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Image 10.1
KING CHARLES VII ATTENDING THE PARLEMENT OF PARIS (c. 1450)1
A distinctive feature of medieval European societies was the great importance of “intermediary”
or “constituted bodies,” that is, relatively influential institutions standing between individuals and communities, on the one hand, and rulers and governments, on the other hand. Such
institutions included towns, representative political assemblies like the English Parliament, universities, religious foundations and orders, guilds, and in France and other nearby lands parlements, which were judicial bodies with the right to register all royal edicts. By contrast, the Islamic and Chinese societies were far more austere, with very few intermediary bodies standing between the ruler and the ruled. As one scholar has argued, “strong arbitrary powers and weak infrastructural ones . . . tend to go together.”
The image below, by Jean Fouquet (1420–81), portrays a formal session of the Parlement of Paris, called a lit de justice, with King Charles VII (r. 1422–61) in attendance. During a lit de justice, the Parlement would register royal edicts and conduct other business.
For the image’s original Internet location, click here. 1
Image provided courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.