishop’s proctor ought to end the suit, that the
king ought not to admit anything new to the case, and that the judgment ought to be

delivered in favor of the bishop.52 The Mémoire is a kind of closing argument;

 

5' Part 1, the “facts” of the bishop’s case, makes up 80 % of the Mémoire and the refutation of the
royal case only 20 %. Guillaume’s strategy seems to have been that a strong offense would be a good
defense. He uses what he has in abundance, that is, the rich evidence of the episcopal archives.

52 Mémoire, 1. “Ista informatio ...reddita curie per procuratorem Episcopi Mimtanensis in causa
inter dominum Regem et dictum Episcopum ...et redditur dicta informatio ad defendum processum in
causa ista habitum et ad ostendendum quod pars Regia non debet de novo admitti ad probandum et quod
pro ipso Episcopo sententia sit ferenda.”

142

Guillaume anticipated a settlement with the crown, and therefore he composed the
Mémoire to present the most vigorous summation of the evidence that the judge ought to
consider in deciding the matter. Under canon law procedure, this type of argument was
known as the conclusio in causa; it was rendered after both parties had presented their
written and oral evidence to the judge but before the judge published his judgment.53
Guillaume Durand’s argument is founded on the premise that the bishop’s secular
lordship originated in antiquity, ancient custom, and the royal concessions of the Golden
Bull that granted the regalia and maius dominium.54 Yet, for Guillaume, the Golden Bull
was not the source of the bishop’s lordship but merely an afﬁrmation by Louis VII of an
already existing condition, which was based on the ancient tradition of episcopal secular
lordship. Thus, the ﬁrst sentence of Part 1 declares that, from ancient times, the bishops
of the Gévaudan did not recognize that their lands were within the kingdom of France or
that they were French subjects or ﬁdeles of the king. Furthermore, the bishops, who were
and are illustres in their bishopric, exercised lordship in secular matters. He goes on to
point out that the Gévaudan, contiguous with the Ardeche, was located between the
imperial lands and the county of Toulouse, which was not part of the royal domain at that

time (that is, from ancient times).55 Durand posits a scheme that demonstrates episcopal

 

53 Foumier, Les officialités au moyen age, 204-205. The greatest proceduralist of the Middle
Ages, Guillaume Durand the Elder, describes conclusio in causa in his Speculum iudiciale, lib. II, part 2.

5’ Mémoire, 73. “Causa quare petit, quia totus Episcopatus ad ipsum Episcopum nomine
Mimatensis ecclesie ad antiquo, antiqua consuetudine et ex concessione et conﬁrmatione regali et privilegia
sibi indulta quo ad maius dominium et altiorem dominationem et districtum temporalem, et etiam feudi
cum regalibus pertinet pleno iure scilicet possessione et proprietatis. . .” Here Durand suggests that the
Golden Bull not only granted the possession but also ownership of lordship in the Gévaudan. This aspect
of the episcopal argument, also articulated in the intentiones of Odilon, claimed that the bishops were not
only feudal lords, but also sovereigns in the Gévaudan. Pass, “Source Studies,” 4041.

55 Mémoire, 3. “Antiquis temporibus episcopi Guaballitani non recognoscebant episcopatum et

terram Guaballitanorum de regno Francie esse, nec se Regis Franciae subditos nec ﬁdeles, et in solidum
dicti episcopi qui sunt et erant illustres, dominabantur in temporalibus in episcopatu predicto; qui quidem

143

secular lordship in historical context. First was antiquity that preceded the Golden Bull;
second was the Golden Bull itself; third was custom that was conﬁrmed by the Golden
Bull; fourth was feudal right; ﬁfth was the renewal of the Golden Bull by Louis IX; and
sixth was the strength of legal precedent.56

Although the bishop’s lordship preexisted the royal grant, nonetheless the Golden
Bull itself was an important piece of evidence since it protected the bishop’s
independence. Early in the Mémoire Durand paraphrased and later copied it verbatim
into the text, along with Louis IX’s conﬁrmation of the charter.57 The inherent
contradiction in the Golden Bull, if one adheres to the episcopal argument that it merely
conﬁrmed already existing lordship, is that the right to conﬁrm implied, in effect, the
right to grant lordship or to withhold it. Therefore, if the king held the right to confirm,
he also held the right to deny, which implies superior authority of the king over the
bishop.58 Therefore, when Aldebert journeyed to the royal court in Paris and received the
Golden Bull, instead of strengthening episcopal secular lordship in the Gévaudan, the
grant, in fact, may have weakened it by demonstrating royal superiority over episcopal
authority, which may have existed in antiquity but which the Golden Bull reversed.

Without formulating it explicitly, Guillaume anticipates the objection that his opponent

 

episcopatus est conjunctus immediate et contiguus dyocesi Vivariensi et terre imperii et etiam comitatui
Tholosano, qui comitatus, predictis temporibus, nondum pervenerat ad dominum Regem.”

56 Mémoire, 96. “Primo, scilicet ex antiquate concessionem et conﬁrmationem regiam a proavo
Beati Ludovoci factam, precedente. Secundo, ex predicta concessione et conﬁrmatione regia antiquitatem
hujusmodi subsequente. Tercio, ex prescripta consuetudine dictam concessionem et conﬁrmationem regiam
comitante. Quarto, ex juris feudalis natura et consuetudine suffragante. Quinto, ex predictorum
renovatione et approbatione a Beato Ludovico facta consequente. Sexto, ex rei vi gore ex XXXV Curiarum
redditionibus consurgente.

57 Mémoire, 5-6.

58 On the ambiguity of the Golden Bull, see above, Chapter '-

144

might raise based on this ambiguity. He suggests that when he went to Paris, Aldebert
may have acted imprudently, driven by personal feelings of affection for the king.59 He
also suggests that, since Aldebert accepted the royal concession without consulting his
barons or the cathedral chapter and since the pope had not approved a change in the status
of the lordship of the Gévaudan, any effect the Golden Bull may have had in prejudicing
ancient lordship was invalid.60

In addition to the Golden Bull, Guillaume presented evidence from oral
testimony, that is, from the witnesses of the 1270 enquéte.“ Drawing on the memories of
men who knew the bishops, Durand uses their depositions to demonstrate that bishops
Guillaume de Peyre, Etienne de Brioude, and Odilon de Mercoeur exercised rights of
lordship within the diocese.(’2 Guillaume writes that the limits of human memory were

measurable, lasting eighty years or more;63

since the depositions in the enqué‘te took place
in 1270, therefore the limit of human memory was about 1190, nearly contemporaneous

with the start of the pontiﬁcate of Guillaume de Peyre. The witnesses testiﬁed to

manifestations of episcopal secular lordship that they held in their memory. For instance,

 

59 Mémoire, 3. “”. . .Quidam episcopus predicte terre Gaballitani, nomine Aldebertus ...in
Franciam veniens, cum esset amicus inclite recordationis domini Ludovici, Regis Francorum, proavi beati
Lodovici...”

 

6° Mémoire, 129. . .siquidem erat necessarium ut dictus Episcopus hoc facere posset. Certum est
autem de jure quod sine licencia Domini Pape et sine consensus Capituli sui et Baronum terre
Gaballitane, quod predicta tangebant, illa facere non poterat, et si faciebat, in prejudicium Ecclesie, errant
nulla, cassa, et irriata, ipso jure.”

6' Comprising a large percentage of the Mémoire, witness depositions constitute almost all of
particula 4 of Part 1, making it a very important source for the history of the Gévaudan, 1187-1274.
Mémoire, 195-401.

62 The long section devoted to testimony is found under the rubric titled, “De usu dominationis et
regalium episcoporum a tempore de quo memoria non extabat tempore mote litis.” Mémoire, 197.

63 Guillaume writes that he will demonstrate lordship “a tanto tempore cujus in contrarium

memoria non extabat toto tempore de quo memoria hominum esse poterat, scilicet per octuaginta annos
et ultra.” Mémoire, 64.

145

as evidence of episcopal secular lordship, they described the collection of the Penny of
St. Privat; the use of the compensum pacis; the restraint of baronial private war; the
enforcement of truces; the ability to compel barons to ride in cavalcade with the bishops;
the supreme jurisdiction within the Gévaudan; the maintenance of public roads; and the
right to mint money.64

Because the enquéte had preserved the memory of men extending back nearly 110
years from the time that he was writing, Guillaume had strong supporting evidence to
present. By drawing on the evidence of the Golden Bull, the date back to which he could
demonstrate episcopal lordship was extended to as early as 1161. But how could he
establish lordship before that time? After all, that episcopal secular lordship existed ab
antiquo et antiquo consuetudine was at the heart of his argument — where would the
evidence come from to support this? The problem does not occupy Guillaume’s attention
for long, but he does offer suggestions as to where the proof of ancient lordship could be
found, namely, in the bishops’ association with St. Privat. Even before he quotes the
Golden Bull, Guillaume’s rhetorical strategy is to identify the bishop with the cult of St.
Privat and link both of them to the royal concession in the Golden Bull.65 Later, he
maintains that proof of the bishop’s secular lordship was found in the “legend” of St.

Privat.66 Drawing on the legend, Guillaume recounts “miracles” in which those who

 

6‘ Mémoire, 197-338.

65 Mémoire, 4. “.. .sicut aserit Rex predictus, concessit et etiam conﬁrmavit totum episcopatum
predictum et terram Guaballitanam cum regalibus ad coronam suam pertinentibus, episcopo supradicto et
successoribus ejusdem, decernens ecclesiam gloriosi martyris Privati cui dicta concessio et conﬁrmatio
facta fuit. . .”.

66 Mémoire, 64. “Quod enim dictus Episcopus fuerit in possessione utendi altiori dominatione et
regalibus in toto Gabalitano, sicut altior et superior dominus Gabalitani, non recognoscens superiorem ante
primam concessionem et conﬁrmationem regiam per litteras inclite recordationis Lodivici in processu
productas et in facti narratione incertas [insertas], plenissime est probatum, et per Legendam Beati Privati,

146

 

despoiled the church of St. Privat in deﬁance of the peace received saintly retribution for
their misdeeds, leaving no doubt that those who violated the rights of the keeper of the
peace -- that is, the bishop -- received their just punishment.67 The bishops, as successors
to St. Privat, exercised their lordship to protect the rights and the faithful of the church of
St. Privat. In the ﬁnal sentence of Part 1, Guillaume cites, once again, the association
between the episcopal secular lordship and the patron saint of Mende, writing that every
seven years, pilgrims from various locations around the Gévaudan traveled to Mende to
visit the relics of the holy saint and in recognition of the fact that the bishop was major

. 68
dominus.

 

que facit ad idem, quod etiam dictam possessionem et conﬁrmationem regiam, non perdiderit, per dictam
litteram et legenda, legittime est probatum...” Mémoire, 125. “scilicet magnam antiquitatem, plenam
Episcoporum potestatem. . .accedit Legenda Beati Privati, martyris, gloriosi Patroni ecclesie Mimatensis,
que quidem Legenda est per Romanam Ecclesiam, ut autentica, approbata. . .”.

67 Guillaume refers to two miracles from the Miracula Sancti Privati (Miracles, 4-7), which can be
reconstructed from the Miracles and the Mémoire. In the ﬁrst, a knight who had seized a manor belonging
to the church of Mende, laid waste to its ﬁelds, and plundered the inhabitants suddenly contracted a mortal
illness. As his body reposed in the church in Mende, flames suddenly rose up from the ground and
consumed it. In the second miracle, the count of the Auvergne attacked the city of Mende. The saint, who
dealt him a mortal blow to the head with a lance, thwarted his efforts. “Continetur insuper in eadem,
pacem in Gaballitano per successores dicti Beati Privati fuisse diucius observatam, et proper dictam pacis
observationem et dicte terre Gaballitane gubernationem, dum conveniebant barones et nobiles dicte terre,
ad mandatum Episcoporum, multa miracula predicti Beati Privati meritis, fuisse facta ibidem, sicut de uno
milite qui fuit visibiliter in sepulcro combustus - et de alio, scilicet Guidone, Comite Arvernie, qui fuit a
predicto Beato Privato, visibiliter cum lancea perforatus. . .”. Mémoire, 126.

68 Mémoire, 473. Under the section titled “De fama quod episcopus et major dominus
Gaballitani” William wrote: “Item quod homines Sancte Enimie, Campaniaci, de Canonica, de Pruneriis et
de Lingonia, tam clerici quam layci, tenentur et consueverunt venire cum reliquiis Sanctorum, in quorum
honore sunt ecclesie eorum dedicate, de septennio in septennium, apud Mimate, ad reverenciam
exhibendam beato Privato et episcopo Mimatensi; et pro reverencia et majori dominio tenentur et
consueverunt beato Privato cum suis reliquiis supplicare.” Mémoire, 473.

147

 

The Mémoire and the Court Book

Evidence of the exercise of spiritual and, more important, secular jurisdiction, was
central in supporting Guillaume’s overall argument, but it is given special attention when
Guillaume is discussing Odilon’s episcopate. The evidence for episcopal secular lordship
presented in the Mémoire is lengthier for the reign of Odilon than for the two episcopates
that preceded his in large part because Guillaume had the more written material on which
to build his argument. He devoted considerable space to elaborating Odilon’s articula,
which began the suit, and the intentiones, which set out for the royal court the issues that
Odilon intended to prove.69 For instance, under the general heading of use of major
dominatio et regalia in Odilon’s time, Guillaume writes that exercise of the major
jurisdiction was demonstrated not only in Odilon’s spiritual jurisdiction but in his
jurisdiction over barons, castellans, and others.70 In fact, even barons who did not hold in
fee from the bishop were accustomed to bringing their criminal and civil matters before
the bishop.71 Throughout particula 3 in Part 1, Guillaume demonstrates aspects of
lordship by citing Odilon doing justice in his court. To illustrate the bishop punishing

violence and wrongdoers, Guillaume describes dozens of cases in which the bishop’s

 

69 See Mémoire, 22-43 for recapitulations of the articuli and 87-88 for the intentione; Guillaume’s
analysis of both documents runs throughout the Mémoire. See above, Chapter 3 for a discussion of the
function of these documents in the suit.

70 Mémoire, 209. “...quod non ratione juridictionis spiritualis set ratione majoris dominationis
qua, ipse Episcopus habebat in Barones, Castellanos et alios, exercebat in eis majorem juridictionem.”

7' Mémoire, 34-35. “Iste autem secundus articulus est universalis cum dicatur quod etaim Nobiles

nichil ab Episcopo in feudum tenentes consueverunt coram ipso Episcopo in quibuscumque scilicet
questionibus personalibus civilibus et criminalibus.”

I48

court rendered judgments in interbaronial quarrels.72 For instance, when the lord of
Toumel seized the castle of Vaissi, which belonged to the lord of Anduze, the court
compelled the lord of Toumel to make restitution for the castle to the lord of Anduze.73
Throughout most of this particula whenever Guillaume refers to the period of Odilon’s
pontiﬁcate he presents evidence from the episcopal court in this way.

An important evidentiary source was the court book from the 12605. Unlike the
verbal processes of the enquéte, the miracles of St. Privat, or various other instrumenta,
the organization of the court book regularized court documentation with a utilitarian
concern for the future need to retrieve information. In searching for details of juridical
activities more than thirty years old, Guillaume was not constrained by the limitations of
human memory.74 The episcopal archive had been prearranged to preserve it. It may
even be possible to see Guillaume, or someone researching Odilon’s lordship, at work in
the court book. A case from 1268 recorded in the court book concerns a dowry that
Guidon de Séve’rac sought to collect from his father-in-law, Guigon de Meschin.75 This
case has afﬁxed to the fore edge an intact parchment tag that reads “Causa domini
Guidonis de Severiaco et domini Guigonis Meschini, MCCLX VIII. Ad quartam et etiam

inducitur ad III‘"" et V‘"".” The hand that wrote the tag notation does not appear

 

72 Mémoire, 241. “Quod dominus Odilo Episcopus predicta exercuerit et de predictis guerris,
violenciis, injuriis, et maleﬁciis, Barones et alios nobiles puniverit, et de ipsis cognoverit ...in principio et
in prosecutione dicti sui.”

73 Mémoire, 242. “Item quod Curia Episcopi processerit contra dominum de Tomello, qui
dicebatur subtraxisse domino Raymundo de Andusia castrum de Vaissi ...se compulsum fuisse ad
restituendum predictum castrum.”

7" Mémoire, 201. “De tempore namque dicti Odilonis Episcopi per quem lis ista fuit mota, anno
Domini MCCLXIX sicut apparet in Registro Ecclesie Mimatensis, et sic prefuit per XXIII annos ante

motam litem.”

75 ADL G 963 l l6r. A letter from Gui gon Meschin to Laurent de Condat, asking the judge to
excuse him from answering a summons to appear before the bishop’s court is described in Chapter 3.

149

 

elsewhere in the court book; it is very tempting to view this tag and its message as a
bookmark, placed by Guillaume or someone working on the Mémoire under his
supervision, to mark a case that proved Odilon’s intentions, 3, 4 and 5, which address
longstanding episcopal lordship over the barons.76 The ﬁrst ﬁve intentiones are no longer
legible, but Gregory Pass has reconstructed them, based on recapitulations in the
Mémoire, as “3. . .quod episcopus est in possessione longissima utendi dicta superioritate
in barones,” “4. . .quod ad episcopum in personalibus et realibus recurrere consueverunt
nobiles,” and “5...quod de non habentibus dominos speciales ius reddere consueverunt.”
Guillaume devoted considerable attention to providing evidence to support Odilon’s
intentiones. Perhaps this tag referred to a case Guillaume wished to bookmark for that
reason. In fact, this case is cited in the Mémoire, in the section titled, “De questionibus
personalibus et realibus, in Curia Episcopi tanquam majoris domini, inter Barones
Gaballitanos ad invicem ventilatis,” as evidence that the bishop resolved conflicts
between barons of the Gévaudan.77

Guillaume used the court book in two ways. The ﬁrst, as in the case above,
Guillaume extracted cases in order to prove a speciﬁc point that, he claimed,
demonstrated secular lordship. Guillaume referred to the dowry case to prove Odilon’s
jurisdiction over payment of a dowry in the form of property between lords. In another
example, Guillaume refers to the case of Etienne Aribald’s stolen mules, discussed in

Chapter 3, which he cited under the section titled “Quod episcopus indistincte

 

76 Pass, “Source Studies,” 276. Porée does not attempt to reconstruct lntentiones 3 and
paraphrases, in French, the fourth and ﬁfth as, “113 ont connu des proces entre les barons” and “115 ont
connu des procés entre les barons et les ecclésiastiques.” Etudes historiques, 297.

’7 Mémoire, 283.

150

 

consueverit de omnibus tocius dyocesis questionibus cognoscere.”78 The conspiracy case
attracted Guillaume’s attention under the heading, “De possessione seu quasi pignorandi,
mulctandi et distringendi tenentes dictam baroniam de F loriaco per Episcopo, ut
vassallos et districtibiles suos.”79 He wrote that the bishop’s lordship was demonstrated
by the inquisition into the conspiracy of Raymond and Pons of Roquefort to seize the
castle of Chabrieres, undertaken at the advice of Raymond de Roquefeuil.80

The second way that Guillaume mines the court book for evidence of episcopal
lordship is found under the heading of ninety-nine cause et processus from the libri
episcopi. This section is comprised of a list of ninety—nine cases that were recorded in the
“books of the bishop,” which Guillaume cited because they addressed the issues raised in
Odilon’s intentiones.81 The cases are divided into four subsets titled “Primo productio

librorum episcopi,” “Secunda productio,” Tertia productio,” and “Quarta productis.”82

 

78 Mémoire, 294. “Item per causam Stephani Aribaldi et Gancelmi de Ch’avanono super quibus
dam mulis...”

79 a .
Memorre, 364.

8° Mémoire, 365 “Item de pignoratione domine Raymunde de Andusia probatur per inquisitionem
factam contra dominum Raymundum et Poncium de Ruppeforti, quia ad admonitionem domine Raymonde
de Rochafolio fecerant conspirationem de auferendo castram de Chabreria, quod Episcopus tenebat et fuit
facta inquisitio MCCLXVIII. . .” Recall that when the baron Bertrand de Anduse died, his widow and heir
were placed under the wardship of the bishop. Their castle at Chabrieres was controlled by the castellan
Raymond de Roquefeuil.

An interesting highlight from the conspiracy case is found in the Mémoire. Recall that a witness
in the inquisitio testiﬁed that Raymond de Roquefort had complained that he had been unjustly deprived of
livestock by the castellan, and he had threatened to take the matter before the court of the seneschal. An
entry in the Mémoire indicates that in fact Raymond did bring the matter before the court of the bishop,
although the case does not appear in ADL G 963; Guillaume must have found the reference in another
court book or loose document that are no longer extant. “Item per causam domini Raymundi de Rupe forti

et Raymond de Chavano super occasione cujusdam vacce et captione quorumdam animalium
MCCLXVIII.”

8' Mémoire, 475. “De nonaginta novem causis et processibus contentis in libris curie episcopi,
quos libros habet curia ista penes se. Ex quibus super hiis que continentur in precedentibus rubricis
coadjuvatur intentio episcopi Mimatensis, quantum ad usum et explectationem civilium, personalium,
realium et criminalium contestationum.”

82 Mémoire, 475-481.

151

 

Under the four subsets, the list of cases provides little information about their nature and
it is difﬁcult to discern an organizing principle that accounts for why the cases are
arranged in the four categories. For example, the ﬁrst fourpcases in the ﬁrst subset are
listed as “Causa Johannis Gilii et Bertrandi Carbonerii,” “Causa G. de la Garda et P.

,9 ‘6

Dolsa et uxores, Causa nobilis viri domini G. de Severiaco et R. de Brassinaco,” and

“Causa Bertrandi de Nozeiras et heredis P. de Blassa Guillelmine uxoris sue.”83
Although the information provided is slim, it might appear that the cases of the ﬁrst
productio address cases that conventionally fall under ecclesiastical court jurisdiction,
such as disputes of marriage or inheritance. However, other cases in the ﬁrst productio
seem to fall outside ecclesiastical jurisdiction, such as the cases listed as “Causa domini
F ulconis de Toumello et domini Guillelmi de Toumello” and “Denunciatio domine
Raymunde, relicte nobilis viri quondam Raymundi de Andusia, contra dominum de
Reteris, P. Astorgii, R. de Chavano, R. de Andusia, super quadam pecunie summa. ”84
Although the information provided is too small to positively assert the nature of these
disputes, they seems to involve the barons of the Gévaudan engaged in cases that
normally fell under secular jurisdiction.

What can be determined with certainty is that some of the ninety-nine cases cited
by Guillaume were drawn from the court book and that all of the cases drawn from the
court book are listed in the third productio. For instance, on 111r of the court book a

lengthy case from 1268 is recorded that was heard before an unnamed ofﬁcial against the

lord Randon of Chz’iteauneuf whose armed men had forced their way into the castle of

 

83 Mémoire, 475.

3“ Ibid., 475-476.

152

Garde, which was held in fee by Guillaume of Garde of the bishop.85 Guillaume cites
this case twice in the Mémoire, once as proof of Odilon’s ability to punish violence and
wrongdoers (an example of the ﬁrst way the court book was used) and then again in the
list of ninety-nine cause et processus.86 In another example, the court book preserves the
inquisition of Henry de Chapio, an agent of the lord Guigon de Toumell, who was
investigated for various crimes including breaking open the locked box in which the
revenues from a toll, collected in the town of Langogne by the lord Guigon and his son
Odilon Garin, were kept.87 This inquisition is listed in the ninety-nine cases simply as
“Inquisitio contra Henricum de Chapio.”88

Of the ninety-nine cases that Guillaume presented, the cases concerning the men
bearing arms in Garde and the pilfering of the strong box certainly are drawn from ADL
G 963.89 Two others probably are drawn from it, although Guillaume’s list gives few
details about the cases, so it is impossible to determine with certainty. 90 In the Mémoire,
the cases in question are simply styled “Inquisitiofacta contra Odilonem Garini et

homines suos pro portatione armorum” and “Causa Guillelmi de Bello visu et domini

Hugonis de Garda.” If, as seems likely, these cases are drawn from the court book, more

 

85 ADL G 963 ll lr. . .et quod fuit denunciatum curie domini episcopi quod gentes domini
Randonis venerunt apud guardam in feudo domini episcopi cum armis et muniminibus erant penetratum
portam.”

86 Mémoire, 245 and 479. “Item quod Episcopus ad instantiam dominorum de Garda processerit
contra dominum Randone, quia quidam domicelli sui, cum armis et per vim intraverant castrum de Garda,
pro contrasto quod habebant milites dicti castri ...”

‘7 ADL o 963 134v.

88 Mémoire, 479.

8" ADL o 963 111: and 1 16r.

9° Ibid., 1 13r and 119v.

153

information about them can be uncovered from there. The ﬁrst case, similar to the one
involving lord Randon; concerns the charge that men illegally bore arms in Garde,
although unlike the case of lord Randon, this case is heard before Laurent de Condat.
The second is brought by the consuls of the castrum of Garde against Guillaume de
Beauvoir charging that he had unjustly collected a toll.” These four cases involve the
rights and privileges of the castrum of Garde, although the remaining twenty-ﬁve cases
from the third productio do not explicitly reference Garde, and from the limited
information provided, it seems that they do not concern Garde at all. Therefore, the
reason that Guillaume selected the cases to be included in the third productio probably is
not that they concern matters related to Garde or that the consuls of Garde considered his
court have jurisdiction in all matters, secular and spiritual.

The other ninety-ﬁve cases no doubt came from libros curie episcopi that are no
longer extant, indicating the episcopal archive of court books must have been was quite
extensive. Guillaume does not state that the ninety-nine cases came from the episcopate
of Odilon de Mercoeur, although all other references in the Mémoire to documentary
evidence that was not drawn from the enquéte of 1270, the life of St. Privat, or the
Golden Bull came from Odilon’s court. If we use the formula that a single book provided ‘

Guillaume with four cases, then, in order to compile a list of ninety-ﬁve cases, the

episcopal archive would have contained about twenty-ﬁve court books.92 Moreover,

 

9' A consulate government was established in Garde in 1238. The castrum of Garde (today known
as Garde-Guerin) was located in the northwest of the Gévaudan on an important and often-used road
between Nimes and the Auvergne. Today its ruins have been restored and it represents one of the best—
preserved medieval sites in the region. On the statutes of the consulate government, see Etudes
Historiques, 36-107.

92 Of course, this scheme is purely speculative. Because the four cases cited in Mémoire can be
identiﬁed in the court book does not mean that only four cases were extracted from any one book and
whether Guillaume continued to use four cases per book cannot be known with any certainty.

154

when the suit between the king and the bishop was resolved, the material sent to Paris as
evidence of episcopal lordship was returned to the Gévaudan. Among the materials
returned were thirty-ﬁve registers; they are not called court books or referred to as court
records, so whether these books were court books like ADL G 963 (or if ADL G 963 was
among them) is unknown. Therefore, although the size of the episcopal archive seems to
have been extensive, from the surviving evidence it cannot be said with certainty
precisely how many court books -- or loose documents -— Guillaume had at his disposal.
Furthermore, cases cited from the court book in the Mémoire under the topical headings,
described above as the ﬁrst way Guillaume used the court book writing the Mémoire,
number about nine. They represent a small fraction of the total cases that Guillaume
speciﬁcally mentioned as originating in Odilon’s court.

Odilon, no doubt concerned with documenting the jurisdiction of his court, must
have had numerous court books, possibly covering many, if not all of, the years of his
pontiﬁcate. In spite of the obvious difﬁculties his scribes encountered in working
through the details of record keeping, these challenges were overcome in sufﬁcient
measure so that Guillaume could use the court books as research tools in presenting a
vigorous closing argument to the royal court. There is no way to know if the lost books
organized their cases in the same way as the surviving book. As we have seen, the
organizing system attempted in ADL G 963 met with numerous difﬁculties in
organization, although it was not so flawed that Guillaume was unable to extrapolate
cases from it. In writing the Mémoire, Guillaume used strategies to present his argument
and to convey meaning to his audience. His treatise drew on the archival memory

preserved in the court books; he engaged in the complex process of selecting which cases

155

would serve his rhetorical goal of proving episcopal lordship. In writing his argument,
Guillaume not only created a defense of episcopal secular lordship, but he also created a
type of historical narrative based on the records of the episcopal court which helped to ﬁx

his version of historical memory in writing.

Historical Memory

The composition of the Mémoire that drew on Odilon’s court book (or more
likely, court books) highlights the interplay between the retention of archival documents
and the maintenance of political authority. In transmitting his vision of the past by
including or by omitting certain evidence preserved in the court book, Guillaume was
attempting to shape the nature of his present and future political circumstances. As we
have seen, exercise of episcopal secular lordship in Odilon’s day, and throughout the
thirteenth century, was not without challenges and setbacks. To be sure, the bishops
usually attempted to answer those challenges; nonetheless, their secular lordship never
was uncontested. In the Mémoire, Guillaume authored a type of narrative, derived from
the cases heard before the episcopal court, to highlight episcopal lordship and to diminish
the threat to episcopal hegemony by royal agents. From his control of the episcopal
archives, Guillaume’s narrative buttressed episcopal cultural authority and political
power by its appeal to the authenticity of the past as recorded in the court books, that is,
the written documentation of episc0pal lordship. The court books provided a record of

the past, which, as bishop of Mende, Guillaume controlled; he drew on the episcopal

156

archive to address the needs of the present, thereby asserting his political authority and
reinforcing historical memory of episcopal secular lordship.93

The needs of the present were the stimulus for the creation of the Mémoire.
Frederick C. Bartlett, a cognitive psychologist who worked between the two world wars,
argued that construction of memory was an active process of reshaping, distorting,
omitting and combining details about the past with elements of the present.94 He sees the
link between past and present as essential to the construction of memory; in fact, if
memories are not linked meaningfully to the present, then they are not retained.95 The
writing of past memories works especially well if the past is preserved in an archive.96
The process of framing and constructing the “realities of the past,” as Guillaume did in
the Mémoire by drawing on the court books, is the function of creating historical
memory.97 History recorded in the Mémoire gave a sense of the past by making claims

that were constructed out of selected materials preserved in the episcopal archive.98

 

93 On the relationship between political power and control of archives see Geary, Phantoms of
Remembrance, 7-16; Derrida, Archive Fever, 1-5; Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, 260-266,
272-278, 295-297; Keith Michael Baker, “Memory and Practice: Politics and the Representation of the
Past in Eighteenth-Century France,” Representations 11 (1985), 134; Kenneth Foote, “To Remember and
Forget: Archives, Memory, and Culture,” American Archivist 53 (1990): 378-392; Irving Velody, “The
Archive and the Human Sciences, ” History of the Human Sciences 11 (1998): 1-16; Francis X. Blouin and
William G. Rosenberg, “Archives, Documentation, and the Institutions of Social Memory,” Bulletin
(Bentley Historical Library) 48 (2000): 1-24.

94 Frederick C. Bartlett, Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology
(Cambridge, 1932; reprint, Cambridge, 1964), 204—208 (page citations are to reprint edition). Many studies
of memory acknowledge Bartlett’s work. For a brief introduction see David Thelen, “Memory and
American History,” The Journal of American History 75 (1989): 1120; Fentress and Wickham, Social
Memory, 32-36; Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance, 19.

95 Fentress and Wickham, Social Memory, 24.

9" Ibid., 25.

97 Iwona Irwin-Zarecka, Frames of Remembrance: The Dynamics of Collective Memory (New
Brunswick, 1994), 101.

98 Fentress and Wickham, Social Memory, 25.

157

 

The Mémoire set out what was to be remembered and the court books facilitated
recollection of those stored memories. Although his was probably not a work of self-
conscious creation and preservation of memory, in the manner of modern archives,
Odilon had foregrounded the needs of his future audience in the creation of the court
book. By beginning with consideration of the needs of the future users, even though they
were not precisely known when the court book was created, episcopal scribes decided
how to package their information so that it would be accessible and useful to their future
readers. Their achievement was counter-balanced by the obvious technological
limitations that necessitated the numerous cross-references.99 Rather than a list of
unrelated processes, the court book preserved the past in discrete units, each case a
distinct component of memory that, thirty-some years later, Guillaume selected to include
in his history. Organizational considerations made it possible for Guillaume to uncover —
or recover — the past that was preserved in the court book’s documentary evidence and
present it in the Mémoire as historical memory of episcopal lordship. Preservation of the
court records in the court book led to accumulation of knowledge by incremental units
made up of individual cases, permitting the Mémoire to act as the ﬁrst stage of preserving
the historical memory of episcopal secular lordship of the past, in the present.100

In effect, the court book served as a research tool, designed to be a searchable
text, with a utilitarian concern for future retrieval of information to prove episcopal
secular lordship. The Mémoire validated memories by presenting the written evidence

provided by the court book. Not merely a copyist, Guillaume, as author, used strategies

 

99 Irwin-Zarecka, Frames of Remembrance, 101-103.

'00 Jack Goody, The Interface between the Written and Oral (Cambridge, 1987), 54.

158

 

and intentions in the selecting, ignoring, and omitting information to document the
history of episcopal secular lordship. By studying his use of the surviving court book, it
is possible to see which types of cases Guillaume elected to include and to omit.
Guillaume referred to about thirteen cases from the court book in his Mémoire.101 Four
of the thirteen cases he selected concerned matters of rights of lordship.102 Table 1 shows
that the court book contained twenty-two cases of lordship; Guillaume elected to cite four
of those, or about 18.1 % of the total. Although cases of lordship made up 8 % of the
total cases in the court book, they represent 30.7 % of the cases Guillaume chose to cite
from the court book.

Although cases that concern issues of lordship bear clear relevance to the law suit
and so, perhaps, it is not surprising that Guillaume cited these cases, in other instances he
applied more resourceful interpretations to the signiﬁcance of the cases from the court
book. For example, when he described Odilon imposing judgments in questions of

‘03 This case

disorders throughout the diocese, he cited the case of the three stolen mules.
was one that concerned a mundane dispute that must have pervaded quotidian life in the
Gévaudan. Yet, when drafting the Mémoire, Guillaume chose the case, not because of its

routine nature, but because he believed that it demonstrated the ability of the bishop to

intervene in all matters throughout the diocese. In another instance, Guillaume wanted to

 

'0' Because of Guillaume’s brief account, two of these cases cannot be positively identiﬁed as
having been drawn from the court book. See above for discussion.

'02 The cases from ADL G 963 111r, 1 l3r, 119r, and 123r are found in the Mémoire, 245 and 479,
479, 479, and 365, respectively.

'03 Under the title, “Quod Episcopus indistincte consueverit de omnibus tocius dyocesis
questionibus cognoscere” on Mémoire, 292, Guillaume cites the three mules case on Mémoire, 295 writing
“Item per causam Stephani Aribaldi et Gancelmi de Chavanono super quibus dam mulis, eiedem anno
...[1268].” In the court book, the case begins on 45v.

159

present evidence that the bishop had adjudicated disputes between barons.‘04 From the
court book, he extrapolated a case concerning a complaint brought before the ofﬁcial of
the episcopal court in 1268 by the lord Guidon de Sévérac, which claimed that his father-
in-law, Guigon de Meschin had not paid him a dowry.105 In the court book, this case, has
the very allusive parchment tag described above, indicating that someone marked this
case as relevant to Odilon’s intentiones three through ﬁve. Whether Guillaume placed
the tag there cannot be known, but he used the case as evidence that the barons of the
Gévaudan brought their disputes before the ofﬁciality of bishops of Mende.

Guillaume left out of his history the point that he did not think worth arguing
because it was an unstated assumption, that is, that the bishop exercised spiritual
jurisdiction in his diocese. As we saw in Chapter 3, very few cases in the court book
concern the normal business of an ecclesiastical court. Nonetheless, the court of the
bishop must have heard cases that concerned clerical crimes and offenses, marriage and
the termination of marriage, the legitimacy of children, wills and testaments, and burial of
the dead and the like. Whether the episcopal scribes recorded cases of typical
ecclesiastical jurisdiction in court books is beyond knowing. Perhaps Odilon and his
chancery did not go to the extraordinary lengths to record these types of cases because
cases demonstrating spiritual jurisdiction did not support his claim to episcopal secular
lordship. However, it seems likely that the chancery was intent on preserving the details

of the business of the bishop’s court. A much more likely scenario is that there were

 

10" Mémoire, 282. “De questionibus personalibus et realibus, in Curia Epsicopi tanquam majoris
domini, inter Barones Gaballitanos ad invicem ventilatis.”

'05 In the court book the case is found on ADL G 963 116r. Guillaume cites the case on Mémoire,

287-288. Guillaume wrote, “Item per causam dominorum de Severiaco et G. Mesqui super xxx millibus
solidis dotalibus

160

cases of the sort typically heard by ecclesiastical courts, which were preserved in written
records by Odilon’s chancery, which Guillaume elected not to cite because they
supported a version of the past that he wanted to disregard. or considered unimportant. In
Guillaume’s construction of historical memory, a uniﬁed vision of lordship was imposed.
His focus was not to forget the past that included an episcopate exercising its spiritual
jurisdiction; instead, be selected material that helped to forge historical memory of
episcopal secular lordship that was never as consolidated as the Mémoire presents.

In fact, Guillaume argued that, in the opinion of everyone in the Gévaudan, the
bishop’s regalia, as received in the Golden Bull, conveyed the special “superiorities”
claimed by the king, namely, appellate jurisdiction, the use of arms, and the oversight of
peace.106 In a sense, Odilon and his chancery, aware of the ramiﬁcations of their suit and
the need to validate their claim to episcopal secular lordship, created their own history,

which, about thirty-ﬁve years later, Guillaume ﬁxed ﬁrmly in the Mémoire.

Resolution of the Suit

Philip IV rejected Guillaume de Plaisians’s argument for suspending the process
of the suit entirely and, instead, moved to resolve the impasse and settle the matter. As

early as 1299 Philip had placed Gaucelin de la Garde, former canon of Mende and then-

 

“x’ Ibid., “. . .oppinio vulgi et populi Gaballitani, qui nomine Regalie intelligit, quantum ad
prefatum, superioritates illas precipuas et speciales, quas dominus Rex vendicat sibi in regno, in ressorto.
usu armorum, pacis observantia et aliis, quas omnes superioritates quales Rex habet in regno vulgi et populi
Gaballitani et convicinorum oppinio habet et tenet, Episcopum habere in toto Episcopatu predicto.”

161

 

 

bishop of Maguelone, over the case with orders to put together a compromise.107 Philip
then moved the case from the Parlement to the royal council whose members included

'08 Others in attendance were

Pierre Flote, Pierre de la Chapelle, and Pierre Belleperche.
Jean d’Arrablay, the seneschal of Beaucaire, and Pierre de Béziers, the royal procurators
in the senechaussée, and Guillaume Durand himself. Guillaume de Plaisians acted as the
royal advocate.109 The main elements of the agreement were in place by 1304, when
Gaucelin de la Garde died. Thereafter, only minor changes were made in the pare’age,
and by 1307, the agreement was complete.] '0

Compromise in the form of a pare’age served Philip well when dealing with
episcopal lords. In 1307, Philip concluded pare’age agreements with four other southern
dioceses claiming secular lordship: Le Puy, Cahors, Limoges, and Viviers. Throughout
his reign, Philip concluded nineteen pare’ages, only two of them with lay lords.I 11 It is
likely that Philip wished to end the protracted process to keep Guillaume as an ally, since

the negotiations between the king and Guillaume Durand over the pare’age coincided

with the dispute between Boniface VB] and Philip. If it was Philip’s strategy to keep

 

'07 Etudes historiques, 326 and 330-331. The information that the king gave Gaucelin the
leadership over the process comes from a memorandum about the paréage written in 1341 by then Bishop
Albert Lordet. The memorandum is preserved in ADL G 880 and printed in Etudes historiques, 330-331. . ..._

'08 Pierre Flote was the archbishop of Toulouse and Pierre de la Chapelle was the future bishop of
Auxerre. Of course, Flote also was one of the most active royal lawyers and a key personality in the
celebrated struggle between Philip IV and Boniface VIII.

'09 Etudes historiques, 292. Two papal legates in France also approved the agreement.

”0 The paréage is preserved in ADL G 743. Its text is printed in Ordonnances des roys de la
troisieme race, vol. 2, ed. Eusebe Jacob de Lauriere, et al., (Paris, 1723-1849), 369-403; Documents
historiques, vol. I, 359-376; LPB, appendix 1, 173-195. A French summary appears in HGL, vol. 9, 359-
376. Misprints and omissions flaw the version printed in LPB, 173-195. For excellent analysis of the
paréage, see Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy, 86-95; also Leon Gallet, Les traités de pare’age dans la
France féodale (Paris, 1935), 94-106; Joseph R. Strayer, “La Noblesse du Gévaudan et le paréage de
1307,” Revue du Gévaudan 13 (1967): 67-72; Etudes historiques, 465-483.

 

111 Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy. 86. n. 4|-

162

Guillaume on friendly terms, it appears to have been successful. Although he obeyed
Boniface’s summons to attend the Roman council in November 1302, Guillaume was in
Paris on 19 April 1302, for an assembly of barons and prelates. Guillaume was probably
in Paris at that time to attend the council of Estates-General on 10 April that was ordered
by Philip, although there is no explicit evidence that he was present. In 1303, Guillaume
joined the French clergy in granting Philip a tenth and a half and in March 1304 and he
was one of two bishops who attended the provincial council in Bourges where he was
instrumental in granting another tenth. ' '2

The details of the paréage are quite simple. Following an introduction that
acknowledges the equal claim to complete rights to the Gévaudan by both parties,1 '3 the
pare’age declares that the king and the bishop were equals with identical rights and
jurisdiction in every domain, including the temporal domain.l '4 Next, the paréage
created a new public authority in which episcopal and royal control were uniﬁed with
equal jurisdiction over all the lands and peoples of the Gévaudan. In order to carry out
the new joint jurisdiction, 3 common court of the Gévaudan was created — along with new

support personnel, such as a bailli, a judge and a judge of appeals, sergeants, notaries,

 

“2 Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy, 84-85.

”3 Documents historiques, vol. 1, 360. For episcopal rights: “totus episcopatus Gaballitanus tam
ex privilegiis antiquis regum Francie quam ex consuetudine antiqua et usu longissimo pleno jure pertinebat
ad ipsos [episcopos] nomine dicte ecclesie Mimatensi, et suberat eidem episcopo et ecclesie Mimatensi et
subesse debebat et consueverat quantam ad majorem jurisdictionem episcopalem et altiorem potestatem et
dominationem majorem cum jure regalium.” And for royal rights, nearly the exact opposite, “totus
episcopatus predictus, tam de jure communi quam de antiqua et approbata consuetudine et usu longissimo
quantum ad temporalem jurisdictionem nobis subsit, et ad nos pertinet pleno jure quoad majorem
jurisdictionem et cohertionem et districtum temporalem.”

”4 Documents historiques, vol. 1, 363. . .nos associamus dictum episcopum et successores suos
episcopos et ecclesiam Mimatensem pro nobis et successoribus nostris in omni jurisdictione alta et bassa,
mero et mixto imperio et in omni dominatione et potestate temporali et ressorto et in juribus regalium. . .”
Note that the paréage is written from the king’s persective, therefore, the pronoun “we” refers to the royal
party to the agreement.

163

and jailers chosen in alternate years by the king and the bishop. Furthermore, in order to
ensure a neutral court, the location of the court was to alternate between the episcopal
city of Mende and the royal town of Marvéjols. The common court’s business was
authenticated with a new seal, composed of symbolic elements from the royal and
episcopal insignia. Thus, extensive efforts were made to establish a parity of power; in
effect a new bailliage, complete with its own court, was created, so that no one “who
used to be under our [royal] jurisdiction or under the bishop’s temporal jurisdiction
before the present association may for any reason decline the jurisdiction of the said
bailiff and judge.“ ‘5
Three exceptions to the terms of the new jurisdiction were recognized. First, the
lands that were under the undisputed control of the king or the bishop were exempt from
the jurisdiction of the common court.l ‘6 Second, all appeals had to be brought before the

royal courts, even if the case had originated in a baronial or episcopal court.117 Third, the

king reserved special rights as “our greater superiority and superior right,” “8 deﬁned as

 

”5 Documents historiques, vol. 1, 369-370. “Nullus de terra seu locis dictae associationis qui ante
praesentem associationem esset justitiabilis noster, vel Episcopi ratione jurisdictionis temporalis,
quacumque causa poterit declinare jurisdictionem dictorum ballivii et judicis.” See Fasolt. Council and
Hieracrhy, 91 and LPB, 209 for analysis.

”6 Documents historiques, vol. 1, 363. “Exceptis et retentis.. .nobis, et nostris successoribus
castris nostris, villis et eorum territoriis, et pertinentiis, hominibus jurisdictionibus, domaniis, et aliis rebus,
et juribus quibuscumque nostris, quae nunc ad manum nostram habemus, et possidemus vel habere et
possidere modo quolibet possumus et debemus infra ﬁnes dicti Episcopatus, et nostra majori superioritate
ac superiori ressorto, in quibus, quaecumque et qualiacumque sint non inyendimus associare dictum
Episcopum. Ita tamen quod per hanc retentionem nostrae majoris superioritatis, et superioris ressorti, in
nullo derogetur supra communicatis Episcopo supradicto, et exceptis feudis, et retro-feudis nostris quoad
hoc scilicet quod proprietas et possessio dictorum feodorum, homagia, recognitiones ﬁdelitates, laudimia,
et jura recipiendi vendas, retinendi, vel laudandi et investiendi castrorum et fortalitoirum redditiones et
receptiones, et alia deveria et obsequia nobis pro dictis feudis, et retro-feudis retentis debita, et cognitio
realium petitionum pro eis nostra propria remaneant absque communione Episcopi supradicti.”

”7 Documents historiques, V01. 1. 368'369-

l ‘ . a o o o o - ¢ 99
l 8 363. ‘ Exceptis et retentis ...nostra majori superioritate ac superrorr ressorto...

164

royal superiority to levy taxes for the general defense of the realm1 '9 and the right to hear
all cases involving crimes “committed against our person or against the crown of our
realm?”20 Thus, the pare’age represented a compromise between the two parties that
established jurisdictional parity, with the important exceptions of the rights of taxation, of
judging cases such as treason, and of serving as the court of ﬁnal appeal. It thereby
established legal recognition that the core rights of sovereignty belonged to the crown
and irrevocably reversed the bishop’s legal claim to autonomy in the Gévaudanm
Nonetheless, memory of regional independence and episcopal secular lordship
endured. In 1330, when the royal bailli attempted to enter the episcopal city to levy a tax,
he was greeted by shouts of insurgency, local pride, and, no doubt, a considerable
measure of tax resistance: “We have no king in the Gévaudan except the Bishop of

!”122 The sentiment

Mende. Let these scoundrels perish and not escape our hands
expressed by the people of Mende belonged to the past; the bishops had recognized their
joint jurisdiction with the king since the pare’age of 1307 and agreed to accept royal
rights within their diocese. However, the attitude of the mob conveys the vitality of the

memory of episcopal secular lordship in the popular imagination. Although we cannot

determine how many of these Mendois knew of the court book or Guillaume’s Mémoire,

 

”9 Documents historiques, vol. 1, 367. “Nec peterimus de terra seu locis praedictis dictae

communionis a quibuscumque personis aliquod talium, vel exactionem, subsidium, redemptionem, vel
emolumentum levare, vel habere, nisi hoc levaremus pro generali defensione regni nostri; quin omnia sint
communia nobis et Episcopo praedicto.”

'20 Documents historiques, vol. 1, 368. “. . .cujuscumque criminis, etiam falsae monetae, cussae
vel expensae, laesae majestatis, in quibuscumque casibus, praeterquam si contra personam nostram
committeretur, aut contra regni nostri coronam. . .”

'2' Fasolt, Council and Hierarchy, 92.

'22 “Nos non habemus regem in Gaballitano nisi episcopum Mimatensem. Moriantur isti ribaudi

et non evadant manus nostras!” Cited in Ferdinand Andre, “Les Evéques de Mende pendant le XIVc siecle,”
BSL 22/2 (1871): 36.

165

we can say that they were part of the “textual community” whose memories of episcopal

secular junsdrctron were preserved rn Odrlon’s court book.12

 

3 0‘ ' 9, I n s
'2 The phrase textual community comes from Stock, Implications of Literacy.

166

.5!

CONCLUSION

This study has dealt with the ecclesiastical court book of Mende, perhaps the
earliest extant example of a continuous record of litigated Cases before an episcopal court.
Through this extraordinary document, we have glimpsed the operation of an ecclesiastical
court about one hundred years earlier than almost any other ecclesiastical court in
Europe. Consistent with the diffusion of legal culture and learning that was reflected in
diplomatic evidence throughout southern France, the men working in the court were
professional trained jurists who were styled magister, judex, and oﬁ‘icialis. Although
there was considerable variance among cases, the court followed Roman-canonical
procedure; its cases concerned civil and spiritual jurisdiction that the bishop vehemently
claimed as his. The court book did not convey much of the information that would be of
interest to us. For example, in most instances, we cannot say with certainty where the
court met and who was present. With the notable exceptions of Laurent de Condat and
Pierre la Bladie, the names of the men associated with the court and its writing ofﬁce
remain beyond recovery. Even information such as the average length of time it took to
litigate a case cannot be determined with certainty because the dates are often not given
for what appear to be subsequent processes following the recording of the initial libellus
or because the case breaks off with no indication of resolution.

The court book allows us to see the episcopal scribes, men trained in the art of
recording legal records, struggling to ﬁnd solutions to difﬁcult problems of organizing
their material. The cases the scribes attempted to organize involved a variety of subjects,
although civil actions dominated their caseload. A number of consequences arose from

their attempt to create an organizational system that grouped all the processes from one

167

case under the same heading. The most obvious is that their system ran into considerable
obstacles as evidenced by the frequent and often bewildering resort to cross-references,
forward and backward in the book, directed by an idiosyncratic system of symbols.1 As
we have seen, the surviving court book probably was one of many books referring to the
business of the court; we cannot know if the other books employed the same organizing
principle, or if the system was abandoned when the inherent technical obstacles were
deemed to make the system unworkable. What can be said with certainty is that another
court book survives from 1340-1345, and in this register, the episcopal chancery still
used the same organizing system ﬁrst attempted in the 12605.2

We can assume that the Odilon de Mercoeur had something like a searchable
archive of episcopal court records in mind when he — or his writing ofﬁce — devised the
organizing principle used in the court book. The scribes clearly went to heroic lengths to
impose order on their material in a very deliberate way, even when the organizational
system became a source of inefﬁciency. One likely reason for devising and adhering to
this system was that the episcopal chancery anticipated the need to retrieve information
associated with the causae it was preserving. Therefore, the court book represents an
important juncture in the history of the book, of writing, and of record-keeping, for it

links the production and retention of written documents with their function as an archival

 

' Although, Guillaume Durand was able to navigate the confusing system of cross-references, the
limitations of technology doomed this system to failure. A system such as the one devised by the
scriptores of Mende would only be viable in the twentieth century, with the advent of word processing.

2 ADL G 934. Like ADL G 963, this register is composed of three quires, 126 paper folia. The
cases concern inquisitions into criminal cases, usually involving a cleric or civil cases involving marriage,
testaments, and debts, matters much more typical of episcopal business than in Odilon’s book. The
episcopal chancery seems to have worked on perfecting their organizational skills, since there are few
cross-references in this court book.

168

 

record of important affairs which need to be rationally organized to facilitate smooth
recovery.

I have argued that in recording the cases of the bishop’s court, episcopal scribes
preserved for future remembrance activities of the court that underscored the bishop
acting as secular lord. More than thirty years later, Guillaume Durand used the court
book, selectively drawing out those cases which best proved his argument, as evidence of
episcopal secular lordship. He also employed the enqué‘te and the memories of living
men. I do not postulate a dichotomy between the memory of men who testiﬁed to the
bishop’s secular lordship and the written record of the court book; instead of being
opposites, written and oral memory merge as the oral tradition was incorporated into a
textual format of the Mémoire, uniting with the written memory of the bishop’s lordship.
Guillaume’s text gave written authority to the memory he wished to preserve for the
community of the Gévaudan.

Another consequence of the recording of court cases was validation of political
authority in the Gévaudan. The retention of the episcopal archive committed to writing
episcopal secular lordship, thereby giving the memory of episcopal secular lordship
permanence in that if it was not dependent on personal or collective recall. Control of
written records was essential to sustaining memory, and the bishop demonstrated his
lordship by organizing and managing the information that documented his hegemony.
Public authority lay in the episcopal archives. Control over the information in archives,
the gathering, unifying, and classifying of information into a single corpus or system
rested with the social and political authority, that is, with Odilon; Guillaume claimed the

right to interpret its elements. The organization of archives had the effect of

169

 

institutionalizing authority and law in written documentation. Therefore, the court book
and the other books, which no doubt existed, pinpointed the locus of power and authority.

The court book was created, in part, to act as written documentation of episcopal
lordship and, as such, its purpose was to augment proof from oral testimony, which was
regarded as more reliable than written proof because documents could have been forged
or altered.3 During the proceedings of 1270, ﬁfty-two witnesses testiﬁed to the bishop’s
secular lordship.4 Although the memory of a witness who gave sworn testimony as to the
truth in any particular case generally was trusted over documents, Odilon, wishing to
present the strongest proof, used both written and oral record.5 During the thirteenth
century, certain types of written documents gradually came to be accepted as proof,
namely, those that were redacted by notaries public, those drafted in the presence of or by
the order of a judge, under ofﬁcial seal, and those that were preserved by a public
archive.6 The court book represents a juncture in the use of — and the gradual acceptance
of — written documentation in legal practice in southern France. It was given authority
because it was prepared within the context of the bishop’s legal action against the agents
of the crown, in part for the purpose of establishing a written record of the bishop’s
exercise of secular lordship.

The backdrop to the ﬁnal agreement between the king and the bishop was the

dispute between Philip IV and Boniface VIII over the issue of national sovereignty.

 

3 Levy, La hiérarchie, 72-79; Brundage, Medieval Canon Law, 132-133; Clanchy, From Memory
to Written Record, 260-263, 272-278, 295-299.

4 Etudes historiques, 302-307. Witnesses for the king numbered ﬁfty-ﬁve.
5 Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, 262.

6 Levy, La hiérarchie, 74-76.

 

I70

France certainly was not a centralized state in the modern sense, the resolution of
Odilon’s suit just as Philip and his ministers were vigorously asserting the supremacy of
royal government makes the paréage a noteworthy component of Philip’s drive for
consolidation of royal power. In the competition for power and authority in the
Gévaudan, the bishops ultimately lost out to the French crown. Neither Odilon’s court
books nor Guillaume’s Mémoire was sufﬁcient to turn back the determined efforts of
Philip IV and his advisors. The episcopal failure to maintain their autonomy — and their
secular lordship, which as we have seen, was never as secure as Guillaume alleged —
should not, however, color our perception of the signiﬁcance of Odilon’s court book and
the episcopal archive. Although the paréage permanently altered episcopal power in the
Gévaudan, the change was not completely to the detriment of the bishop. After 1307, the
bishop was recognized as the count of the Gévaudan, and the court records from
succeeding centuries suggest that the bishops of Mende continued to exercise a wide
range of jurisdiction despite the presence of a royal court in the Gévaudan. A number of
surviving documents attest to the continuing controversy through the fourteenth and
ﬁfteenth centuries over the extent of episcopal jurisdiction.7

An interesting fate awaited the mass of documents produced for the ﬁnal
resolution of the suit before the royal council, including, perhaps the court book, which
might explain why the court book is the only surviving liber episcopi when it seems quite
likely there were many more. Following the agreement of the pare’age, all the written

materials concerning the case were returned from Paris to the newly created communal

 

7 For example, ADL G 928 contains three documents concerning seigniorial versus episcopal
jurisdiction from 1354-1381; ADL G 929 contains six documents addressing royal and episcopal
jurisdiction from 1390-1400; ADL G 967 and ADL G 968 contain documents concerning a jurisdictional
case against a royal ofﬁcial. Donahue, Medieval Ecclesiastical Courts, 82-83.

171

"Utl
‘

 

 

court.8 No doubt in response to a request from the bishop, in a letter dated 22 March
1314, Philip ordered that the material from the suit be moved to Mende and secured in
the cathedral chapter treasury with two keys, one kept by the royal procurer of the
communal court and the other kept by the bishop.9 Thirty years later, about the same
length of time that separated the creation of the court book from Guillaume’s Mémoire, in
1345 the procurer of the royal court asked to see certain documents related to the case.
The memory of the arrangement of the two keys ordered by Philip in 1314 had been lost.
The royal procurer apparently did not know that his ofﬁce was entrusted with a key to the
armoire. Instead, he wrote to the seneschal and the juge-mage of the se’ne’schausée
requesting that they authorize opening of the archives.'0 The incident demonstrates that
enregistering of important information, as Odilon did in his court books, preserves it in a
way the mere recollection never can. The royal procurer could have learned an important
lesson from the archival organization of the bishop of Mende. The juge-mage authorized

opening the locked archive and ordered that a copy of the borrowed documents be placed

 

8 The Parlement had demanded that all written material from both parties in the suit be sent to
Paris. A staggering amount of evidence was sent. For his part, the seneschal had mined the archives at
Millau, Roquemaure, Anduze, and Marvéjols; he had sent seventy-one registers and nineteen rolls. The
bishop had sent thirty-ﬁve registers and forty-eight vidimus or opinions. Etudes historiques, 314.

As noted in Chapter 4, we cannot know if the court book was part of the material that was sent to
Paris in support of the episcopal case. When listing the material that was to be returned, Philip’s letter does
not specify that the registers from the bishop’s case were court records or court books.

9 LPB, 158. . .omnia predicta volumina partis utriusque cum rotulis et instrumentis predictis ad
patriam reremisimus per dictum procuratorem nostrum et gentes episcopi predicti ponenda et custodienda
in thesauro capituli ecclesie mimatensis sub duabus clavibus, quarum unam habebit dictus procurator noster
pro nobis et aliam episcopus predictus.”

'0 Etudes historiques, 314-315. The letter to the juge-mage exists in ADL G 737 and is printed in
Etudes historiques, 315. n. l.

172

in the armoire. However, over the course of time it seems that these precautions were
not, observed and very few documents from the suit have survived.”

The production, preservation, and subsequent uses of documents for reference, as
we found in the episcopal archives of Mende, reveal a system that had achieved
administrative maturity.l2 Demonstrated control of the archival material in the late
thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries establishes the episcopal archive of Mende as
one of the earliest examples of systematic preservation and recall of documents, on a par
with, or perhaps slightly in advance of, such formidable and developed bureaucracies as
the royal and episcopal chanceries of England.13 A ﬁnal example will illustrate the
enduring legacy of Mende’s episcopal archive. Another court book survives from the
episcopal archive, compiled much later, in 1448.14 Unlike its predecessor, this book is
not a continuous record of litigated cases, but a selection of cases brought before the
ecclesiastical court over the years. Most of these cases concerned conﬂicts over royal
and episc0pal jurisdiction, which, in spite of the pare’age, was an ongoing concern of the
bishops. This paper register is a compilation of cases from nine registers, none of which
survives, dating back to cases from 1283. Thus, the episcopal archive was organized
sufﬁciently to allow scribes to extrapolate cases concerning subjects of particular interest
from registers that were up to 165 years old. Wars, ﬁres, and revolutions have destroyed
most of the episcopal archive, but its surviving remnants suggest an important

achievement in the history of written documentation in legal practice.

 

” Etudes historiques, 315.
'2 Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, 154.
'3 Ibid., 145-172.

'4 ADL G 945.

173

 

 

 

174

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ADLG25 ADLG123 ADLG741
ADL G 29 ADL G 130 ADL G 743
ADL G 35 ADL G 146 ADL G 757
ADL G 70 ADL G 147 ADL G 934
ADL G 74 ADL G 149 ADL G 945
ADLG81 ADLG155 ADLG963
ADL G 86 ADL G 274 ADL G 964
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ADL G 105 ADL G 632

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AN J 320
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Archives departementales de Haute-Loire
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Bibliotheca hagiographica latina antiquae et mediae aetatis. 2 vols. Brussels, 1898-
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175

 

Brunel, Clovis, “Documents historiques du Gévaudan.” BEC 77 (1916): 5-57, 241-285.
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Cartulaire du prieuré de St-Flour. Edited by Marcellin Boudet. Monaco, 1910.

Chabin, Michel and He’lene Latour, eds. Guide des Archives de la Lozere. Mende, 1979.

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