Link to Chronology
A new nobility
A History of Europe by Henri Pirenne
University Books, first published 1938 but written during the Great War
Book Eight
The European Crisis
(1300-1450)
The Avignon Papacy, the Great Schism, and the Hundred Years War
Chapter I
General Characteristics of the Period
1. Social and Economic Tendencies
p389 [continued] ...the cities...were acquiring a political importance in the outer world which they had never before possessed... now that bands of mercenaries and fleets were playing a greater part in warfare, it was becoming more costly than ever. The old sources of revenue were insufficient... the only thing to be done was to apply to the Third Estate -- that is, to the cities -- and to ask them to open their purses... From the beginning of the 14th century the necessity of taxation dominated the prince's policy, and compelled him to accede to the demands of the cities and the Estates, which wrested privileges from him, and would presently even claim the right to participate in his policy... The 15th century was the epoch in which the bourgeoisie began to play a political as well as a class role. It took its place beside the clergy and the noblesse... [Footnote: It was in the 14th century that the financiers began to acquire political importance.]
p391 The financial needs of the princes made the 14th century a century of parliamentarianism, or shall we say, a century of Estates... [Not long ago, "princes" was used to denote the powerful nobles the kings were in conflict with, but now "princes" seems to include the kings.] every assembly of Estates was always to the advantage of the Third Estate. It was the Third Estate alone which supported the institution and profited by it, because it disposed of the finances. And it was the Third Estate alone which made conditions and demanded guarantees.
But the Third Estate was itself merely a class of privileged persons, and beneath it was the majority of the nation, the Fourth Estate, which was never mentioned, though it bore the burden. Undoubtedly its condition was much less tolerable after the 14th century than it had been for two hundred years. We have seen how the rise of the cities... shattered the domainal system, releasing great expanses of territory and great numbers of rural inhabitants. At that time the rural classes gave evidence of unusual energy. They cleared uncultivated ground, they emigrated, and yet the population was rapidly increasing. But there was an end to all this during the first half of the century... the available land was occupied... and the cities were closing their gates. Meanwhile taxation was heavier than ever and still increasing. Moreover, there was a surplus of workers, so that the situation of the peasants was most unfavorable. The nobles took advantage of this, endeavoring to re-establish their old feudal rights, and, in a general manner, to exploit the peasants, for the old patriarchal relations of the domainal epoch no longer existed. In maritime Flanders a terrible rebellion broke out, which lasted from 1324 to 1328. The peasants hunted the chevaliers, and refused to pay their tithes. A true social hatred finds expression in the Kerelslied. [Subversive songs?] This rising ended in the massacre of Cassel, and in wholesale confiscations. In France, the so-called revolt of the Jacques in 1357... gave evidence of a profound hostility between the rural masses and the noblesse... The English rebellion of 1381, which is that concerning which we are best informed, was due to attempts on the part of the nobles to re-establish the old corvees, in order to avoid paying the higher wages which were one of the consequences of the Black Death...
p393 Generally speaking, people began to despise the peasants as a helot who stood outside society... The cities too oppressed the rural districts, taking care that no industries should be practiced there. All through the 14th century Gand was organizing expeditions which destroyed the looms and the fullers' vats in the villages and country towns. And the monasteries no longer extended the old social protection over the "villeins," but added to their wretchedness by their exaction of the tithe.
As for the nobles, they too were passing through a serious crisis... I cannot find that anything remained of the old idealism, apart from certain outward gallantry... The chief preoccupation of the chevalier was now his fief... What did survive was the military character of the noble class. But this often assumed the aspect of mercenary military service... Knights-errant began to make their appearance, fighting on all fronts and for all causes... These were professional soldiers, who were not very far removed from the condottiere -- leaders of bands, experienced captains to whom war was a lucrative calling... At heart these knights were adventurers: very valiant men, but also violent and greedy... Some also went to break a lance in Granada.
...
p394 ...it was no longer by this military noblesse that battles were won. Artillery, which was first heard at Crecy, still played only a secondary part in any campaign, but the infantry was gradually recovering the position which it had lost since the Carolingian epoch. At Cortrai it destroyed the French chivalry; the Swiss infantry had been winning battles since 1315; the foot-soldiers were the backbone of the English army, where they were formed into companies of archers; and the tactics of Johann Ziska, leader of the Hussites, was based on the infantry... And while, from the military point of view, the nobles were in retreat... They played no part in government, and they were not becoming more cultivated... The upper ranks of the clergy... became the monopoly of the younger sons of noble families. The democratic character of the Church was disappearing... In the upper ranks of the ecclesiastical hierarchy there was a stupendous moral and intellectual decadence; in accordance with the tastes of society, the clergy were becoming worldly.
If we examine them closely, shall we not see among the nobles... a tendency analogous to that which we may observe in the patriciate of the bourgeoisie? Neither class was undergoing any further development; they were digging themselves in... Their only care was to preserve their privileges and their property... Not one of them was distinguished for his piety or his beneficence. And here I am speaking of those who played some part in the life of the world. The others hunted, looked after their estates, and oppressed the peasants. It is surprising to discover how completely sterile were the nobles of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century, despite their numerical strength.
p395 ...In the 14th century we see the first traces of what may be called the noblesse de cour. In the 13th century it hardly existed...
p396 ...the nucleus of this new court [which appeared as the monarchy regained power] consisted not of nobles, but of commoners: councillors, servants in charge of the king's plate and his wardrobe, etc., with a few clerks. But was the king to be surrounded by plebeians? The court is a resort of the nobility. Consequently the king proceeded to ennoble his officers and his functionaries. This was a new nobility, entirely different from the old military chivalry. It was now conferred for civil services, and intelligence or learning... And this new nobility was entirely dependent on the sovereigns... The king alone was the source of nobility, and so he remained until the end of the ancien regime. From the end of the 13th century, anyone who was ennobled was ennobled by the king alone. The nobles of the robe... took their place beside the nobles of the sword.
p396 Here was a novel factor of very great social importance. To my thinking, it saved the noblesse, which was decaying as a military caste, and could not enrich itself, because it constituted a juridical caste, which was becoming more and more a closed social category. In the person of these newcomers it received fresh recruits, and they were commonly very wealthy recruits, thanks to their participation in the government. It despised them, but it was they who saved it.
... In point of formation, and in respect of its occupation, the noblesse de robe was a kind of lay clergy. It had nothing in common with the old nobility in whose ranks it now installed itself. Why then did the new nobility enter the old? Because there was no other place for it in the society of those days. It could not, on coming to court, remain in the ranks of the bourgeoisie, which would have continued to influence it and to detach it from the prince... The social habits and interests of the new class merged themselves in those of the old. And with this the nobility acquired a more comprehensive status. Henceforth it included the entire elite of the nation. To be an homme convenable [I'm having a hard time finding a translation for this. In the context I would expect it to me "a man of consequence"] a man must be a member of the noblesse. The consequences of this fact were hardly perceptible in the 14th century and the beginning of the 15th. They were to be incalculable later, and even to this day there are many States which have not yet shaken them off. The Renaissance was powerless to dissolve this social block. This was reserved for the modern democracies. However profound the influence of the bourgeoisie might be in the State, the noblesse, during the whole of the ancien regime, retained its primacy of social rank, and every man who emerged from the bourgeoisie endeavored to enter it.
There's an idea I thought I had gotten from Fernand Braudel (though now I'm doubting everything but the information on camels and the importance of geography on the history of the Mediterranean basin), that the transition from middle class to upper class was based on the ownership of land. The successful merchant would eventually invest his capital in land and become, quite literally, a landlord. The best example I can think of for this is the case of Voltaire. He started his fortune with his writing, invested it in trade, and then bought substantial properties in France and Switzerland where he spent the end of his life tending his garden as a seigneur.
After a generation or two, the interests and manners of such landowners would be indistinguishable from those of the Guermantes.
Take 2: I love the idea that some family could trace their nobility back to the 14th century and still not be of the "true" Carolingian noblesse. Though we have already seen that even that noblesse was of mongrel parentage, with the only common denominator being land ownership on a large scale.
And were the descendants of this noblesse of the robe still distinguishable from the "true" noblesse by the 18th century? Or did they, like the Carolingians before them, blend into a new, equally bloody minded Second Estate?
No comments:
Post a Comment