produced by a demand
This had been stopped

lower classes to rise, which is
for the peasant's arm in war.
and prevented, when the noble families closed their
ranks against the ignoble, monopolised to themselves
the practice of arms and the defence of the state, and
when they ordained that even wealth should not en-
noble the roturier. The middle class refused to serve
in an inferior rank, and the consequence was, the enlist-
ment of the rabble to form the infantry of the army.
Under such circumstances France was conquered and
trodden down. The kings abandoned raising what
were called armies, but empowered the gentry and
noblesse to raise each what force they could. Hence the
charters of the nobles emancipating their serfs, in order
to form bands of partisans, so at once to repel an
enemy, yet dispense with the costly and destructive
service of the companies of mercenary soldiers. Nor
was it the casualties and requirements of war alone,
which rendered the military service of the peasant so
indispensable and valuable. The mortality of the
population, great during the war, and continued by
ravages and famine, was after the peace undiminished
in consequence of the reappearance of the plague. And
almost all the towns and districts of the kingdom, taxed
in proportion to their number of hearths, represented
these emblems of family existence to be less, often by
one half, than they had been during the reigns of the
Valois.*

* The ravages of the English armies and of the mercenary bands must have greatly contributed to make the French peasantry congregate in villages, and to drive them from isolated dwellings or cottages on estates. This forced association of the lower and rustic classes in villages, where their dwellings could not be so contiguous to the field of labour, must have led to the desire

to be rid of corvée, and at the same
time to the facilities for getting rid
of it by a cens tribute or rent paid
by the little community. At the
same time, what the lords and the
state were anxious to obtain from
the villages was military service.
They had long dispensed with the
arms of the peasant contributors
to the national defence, but now
they were again obliged to have re-

CHAP.
XII.

СНАР.
XII.

The townspeople at the same time profited by the demand for middle and lower class aid. They had already begun to organise their defence, and no longer in hatred, but in alliance with the noblesse. Whilst the king or his lieutenant maintained the executive authority in the larger towns, lesser ones submitted to that of lords, in both cases the sheriffs retaining judicial power, and only applying to the lord for the execution of the sentence.* The townsfolk waived political power and even military command, whilst they retained judicial and fiscal freedom. And these liberties being connected with the institution of Provincial Estates, threatened to bring back France from an absolute monarchy to one based upon federalism. These tendencies, retrograde as French writers are apt to call them, were necessitated by the defence of the country. No doubt, they yielded again to the influence of absolutism, as soon as that defence was permanently achieved and secured. But the noblesse at least recovered a vast amount of privileges, which they retained for centuries; and for the moment, that is, in the fourteenth century, they recovered much of that local authority, of which they had been deprived in the thirteenth.

This resumption of influence by the gentry in each

course to it. But this implies the
abolition of serfage, and the raising
of the rustic peasants to all the attri-
butes of freemen. This took place
largely at the time, as the ordon-
sences attest. It has been remarked
how futile were the edicts of previous
kings to emancipate serfs, when there
was no opening for their service in
aïar, and no capital to enable them

ecome tenants in peace. There
duty
many causes, too, that led the
march both to desire to pay rent
service service, and be able to pay

her simultaneous causes
Here talords more anxious to

be paid in money than in labour. The ravages of war and its expenditure, soldiers being paid in coin, rendered provisions and agricultural products dear, and money more plentiful with the peasantry. The gentry at the same time, who all took military service, abandoned many of the residences of their family, and lived in the camp or the suite of princes. Cens, or rent, to them was more desirable than service.

* See, in the Recueil des Ordonnances, the charters given to Busency, to Commines and to Chaigny.

XII.

province, necessitated the re-establishment of the higher CHAP. or princely aristocracy. The machinery of absolute monarchy had become completely disarranged. The royal seneschals were powerless, unless they added personal weight to their delegated functions. In order to levy money, raise troops, secure the adhesion or support of a province, the local authority was requisite of a chief who knew the province, and could command the respect of the nobles, as well as the support of the middle classes. A prince of the blood could best do this. Edward III. found it necessary to establish his son, the Black Prince, over the Gascons, who would obey no lesser vicegerent. The Duke of Anjou was for the same reason made governor of Languedoc. And when the old line of the Dukes of Burgundy failed, John and Charles raised their son and brother Philip to that important dignity. This is made, by modern French writers, a great reproach to both, as if they wantonly derogated from the policy of the Philips, and broke up the unity which these had established. Charles, however, was not a monarch to part with or delegate authority, if he himself could have exercised it. But the centralised government raised and attempted by the legists of the previous century, had become impossible. The provinces were not given away by the crown, but had fallen from it. Not only had each province its estates, such as Burgundy, Languedoc or Champagne, but counties such as Artois, and even districts like the Cotentin, assembled in their three orders apart, and voted their local subsidy for the ransom of John or the defence of the country. In order to stop the progress of this subdivision, it was necessary to have a royal and a princely vicegerent on the spot. And the kingdom was divided into governments and duchies, less from royal caprice or predilection than from the irresistible necessities of the times.

Great difficulty was experienced on both sides in

XII.

CHAP. accomplishing even the first conditions of the Treaty of Bretigny. Considerable naval rivalry had sprung up during the war; so that the towns and the nobles of the French coast, La Rochelle and the population of Xaintonge, showed the greatest reluctance to rebecome English. For this shut out them and their ports from their natural communications with the interior, and placed them at the mercy of their rivals beyond sea. There existed another reason for the dislike of both towns and feudal chiefs to be compelled to transfer their allegiance and pay their homage to a new master. It was that this act of homage was necessarily accompanied by very heavy fees, which mulcted towns and nobles, and thus forced them to compound for every change of government.* No wonder that both protested against being made over to a foreign sovereign; and declared that though compelled to do lip-service to the English monarch, they still remained French at heart.

On the other hand, Edward, evacuating the fortresses and towns, which he held in the territories ceded to John, could not but disband the garrisons of mercenary troops. These collected in companies, persisted in hoisting the English or the Navarrese standard, and proceeded to war and pillage on their own account. The greatest number of them mustered in Champagne, under the name of the Tardvenus, or Last Arrived; and wasting the country, gradually moved south, first to Dijon, and then along the banks of the Soane. John ordered Jaques de Bourbon, then in Languedoc, to collect what forces he could muster to put down the brigands. These had taken post, to the number of

*The circumstances of the Black Prince summoning the nobles and townsfolk of Guienne to do him homage, as holding the duchy in fief of his sire, and his making both classes pay les frais des hommages due to Edward as sovereign, and to

himself as feudal chief or duke, are preserved in the archives of Guildhall. See Collection Générale des Documens Français que se trouvent en Angleterre, par Jules Delpit : Paris, 1847.

XII.

16,000, on the hill of Brignais, a few miles from Lyons; CHAP. in which city Jaques de Bourbon assembled a far larger force, his van-guard under Cernolles, the Archpriest, as he was called, numbering alone 16,000. The companies on the hill appeared not more than a quarter of their real number, their chief force being concealed. Jaques de Bourbon, therefore, ordered an instant attack. The companies received the French with showers of large stones, of which the hill they occupied was a heap; and so vigorously were these missiles plied, that they kept the attacking army at bay, and even threw them into some disorder, when of a sudden the greater part of the force of the companies advancing in close column with their shortened pikes, "thick and bristling as a brush," says Froissart, took the royal troops in flank, and completely defeated them. Jaques de Bourbon and his son were so severely wounded that they subsequently died. The Arch-priest, also badly wounded, was taken with the greater part of the nobles present at the battle. The companies profited by the victory to capture the fortress of the Pont-St.-Esprit, which rendered them masters of the Rhone. From thence they made plundering excursions in every direction, especially towards Avignon, in which Pope and Cardinals were obliged carefully to keep themselves confined. His Holiness tried the old manœuvre of preaching a crusade. But the noblesse were not to be tempted by papal indulgences to fight another battle of Brignais. And the brigands remained entire masters of that part of the country, until the Marquis of Montferrat hired their services against Milan. Nor was the west of France more tranquil. Bands from Brittany and Gascony ravaged both sides of the Loire; so that the communications between Paris, Orleans, and Chartres were completely intercepted.

Towards the end of 1361 the young Duke Philip of Burgundy expired, leaving no issue; his marriage with