Janine Garrisson (1932–2019)

This excellent book covers French history in the period 1483-1559 focusing on the reigns of four Valois Kings of France (Charles VIII, Louis XII, François I and Henri II). This period is generally recognized as constituting the beginning of the history of modern France, including the Renaissance and initial stages of the Reformation. Recovering from the economic decline and disasters of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries (such as the One Hundred Years War and the advent of the plague), France had the largest population and greatest wealth in Europe. However, France was prevented from capitalizing on its strengths because of internal weaknesses, in particular the relative autonomy of major parts of the country and the diversity of laws, liberties and customs. Thus, a major feature of this period is the effort of the French Kings and their supporters to centralize control of the country and harmonize its internal practices and laws.

During the relative peacefulness of the years 1450-1520, the population, the land under cultivation, the towns, the merchant class and the economy generally all grew, and the peasantry enjoyed prosperous times. Prosperity also brought an efflorescence of religious sentiment with a new focus on how the individual could ensure his or her salvation in the afterlife. Primarily in the towns, individuals turned to the teachings of the devotio moderna and Thomas a Kempis’s Imitation of Christ which address the individual’s personal relationship to the sacred. To meet the growing popular demand for means to achieve religious salvation, the Church implemented or expanded many practices that would come under attack in the Reformation: the concept of purgatory, payment of indulgences and the cult of the saints. At the same time, humanists and traditional Catholics prior to Luther’s appearance were also keenly aware of the need to reform the Church, as discussed further below.

WARS

One connecting thread of this period is the unrelenting effort of the kings of France to conquer parts of Italy, especially Naples and Milan, which finally ended with the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis in 1559 when France renounced its claims to Italy (which went back to the ill-fated acquisitions of Charles d’Anjou in the thirteenth century) and the Habsburgs renounced their claims to Burgundy. (Our author, Janine Garrisson, identifies seven separate wars in Italy over this period.)

These Italian wars brought no benefit to the French and very little glory to the French monarchs. The wars also expanded into other fronts (the northeast border, Provence) on which France was at times sorely pressed to defend itself. In his opposition to the German Emperor Charles V, Francois I even entered into a treaty with the Turks under Suleiman the Great, who was threatening Vienna and the eastern frontiers of Europe.

With the blessing of Pope Innocent VIII and the support of the Sforza’s in Milan, Florence and the barons of Naples, Charles VIII captured Milan and Naples in 1495 with the avowed goal of making a crusade against the Turks from Naples. The crusade did not take place, and Naples soon grew tired of French rule. In the end, Charles was forced to withdraw from Italy and the Aragonese recovered Naples. Charles then entered into a treaty with Spain to divide Italy; before he could start a new war, he died after hitting his head against a mantelpiece in his palace of Amboise. His successor, his cousin Louis XII, followed up and recaptured Milan and Naples but then had a falling out with Spain. François I renewed the Italian wars and had an initial great success at the battle of Marignan in 1515 after which France controlled Milan and Lombardy for 10 years.

In 1519, François competed with Charles V to be elected the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. François lost the election. The rivalry with Charles V, as well as tension arising from France’s being surrounded by the emperor’s territories (Spain, the Netherlands, Austria) and his off and on ally England, would be the major cause of wars during Francois’s and his son’s reign. According to Garrisson, out of the 44 years between 1515 and 1559, France and the Empire were at war for 22. The first war, from 1521-1526, included the disaster at Pavia in 1525, where not only the “flower” of French nobility bit the dust (as they often did in losing major battles) but also François I became a prisoner of Charles V. 1526 also saw the defeat of Hungary at Mohacs by the Turks, which increased the Turkish threat on the eastern “flank” (to use a contemporary term in 2022) of Charles’s territories. Francois’s mother, acting as regent, negotiated the Treaty of Madrid which included terms for the release of Francois.

As soon as he was released, Francois started a new war which lasted from 1527-1529. France again lost in Italy but succeeded in protecting its own borders. 1527 saw the sack of Rome by the emperor’s army, consisting largely of mercenaries who had not been paid, under the leadership of the Constable of France, Charles of Bourbon, who had had a falling out with Francois and was also unable to control effectively the mercenary army. The fighting in Italy also spread to other theaters where the French were more exposed, such as the northeastern border, and at one point even Paris was threatened. Fortunately for the French, the high cost of war exhausted the resources of Charles V just as much as it did the French; Charles basically lacked the resources to deliver a knockout blow to France. François even entered into a commercial agreement with the Turks as part of his campaign against Charles. This war was ended in 1529 by the Treaty of Cambrai, also known as the Traite des Dames because it was negotiated and signed by Louise of Savoy, the mother of Francois I, and Margaret of Austria, the aunt of Charles V.

1530-36 were years of peace. France paid off the ransom to Charles V agreed upon as a condition of freeing Francois in 1526. The third and fourth wars between Francois and Charles occurred in 1536-8 and 1542-44. Again Paris was threatened. At the Treaty of Crepy-en-Artois, Charles relinquished his claims to Burgundy and France renounced its claims to Savoy.
dHenry II assumed the throne in 1547 and engages in another war, with the support of Pope Paul IV, against Spain. The war began in 1552 and appeared to end in 1556 with the Treaty of Vaucelles and the abdication of Charles V. However, Henry II rejected the treaty. The war continued and the French suffered a severe defeat at San Quentin near Paris. Phillip II, the successor to Charles V, failed to follow up, and the Duc de Guise arrived from Italy in time to save Paris and defeat the Spanish. The series of wars finally end in 1558 with the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, noted above.

The issue of the cost of war (which was increasing in part because of the advances in artillery and firearms -- the arquebus made its appearance in this period) is directly connected with another common thread of the period: the increasing centralization of political and administrative power in France in order to mobilize the resources needed to prosecute the endless wars. After a short respite during the reign of Louis XII (who fought only one war in Italy, generally did not raise taxes and consequently was called le Pere du Peuple — Father of the People), François I and after him his son Henri II (whom together Garrisson refers to as the Valois-Angoulemes, given Francois’s status as a cousin of the main line) sought out all matters of ways to raise taxes and draw on other sources of revenue, primarily to aggrandize the power of the monarchy but also having the effect of centralizing power in the state.

INCREASE IN ROYAL POWER AND GREATER CENTRALIZATION OF THE COUNTRY

To me, the story of the centralization of France around the figure of the monarch was the most interesting part of the book. While the kings were focused on ways to expand their own power throughout Franck, their activities and those of their officers strengthened the state as well. The household of the king was radically expanded to include not only his domestic needs but also leading nobility and key administrators involved in the governance of the country. This helped the French king assert control over the leading nobles and project his grandeur and power.

The process of centralization, in which the king was aided by his administrative officers and the church, faced some opposition (largely unsuccessful) from the nobility (especially the Parlement de Paris) and, to a lesser extent, the common people of France. The royal household was reorganized to become a more effective instrument of national rule as the “Conseil de Roi.” This included a small group of advisors in the “Conseil des Affaires,” which helped the king run the country on a daily basis, the “Conseil d’Etat,” which issued the laws (“registered” by the parlements to put them into effect, and when the parlements protested the king could issue a “lit de justice” forcing the registration), and the “Grand Conseil,” the highest court in the land where the king dispensed justice. Among the traditional officers of the realm, the Chancellor was the key administrator of the country. In a development that was more foreboding for the future of the monarchy, Francois and Henry also engaged without restriction in the sale of offices, which not only raised revenue for war but also established a cadre of administrators who helped implement greater centralized control of the country.

In addition to establishing the Grand Conseil, the monarchy reformed the legal system to harmonize the different customs, enhance trade and create new judicial authorities to strengthen the king’s control over the legal system. Louis XII codified the diverse laws and customs of northern France. (The south of France was already under generally uniform laws because of the influence of Roman law.) Francois and Henry established new courts which took jurisdiction from local courts but also from the parlements, which ran into opposition by the Parliament of Paris.

Another important reform was to centralize the financing of the realm in a Department of the Treasury, which was initially established as the King’s Treasury but evolved into the Treasury of the state. While the Treasury could not necessarily create new sources of revenue, it was used to make the administration of taxation and other revenue raising efforts more efficient. This effort to rationalize the collection of taxes was also linked to efforts to create a nationwide system of administration and justice to overlay the systems in different regions. Unorthodox methods of raising funds were also pursued. For example, commoners who rose in the royal service and helped François and Henri impose more centralized control of France often became very rich in the process, in a period where the proper lines between public and private interest had not been yet been clearly established. Regardless of the services provided by such individuals, the kings used prosecutors to confiscate on grounds of corruption much of the riches these individuals accumulated, whether after their death by actions against their estates or by prosecuting and imprisoning them while still alive.

Garrisson does not ignore Francois I’s role as the monarch who sponsored the Renaissance in France including bringing Italian artists to France (e.g. Leonardo da Vinci), supporting French humanists and sponsoring great architectural treasures (the Chateaux on the Loire, the Palace of Fontainebleau and initiating the process of converting the Louvre from a fortification to the king’s palace in Paris). She emphasizes that these efforts were part of the policy to project the power and grandeur of the monarch to the country, consistent with the policy to centralize power in the monarch. In depth chapters on François’ role in establishing the College de France and building Fontainebleau are especially interesting. Henri II supported the Pleiade, the group of poets including Ronsard and Bellay, who wrote for the first time in French rather than in Latin.

Near the end of his reign, François decided to establish his principal residence in Paris and to make it the capital of the country (thus his decision to rebuild the Louvre) but before this the king’s household would travel around the country staying with local and regional magnates, contributing to the king’s efforts to unify and integrate France under his centralized power.

RELIGIOUS REFORM

Another thread in this period is religious reform. As discussed above, Garrisson sets out the three kinds of religious reform that appeared in France: the efforts of the humanists to reform the church in accordance with their own optimistic outlook on man, Catholic initiatives such as through the special group at Meaux,to reform abuses, and the infiltration of Lutheran influence. Initially, under the influence of his sister Margeurite of Navarre, François was tolerant of reform, and when the Sorbonne and the Parlement of Paris tried to crack down on Lutheran influence, François would temper those efforts. However, in his efforts to strengthen the monarchy, François had also worked out a new concordat with the Pope Leon X and had succeeded in placing the French church under his own control. Thus, when the “placards” appeared in October 1534 attacking the church hierarchy, he turned against reform, believing that it threatened his own Royal power. Protestants like Calvin left the country. The establishment of Calvinism gets less attention because its churches did not start to grow in France until the following period.

In the final chapter, Garrisson gives special attention to resistance to the king’s policies by the common people. Such resistance frequently leaves no written record so it can be difficult for historians to get their arms around it. She discusses the revolt of the workers in Lyons and how it was ultimately put down by François as a threat to the public order of the state. In the reign of Henri II, who continued his father’s policies, a significant revolt occurred in the southwest (Guyenne, Bordeaux) against the king’s inconsistent policies on the salt tax, the gabelle, which treated different parts of the country differently and led to fraud. While Henri II made some successful moves to crush this revolt, in the end the demands on him to defend France against imperial forces on the eastern borders led him to compromise and neglect the issue occurring in a region far from where his priorities were located. The relative success of the revolt was also important because the leaders had the confidence to submit a memorandum to the king laying out their complaints and goals, in contrast to the usual sparseness of the historical record on revolts by the common people. The revolt in Guyenne brings to light this resistance. Even the loyalty of the French people had limits in supporting a king seeking foreign conquests that only imposed new burdens on the people. Garrisson sees this revolt as containing seeds of later revolts against the ancien regime.

While the Kings are the main characters in the history of this period, other key figures also play major roles. Anne of Bretagne, who was first the queen of Charles VIII and, after his death, the Queen of Louis XII, brought Brittany into the realm. The mother of Francis, Louise of Savoy, served as a strong and capable regent while her son was in captivity. Francois’s sister, Margaret of Angouleme (later Queen of Navarre) influenced his interest in the Renaissance and his initial tolerance of the Reformation as well a being herself a major figure of the French Renaissance. Duplay, Chancellor under Francois, led the governmental efforts to protect the king’s prerogative and achieve the centralizing goals of the monarchy. In the process, he himself became rich, perhaps in shady ways but as noted at the time there were no clear standards; after his death the King, through his new Chancellor, used the courts to claim the riches of his estate. Anne of Montmorency, one of the leading nobles of France, supported both Francois and Henry in war and in internal politics.

There is much more in this highly informative introduction to early modern France: the economic recovery that began in the second half of the 15th century, the growth of cities, the efforts to reform the law under Louis XII and later the Valois-Angoulemes, and more details on the centralization of administration and government and the diplomacy of the Valois-Angoulemes. Exploration of the New World is not covered.… (mais)

Un petit livre intéressant qui présente une Catherine de Médicis à l'opposé de l'image machiavélique qu'on lui connaît. Bien loin de l'empoisonneuse avide de pouvoir et responsable de la St Barthélémy, J. Garrisson nous la montre cultivée et désireuse de faire vivre en harmonie protestants et catholiques dans le royaume de France.
Je ne suis pas en mesure de décider quelle Catherine serait la plus proche de la réalité mais ce livre m'a permis de me familiariser avec cette période de l'histoire de France que je connais très mal.… (mais)