Origin of States
A History of Europe by Henri Pirenne
University Books, first published 1938 but written during the Great War
Book Six
The Beginnings of the Western States
Chapter 1
England
1. Before the Conquest
England was unique in Europe in that the Angle-Saxon kingdoms remained Germanic with no Roman influence. (The surviving Celts had withdrawn to Wales, Cornwall and Brittany.)
p245 It was at the end of the 11th century -- that is, at the epoch when the appearance of the bourgeoisies was completing the social constitution of Europe -- that royalty [on the Continent] began to lay the foundations of the first States worthy of the name...
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p248 ...Bruges and Rouen, from the end of the 10th century, maintained an increasingly active navigation with England. With the return of a more advanced civilization the order of things which had so long been interrupted by the Barbarian invasions once more followed its natural course.
The Norman conquest was merely the consequence and final consecration of what may be called the Europeanization of England...
p249 The ducal house of Normandy was closely related to that of Edward the Confessor, [who died without issue 1066] whose mother, Bertha, was a Norman princess...
...On the Continent the powerful feudal aristocracy had diminished the status of the king only to increase its own... In England... no one had any real power... The feudal system and the order of chivalry were unknown. The Anglo-Saxon earls and thanes, armed with battle-axe and sword, fought on foot.
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p250 ...The Anglo-Saxons, who had so long struggled against the Scandinavian invasion, submitted at once to the Norman invasion.
2. The Invasion
p252 ...Since he [William, Duke of Normandy] held his kingdom [England] only by the sword, since he ruled his new subjects only by force... The indispensable condition of success was to subject everything to the royal power, to make it so strong that nothing could shake it. The constitution had to be... essentially monarchical. It was reserved for a great vassal of the King of France to create the most vigorous monarchy in Europe.
...All the Continental kings were elected by their great vassals, but the great vassals themselves were hereditary. William was the hereditary Duke of Normandy, and he remained a hereditary prince as King of England, so that while the other kings were given their crowns... he was from the first the true possessor of his own crown... The entire territory of England was his property; he exercised over it a right analogous to that which the seigneur of a great domain exercises over his estate; in their relation to him, all the private occupiers of land were merely his tenants... He took care to ensure that no one should become, in his kingdom, what he himself was in the kingdom of France, and neither under him, nor at any other time, was the English feudality more than what may be called a purely feudal feudality. It had lands, but no principalities; it had tenants, but no subjects.
3. The Great Charter
p254 ...
The first kings of England had had no Continental possessions beyond their Duchy of Normandy. Henry Plantagenet [1154-1189] added to this the Duchy of Anjou... and the Duchy of Guyenne... Thus all the coast of France, with the exception of wild Brittany, belonged to the King of England... [?? Does he not know where Anjou was? And it wasn't a duchy until 1360.] But to his reign also must be referred the origin of that conflict with France which, from then until the beginning of the 19th century, recurred... throughout the history of Europe...
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p257 Magna Carta might be called the first Declaration of Rights of the English nation... The barons who imposed it on the king did not forget their allies; they made stipulations not only for themselves, but also for the clergy and the bourgeoisie. At first sight, nothing would appear more incoherent than this charter, which proclaims, without order, entirely at random, the confirmation of feudal usages, clerical franchises, and urban liberties... by wrestling pell-mell from the king so many different rights, and by confounding, in a single text, the claims of all the classes, it established between them a solidarity which would endure... The common danger, and the common oppression, had here allied and united a solid complex of interests... Elsewhere the kings had been confounded by different "estates,"... In England, the Crown had to deal directly with the nation...
p258 ...The principle that taxes should be voted by the nation constituted the essential basis of the Great Charter, and for this reason it was the basis of the first free government that Europe had known...
Chapter II
France
1. The King and the Great Vasals
...
p265 From the reign of Louis VII to that of Philip Augustus the royal power made such progress as cannot be explained merely by the genius of the king. It was due very largely to the economic and social transformations occasioned by the development of the bourgeoisies. During the second half of the 12th century all the cities of Northern France had constituted themselves as sworn communes. Almost everywhere, in the episcopal cities -- at Arras, Noyon, Senlis, Loan, Reims, etc. -- they had to struggle against the resistance or the ill-will of their bishops, imploring the king to support them, a request he hastened to grant. In this way an understanding was established between the Crown and the bourgeoisies which assured the royal policy of the co-operation of the youngest, most active, and wealthiest class of society.
p266 ...The royal treasury, hitherto merged in the total private fortune of the king, became a special branch of the administration. The oldest treasury accounts that we possess date from the reign of Philip Augustus. Not only was the king henceforth able to hire bands of mercenaries in time of war, but he was able... to attach to his service men who were true functionaries: that is to say, paid agents who could at need be dismissed... Capable henceforth of paying his servitors, the royal prince was no longer obliged to entrust their offices to hereditary incumbents whom he could not dismiss if he chose. The replacement of the old agricultural economy by a monetary economy removed the obstacle which, since the Frankish epoch, had invincibly hindered the development of the State.
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p267 Philip Augustus may therefore be regarded as the veritable creator of monarchical power, not only in France, but on the Continent... [Footnote: Except in Sicily, where the foundations of the State were Byzantine.]
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p268 The Counts of Flanders, who under Louis VI had fought beside the monarchy against England, under Philip Augustus sided with England against the monarchy. It was very natural that being threatened by the increasing power of their suzerain they should seek support in the great island whose next-door neighbor they were, and on which the industrial cities of their country were dependent for their wool. The cities, which in France supported the Crown, took the side of their prince in Flanders... simply on account of their economic interests... The policy of the Flemish princes thus assumed, from the beginning of the 13th century, an amplitude which no longer permits us to regard it as a mere policy of feudal resistance... it inaugurated an alliance with England, which being based on mutual interest, was perpetuated through the centuries, finally becoming one of the most important factors of the future independence of the Low Countries... on the other hand, by relying on the support of the bourgeoisies it assumed the appearance of a national policy, which identified the cause of the bourgeoisies with that of the dynasties.
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p270 ...the conflict between France and England [1212] divided the whole of Europe into two camps, and its issue was to decide the fate of the West. The enemies of Philip Augustus resolved, in 1214, upon a decisive effort. While John [Lackland, King of England] was to attack him through Guyenne, Otto of Brunswick marched upon Paris through the Low Countries, rallying... the troops of Ferrand of Portugal... The clash took place at Bouvines, near Tournai, on July 27th, [1214] and the result was a brilliant triumph for Philip Augustus. This was the first of the great European battles, and if we except Waterloo, where six hundred years later the same adversaries were to confront one another, no other battle had such vast and immediate consequences. In Germany, Otto of Brunswick was replaced by Frederick II. In England John Lackland, humiliated, saw the barons rise against him and enforce his acceptance of the Great Charter. In France the territorial conquests were assured (Treaty of Chinon); the feudality was vanquished in the person of Ferrand of Portugal; and the royal power... was invested in the eyes of the people with a national prestige that endowed it with twofold vigor.
It is interesting that the Duchy of Brunswick became part of the Kingdom of Hanover (I think) by Napoleonic times, but it's a bit of a stretch to say "the same adversaries" were involved in both battles. But it was England, "Germany," and the Low Countries vs France.
Of all the great battles that have taken place in and around Flanders, Bouvines is the one I'm least familiar with. Pirenne doesn't spell this out, but after the battle Philip secured the parts of France -- like the Duchy of Normandy -- that had previously belonged to the King of England. Bad King John, indeed.
And then, everything being finally settled, they all lived happily ever after. Ha!
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