The Medieval King: Powerful or Pitiful?

The Medieval King: Powerful or Pitiful?

The Medieval king, as opposed to the monarchs who emerged during the 14th century and the pre-Christian pagan emperors, was quite weak. He was unable to create law, and he was a servant to his people, who owned their customs. The people’s customs and laws ruled everyone equally, including the king, who gained his power and authority from the law. If he did not perform his duty correctly or attempted to expand his authority, he was resisted by all, priests, princes, and peasants alike. He had little control or influence over more than 99% of the population, including his own vassals. He often struggled to maintain his supposed authority over them.

The rulers could not interfere with the rights of the people or manipulate them in any way.¹ Historian Fritz Kern wrote, “The medieval State, as a mere institution for the preservation of the law, is not allowed to interfere for the benefit of the community with private rights.”² Historian Régine Pernoud wrote a medieval king “possessed none of the attributes recognized as those of a sovereign power; he could neither decree general laws nor collect taxes on the whole of his kingdom nor levy an army.”³

Many kings, even among the most powerful realms, were merely symbols of power. In 1016 a German prelate from the Kingdom of Burgundy stated, “The King has now nothing save his title and crown.”⁴ Historians Oliver J. Thatcher and Edgar H. McNeal wrote the Holy Roman emperors “become mere figureheads in Germany and Italy.”⁵ The local authorities had become so autonomous of the king that historian Frederic Austin Ogg wrote they “had scarcely so much as a feudal bond to remind them of their theoretical allegiance to the Empire. The one principle of action upon which they could agree, was the central monarchy should be kept permanently in the state of helplessness to which it had been reduced.”⁶ At various times in Germany, years passed without an emperor. Other times, the emperor was in Italy neglecting his northern realms or in Germany, ignoring his Italian territories. Likewise, the Doge of Venice “had much magnificence, but little real power.”⁷

Feudal historian Marc Bloch declared France was “in practice almost without a King.”⁸ Historians Brian Tierney and Sidney Painter described him as “an almost powerless figurehead in the tenth century.”⁹Ogg called the Frankish king’s power “pitiable and ridiculous” and “insignificant.”¹⁰ Even when the king was a direct lord over a vassal, he often had difficulty implementing his commands; his vassals generally ignored them.¹¹ Medieval scholar Thomas Madden wrote by the 10th century feudal kings “had almost no control over most of their vassals and therefore could claim sovereignty over only a small portion of their kingdom”¹² Many powerful vassals of France defied the king on his own lands, and without the aid of local lords, Kings often could not travel safely outside of their own territory. Some Dukes in France even barred royal officials from entering their realms. King Philip I could not control even those lords within his own lands.¹³ Many French lords didn’t even bother swearing a symbolic fealty to their king.¹⁴

Thatcher and McNeal wrote, “The authority of the king in the feudal state was very limited. This was due chiefly to the fact that each lord exercised practically sovereign rights over his lands and dependents.”¹⁵The late Carolingian dynasty and the early Capetian kings of France could only influence a small geographical area. And even within their own lands, they struggled to control lords with castles who openly defied them.¹⁶ It was not until the 12th century the King of France, under Louis VI, was able to bring the royal lands “firmly under his control,”¹⁷ marking a strengthening of the French kings.

Moreover, the feudal king was often not the most powerful lord in his country—he was one among many, and his lordship only extended to his ancestral lands whence he derived his income.¹⁸ Professor Thomas Asbridge wrote, “The titular kings of France struggled even to control a small territory centered around Paris, while the Frankish realm fractured into numerous dukedoms and counties whose power eclipsed that of the royal house.”¹⁹ Thus, a king could not violate his vassals’ local traditions or become tyrannical, or he could face opposition from vassals as powerful as he was—or more so.²⁰ And these were the very lords he counted on for his troops and prestige. The medieval king rarely could think of expansion because, as Tierney and Painter explain, King Phillip I of France was “completely hedged in by vassals far mightier than he.”²¹ In comparison, the US government today directly controls 25% of the landmass, making it the largest landholder in the country.²²

Ignoring the local Byzantium and Saracen systems, after the success of the First Crusade, Westerners took feudalism with them to the Holy Land and instituted what Professor John L. La Monte believed to be the ideal feudal state; one which like the western realms, had no legislative ability.²³ The King in Jerusalem depended on his vassals for military aid and was under the control of the barons’ court and law derived from customs. The barons would force decisions on the king against his will and interests, even removing him if he refused to obey.²⁴ Even the kings’ marriages could be influenced and controlled by their own vassals.²⁵ If vassals believed a war the king waged was unjust or not part of their agreed obligations, they were free not to engage in it. The kings of Jerusalem, like those of feudal Europe, only controlled their own royal domains, while great baronial fiefs and various principalities were governed autonomously, with their own courts and customs.²⁶

The King of Jerusalem had no powers in and of himself. He first needed permission from the Haute Cour (High Court) before attempting to take action.²⁷ Their first “king” Godfrey, refused to take the title of king in the city where the “king of kings” suffered and died. Instead, he was the “defender of the Holy Sepulcher.” In Western Europe in the Middle Ages, Tierney and Painter wrote, “The Latin kingdom of Jerusalem was the perfect feudal state, where the king enjoyed no powers except those given to the suzerain by feudal custom.” Scholar Malcolm Barber wrote within the kingdom there was a complete “absence of any institutional infrastructure,”²⁸ even operating for a time without coin or currency.

One King Under Law

The Medieval king held less power than any top government position has held at any other time. There was a long period where government interference was at a minimum. Under kingship, the law is the true king. Laws and ancient customs were the rulers, the Grundnorm to which kings and lords had to submit.²⁹ Law and custom were the two towers of the legal system, not a monarch or a majority of men.

Medievals understood law and justice as deriving from God’s eternal nature. God does not change, and so neither does law, or justice. Like the Ten Commandments, they are set in stone for all people throughout all time. There is no need for the ability to legislate or alter law because perfection is from the past. Any new “law” should simply reinstate the old more perfectly.³⁰ Kern explained;

Law is old; new law is a contradiction in terms…According to medieval ideas, therefore, the enactment of new law is not possible at all; and all legislation and legal reform is conceived of as the restoration of the good old law which has been violated…the Middle Ages knew no genuine legislation by the State. The ordinances or laws of the State aim only at the restoration and execution of valid folk- or customary law. The law pursues its own sovereign life. The State does not encroach upon that. It merely protects its existence from outside when necessary. Whole centuries elapse without the smallest signs of legislative or ordaining activity in our sense.³¹

The old law is derived organically from the people and nature. Innovative laws derive from men rather than divine law and thus are invalid. Professor and historian Andrew Willard Jones wrote “A ‘new’ custom was basically synonymous with ‘bad’ custom.”³² There was no “active” form of government molding and adapting society; instead, it was reactionary. Government and law only came in to render justice after a disruption of the peace. It was anarchistic as there was usually no government. It arose like a wave and then faded until it was needed once more.

Under medieval political philosophy, peasants did not have to worry about incoming rulers changing customs or infringing on their rights. The idea was to “preserve” and “protect” the existing order of the old traditions and laws. Everyone was expected to live under the law; historian Susan Reynolds wrote, “Every ruler…from the emperor or king down to the head of a household, was supposed to rule justly and according to custom. Every unit of government was assumed to be a community with its own customs.”³³

The oaths kings took at their coronations were not merely religious symbolism but an actual agreement they would serve and be under the people’s customs and laws. Thirteenth century jurist Henry de Bracton wrote “The king himself must be, not under man, but under God and the law, because the law makes the king…for there is no king where arbitrary will dominates, and not the law.”³⁴ Historian James Morrall described the medieval king and his councilors’ mindsets “as guardians of the law; he and they had as yet no intention of creating new law. Such an intention would have been, from the point of view of these early medieval times, not only superfluous (for if the law is good, why change it) but even semi-blasphemous.”³⁵ Thomas Becket told King Henry II they should not “consent to any innovation.”³⁶ Likewise, historian Frederic Seebohm wrote, “Tribal life might well go on repeating itself, generation after generation, for a thousand years, with little variation.”³⁷ Even King Alfred only “added” laws that derived from earlier laws of previous kings.³⁸

No one, not even a king, could be elevated above the law. French philosopher Bertrand de Jouvenel compares a common miller with a king before the law “as far as the miller’s right goes, it is as good as the king’s; on his own ground, the miller is entitled to hold off the king. Indeed there was a deep-seated feeling that all positive rights stood or fell together; if the king disregarded the miller’s title to his land, so might the king’s title to his throne be disregarded.”³⁹ Professor Hans Hermann Hoppe wrote, “on his own land every free man was as much a sovereign as the feudal king was on his.”⁴⁰

In the feudal order, the king derives his power from the law and the community, the source of his authority. The king could not abolish, manipulate, or alter the law since he derived his powers from it. Unlike monarchs, the king was simply a member of the tribe, given the obligations and duties he owed to his people. Thomas Aquinas wrote, “people are not made for the prince, but the prince for the people.”⁴¹ The various customs called for a king to perform specific duties such as protecting the Church, caring for widows and orphans, ruling justly, protecting his people, and upholding the law. Before becoming king, he took an oath declaring he would honor and preserve law and justice for everyone.⁴²

A king had no power to alter the law he was subject to and derived his own power from.⁴³ The law depended upon the whole community obeying it. For it to be degraded or violated in one instance would destroy the whole law. Thus the tiny encroachments on our freedom we now suffer daily would have been decimated upon arrival by a united medieval society—prince, priest, and peasant all.

About the Author

Jeb Smith is an author, speaker, and historian who has written five books, published over 130 articles in several publications, and has been featured on various podcasts, television, and radio interviews. For speaking engagements, interviews, or questions, please get in touch with him at authorJebSmith.com.