The Medieval King: Powerful or Pitiful?

As has been covered elsewhere,^[1] 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.^[2] 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.”^[3] 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.”^[4]

 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.”^[5] Historians Oliver J. Thatcher and Edgar H. McNeal wrote the Holy Roman emperors “become mere figureheads in Germany and Italy.”^[6] 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.”^[7] 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.”^[8]

Feudal historian Marc Bloch declared France was “in practice almost without a King.”^[9] Historians Brian Tierney and Sidney Painter described him as “an almost powerless figurehead in the tenth century.”^[10]Ogg called the Frankish king’s power “pitiable and ridiculous” and “insignificant.”^[11] Even when the king was a direct lord over a vassal, he often had difficulty implementing his commands; his vassals generally ignored them.^[12] 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”^[13]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.^[14]Many French lords didn’t even bother swearing a symbolic fealty to their king.^[15]

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.”^[16]The 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.^[17] 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,”^[18] 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.^[19] 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.”^[20]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.^[21] 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.”^[22]In comparison, the US government today directly controls 25% of the landmass, making it the largest landholder in the country.^[23]

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.^[24] 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.^[25] Even the kings’ marriages could be influenced and controlled by their own vassals.^[26] 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.^[27]

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.^[28] 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,”^[29] 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.^[30] 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.^[31] 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.^[32]

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.”^[33] 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.”^[34]

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.”^[35] 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.”^[36] Thomas Becket told King Henry II they should not “consent to any innovation.”^[37] Likewise, historian Frederic Seebohm wrote, “Tribal life might well go on repeating itself, generation after generation, for a thousand years, with little variation.”^[38] Even King Alfred only “added” laws that derived from earlier laws of previous kings.^[39]

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.”^[40] Professor Hans Hermann Hoppe wrote, “on his own land every free man was as much a sovereign as the feudal king was on his.”^[41]

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.”^[42] 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.^[43]

A king had no power to alter the law he was subject to and derived his own power from.^[44] 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.

Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God

Kings could give commands but not make laws, and if his command fell outside his jurisdiction, he would face “universal”^[45] resistance. Under kingship, if a king or lord violates the law and becomes tyrannical, his vassals and others under his authority are no longer bound to give fealty to him. By law, they are to resist him, upholding the law and removing the tyrant. He could lawfully be attacked, removed, and lose his property.^[46] If a king were to remove a vassal from his fief unjustly, it could ignite a revolt on the part of his other vassals and the people.^[47] Fealty was to the law, not the person. Giving allegiance to a king was giving it to what he represented—to his function under the law.

On Christmas Day in the town of Bethlehem, Baldwin I of Jerusalem was consecrated with oil and crowned king by the Patriarch. During the ceremony, it was announced “a king is not elevated contrary to law…he who takes up the authority that comes with a golden crown takes up also the honorable duty of delivering justice…he desires to do good who desires to reign. If he does not rule justly, he is not a king.”^[48] A king acts according to justice and law. A tyrant is not a king and therefore, deserves no fealty, honor, or obedience. He has replaced the law with his own will. Such a perspective stifled innovation (the attempt to legislate, to expand the powers of government). Law had to be both old and just. Any new law declared by the king, unless it was just and conformed with old law, was not binding; it was not law.^[49]

If any ruler did not follow just laws, failed in their obligations to their subjects, or enacted unjust laws, then those rulers should be strenuously resisted. A 13th century legal document read “We should serve our lords for they protect us. If they do not protect us, justice does not oblige us to serve them.”^[50] Saint Augustine states, “An unjust law is no law at all.”^[51] Thomas Aquinas argues, “Every law laid down by a human being has the nature of law only insofar as it is derived from the law of nature. But if in some respect, it is in disagreement with the natural law, it will not be law but a corruption of law.”^[52] He further says corrupt law “has the nature, not of law, but violence.”

King Richard II of England, for example, was removed from the throne because he “strove to overthrow the law of the land to which he had sworn.”^[53] He disobeyed the law, took actions a king could not legally take, and was imprisoned and replaced. Nobles would simply take on a new king if one became oppressive.^[54] Originally leaders of the First Crusade paid homage and fealty to Byzantine Emperor Alexius I. Still, the Emperor failed to support them in their desperate situation at Antioch, and in the Crusader prince’s eyes, they were no longer oath-bound vassals since their lord failed to hold up his end of the bargain.

When the kings of England and France began to tax churches and clergy Pope Boniface VIII condemned their action in a papal Bull as “evil.”^[55] But his wrath was not only against the kings but also against the clergy of those realms, who failed to resist the new and unjust action. He condemned the clergy for “fearing more to offend man than God.” They had chosen peace and ease over doing what was morally correct. He threatened excommunication to the lords and the clergy who obeyed the tax.

A lord had to be ever careful, walking on pins and needles, watchful not to offend any custom or rights of his people. Historian Maurice Keen notes there were “endless individual baronial rebellions against overlords who they claimed had oppressed them or had infringed on their rights.”^[56] Liberty was worth dying for.^[57] A lord could face a duel if he were accused of violating his vassal’s rights—an excellent incentive to keep him from trying to lay aside the law. The tyrant, disregarding law and putting himself above it making his own, incited the subjects’ duty as part of their oath of fealty to resist him when he overstepped and abused his authority.

Who decides if a king or lord has overstepped his boundaries? Kern informs us “The decision of this question rested with the conscience of every individual member of the community,” and “The government had to preserve every subjective right of every individual.”^[58] Medievals were individually minded. Aquinas taught “nothing but individuals exists except in idea; the notion that individuality is a delusion is a delusion.”^[59] Whether it was education, prayer, relationship with God, or politics, they considered the individual rather than groups.^[60]

Our forebears had far greater individual political power than we do today; for example, so long as one resident objected, tribal laws disallowed anyone from moving into their village.^[61] Ask a citizen under democracy today about the thousands of laws and regulations he is under, and he can only state a small percentage of them. Under medieval customs, laws were few and lived out. The peasants knew immediately if a lord acted contrary to customs because the issue would not be in practice. It would be “new.” The illiterate peasant knew his entire law more thoroughly than today’s lawyer, who must focus on a specific narrow section of law to master it. Perhaps this explains why democracy constantly creates new and increasingly complex laws—to take away the people’s ability to know if the law has been offended.

Professor Susan Reynolds wrote “Medieval rulers had been supposed to rule all their subjects, and not just their noble subjects, justly and with consent,” but “nothing was so important as consent.”^[62] Since the law was personal and consent vital, it was up to each individual to decide if his lord had overstepped his bounds. As the law was made for and by the people not its rulers, every individual in the community had a check or veto on any perceived government intrusion on their rights.^[63] Feudal historian Marc Bloch wrote a “universally recognized right of the vassal to abandon the bad Lord”^[64] prevailed.Kern wrote, “anyone who felt himself prejudiced in his rights by the king, was authorized to take the law into his own hands, and win back the rights which had been denied him.”^[65] He explains fealty:

Fealty, as distinct from obedience, is reciprocal in character, and contains the implicit condition that the one party owes it to the other only so long as the other keeps faith. This relationship, as we have seen, must not be designated simply as a contract. The fundamental idea is rather that ruler and ruled alike are bound to the law; the fealty of both parties is in reality fealty to the law; the law is the point where the duties of both of them intersect. If, therefore, the King breaks the law, he automatically forfeits any claim to the obedience of his subjects…a man must resist his King and his judge, if he does wrong, and must hinder him in every way, even if he be his relative or feudal Lord. And he does not thereby break his fealty.

In 1300 Cynus of Pistoia compared the mutual consent and obligations of a king to his people, to a husband to his wife in marriage. In a letter written in 1020 to William Duke of Aquitaine, Bishop Fulbert of Chartres laid out fealty and feudal obligations. He told the duke besides simply honoring the lord and his possessions, the lord also “ought to act toward his faithful vassal reciprocally in all these things. And if he does not do this, he will be justly considered guilty of bad faith.” If a lord violated his vassal’s rights, the lord’s land he’d delegated to his vassal would transfer to the vassal.^[66]

The medieval Church was as obsessed with correct dogma as it was with unity. They believed that the whole system would crumble if theology were allowed to stray in one area.^[67] Like the tyrant who oversteps, falsehood must be met head-on, no matter how minor the issue. A ruler was subject to both divine law and those he governed. In the eyes of God, a tyrant is no longer a lord since he has violated his design and is now acting on his own; he has replaced God with himself. Thus the tyrant is no longer to be followed by a Christian people; he no longer has any authority since authority comes from God, who only delegated specific duties to rulers. Catholic author Christopher A. Ferrara wrote, “the worst ‘absolute’ monarchs of Christendom were a model of limited government compared with the presidents and prime ministers of modern secular regimes who owe no allegiance to Rome.” The Church resisted and prevented absolute monarchs from emerging in the Middle Ages.^[68] Professor Warren H. Carroll observed “a faithful Christendom can never tolerate an absolute monarchy.”^[69] Authoritarianism arose only after secularism began.

The Church hierarchy believed it was their responsibility to protect people from tyrants and also to protect the Church, something they were willing to get involved in “politics” and even wars for. In 1248 Pope Innocent IV declared, “With the help of God I will take my stand for the people, and boldly face the implacable pestilential Prince…to destroy the cause of these evils, the tyranny of that malignant Prince, once emperor [Frederick II] by which the world is falling to ruin, the orthodox faith overthrown, and the glory of ecclesiastical liberty uprooted.”^[70]Historian Will Durant wrote, “The power of the Church, said a skeptical Hume, was a rampart of refuge against the tyranny and injustice of kings.”^[71]

The great medieval and earlier scholars and Catholic saints like Augustine and Aquinas maintained a higher law existed taking precedence over man-made laws. Any law of man, Aquinas argued, “is beneath the Divine power” and must conform to the higher law. Any law “contrary to the divine law” must not be obeyed because, as stated in Acts 5:29, “we ought to obey God rather than man.”^[72] Archbishop Thomas Becket told King Henry II he held God higher than him, “You are indeed my lord, but He is my lord and yours.”^[73] Becket informed the king it is best for both of them if he follows God’s rather than the king’s desires. Aquinas wrote when the church excommunicated a lord or he strayed from the faith “the faithful are absolved from his dominion over them and from their oath of allegiance which bound them to him.”^[74] He was no longer a legitimate Christian lord but was viewed as a tyrant. The American colonies’ motto of “rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God” fits well here.

A tyrant becomes the enemy of the people, their customs, and God. He is antagonistic to the united whole. In the 12th century, John of Salisbury wrote, “By the authority of the divine book, it is lawful and glorious to kill public tyrants.”^[75]He also wrote, “I submit to his power…so long as it is exercised in subjection to God and follows His ordinances. But on the other hand if it resists and opposes the divine commandments, and wishes to make me share in its war against God; then with unrestrained voice I answer back that God must be preferred before any man on earth.”^[76] Saint Bonaventure taught that if a lord acts “contrary to God no man may obey him; moreover, since he who abuses the power committed to him has deserved to lose this power, he may be rightfully removed from it.”^[77] The Church would dispossess lords of their lands if they did not rule “in accordance with the faith.”^[78]The people celebrated their great lords who resisted tyrants, comparing them to Joshua and the Maccabees.^[79]

Today, anyone who does not follow a federal declaration is a traitor or rebel. In the Middle Ages, any ruler who went outside of law and tradition was a rebel and traitor and was to be resisted by law. Thus, a medieval peasant would say the greatest outlaws in America were not those of the Old Wild West but are its elected officials and judges of today.

A section of the Declaration of Arbroath reads of tyrants “we should exert ourselves at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own rights and ours…for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom—for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.”^[80]

Taxation             

Under Medieval Kingship, any temporary taxes to protect the kingdom required the consent of those vassals paying the tax.^[81] Usually, vassals were willing to pay more during times of war so the lord could keep men in the field longer. Certain temporary taxes could be instituted, such as during an invasion as the king raised an emergency tax to fulfill his role as protector of the realm. But as soon as the invasion was over, the tax ended.^[82]

However, taxes never reached any levels near modern democracies. For example, the Kingdom of Jerusalem was in a hopeless financial situation. In desperation, the king wanted to impose a “heavy tax”of 2% on high earners and 1% on larger landholdings. This “massive” tax was approved, Archbishop William of Tyre writes, “By the common consent of all the nobles, both secular and ecclesiastical, and by the assent of the people of the kingdom of Jerusalem…for the common good of the realm.”^[83] When the Crusader States wanted to raise money to invade Egypt, they taxed only those willing to consent to the tax to fund the invasion. Taxes were perhaps more accurately seen as fundraisers for specific purposes paid by those who backed them.

Taxes were not only temporary but rare;  and even here, a modern comparison would be a tax to avoid a military draft.^[84]Multiple counts refused to enforceFrance’s first kingdom-wide tax to help fund the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1166.^[85] In 1199, Pope Innocent the Third taxed the clergy at 2.5%, which led to open rebellion.^[86]When later King Phillip II introduced a tax (which was agreed upon by the nobles and the Church) within a year, it was abolished, and he was forced to apologize for introducing it.^[87] In the 1490s Germany first tried a realm-wide tax, and even then, Bavaria refused to ratify it. Most of northern Europe still had no permanent national tax until after 1500.^[88]The level of taxation seen under Roman, Arab, and Byzantine systems did not appear in the West until industrialization.^[89]

Decentralization

“By the end of the tenth century the kingdom of France remained a legal and ideological construct, but it’s kings exerted little genuine power outside their own family lands. The main political foci were the great counties ruled as autonomous principalities by comital families…linguistic contrasts mirrored different histories customs and laws. The far south retained a tradition of written law…. there was no uniformity of rules of landowning, judicial systems, weights, measures or currency. A kingdom often in name alone.“

-Christopher Tyerman, God’s War: A New History of the Crusades

In a centralized system those in power can become as tyrannical as they like. A 6th century historian and bishop, Gregory of Tours, recorded the effects of decentralization in preventing tyranny. Due to the recent heavy taxation by King Chilperic I “many left their cities and their possessions and, seeking other kingdoms, thought it better to live abroad than to submit to such oppression.”^[90] When people have choice they will naturally migrate to a less oppressive system and join themselves to the lords and customs with the most liberty.^[91] Thus naturally realms protecting their people would increase while tyrant realms would decrease.

 Even though someone might be a king of a vast realm, he may not have influenced the entire area he was “king” of.  For example, northern Italy consisted of several autonomous cities and duchies; their “king” ruled a minimal area around the Po valley.^[92] Likewise, the well-known and mighty Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa controlled only within his family lands in Swabia. The rest of the empire was governed as autonomous realms. Professor Philip Daileader described the Holy Roman Empire in 1273 as a “loose confederation of hundreds of very tiny units, principalities, city-states, and bishoprics.”^[93] Historian Will Durant described the same when he wrote, “No German nation existed yet; there were only Saxons, Swabians, Bavarians, Franks…no one system of laws governed the realm….each region kept its own customs and Code.”^[94]

Even under Charlemagne, the most prominent early medieval example of a pre-Renaissance monarch, power was limited, and Tierney and Painter wrote, “all the different people of the empire continued to live according to their own native laws. Charlemagne had no intention of abolishing this diversity,” and there was “virtually no public taxation, and Charlemagne depended for revenue on the proceeds of his own land.”^[95] A contemporary of Charlemagne was Einhard, who wrote a biography of the emperor. In it, he describes the power of the later Merovingian kings of the Franks;

“The Merovingian family…had long since been devoid of vital strength, and conspicuous only from bearing the empty epithet Royal…There was nothing left the King to do but to be content with his name of King…He had nothing that he could call his own beyond this vain title of King…except a single country seat, that brought him but a very small income. There was a dwelling house upon this, and a small number of servants attached to it, sufficient to perform the necessary offices. When he had to go abroad, he used to ride in a cart, drawn by a yoke of oxen driven, peasant-fashion, by a Ploughman.”^[96]

Towns, manors, monasteries, isolated villages, and great dukedoms across feudal Europe were typically autonomous.^[97] In 800 A.D., Ireland was made up of perhaps 150 separate kingdoms.^[98] At the same date, sparsely-populated Norway was divided into 31 principalities.^[99] By 1200 A.D., there were 200 autonomous city-states in Northern Italy.^[100] In the 14th century, Germany was made up of 600 autonomous realms.^[101] According to Will Durant, Spain was broken down into tiny realms of petty kings, but “even within each little kingdom unity was an interlude; the nobles almost ignored the kings except in war.”^[102]

Lords controlled within their own spheres, as did dukes, princes, barons etc, and held autonomy. Each realm had its own laws and courts, and the local village conducted affairs with no control from the King’s capital or a higher lord’s influence. In the thirteenth century, Beaumanoir remarked “each Baron is sovereign in his own Barony.”^[103]Historian Régine Pernoud wrote that decentralization provided “variety between one town and another and gave a charming and attractive aspect to the country…each town possessed to a degree which is to-day almost unimaginable, its own personality.”^[104] Historian Chris Wickham described the medieval situation as the “radical decentralization of political power in the west.”^[105] The people might recognize the king and even honor him, but outside of his family’s inheritance, he could not control anything in those areas. A decentralized kingship should be understood as an aristocracy of sovereign lords rather than a monarchy.

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^[1] See Missing Monarchy: Correcting Misconceptions About The Middle Ages, Medieval Kingship, Democracy, And Liberty by Jeb Smith

^[2] (Pernoud 1950, 78)

^[3] (Kern 2013, 185)

^[4] (Pernoud 2000)

^[5] (Bloch 2014)

^[6] (THATCHER and SCRIBNER’S, n.d.-Chronicle of Flanders. (French.)

^[7] (OGG, A.M 1907, 409)

^[8] (The Chronicles of Venice: How the Doges Were Chosen Eva March Tappan, ed., The World’s Story: A History of the World in Story, Song and Ar 1914)

^[9] (Bloch 2014)

^[10] (Tierney and Painter 1983, 165)

^[11] (OGG, A.M 1907, 105, 173)

^[12] (OGG, A.M 1907, 173-175)

^[13] (Madden 2005, 6)

^[14] (Tierney and Painter 1983, 329)(Davis 1922, 150)

^[15] (Tyerman 2006, 16)

^[16] (THATCHER and SCRIBNER’S, n.d. -The Feudal System in its Definite Form)

^[17] (Daileader, n.d. Phillip II of France)(Durant 1950, 480)

^[18] (Holmes 1988, 168)

^[19] (Andrea 2020, 137-138)(Wickham 2016, 117)(Singman 2013, 6) (Monte October 10 2014, 171-172) (Chaucer 2009, 13)(Madden 2009)(Pernoud 1950,80)(Tierney and Painter 1983, 99) (THATCHER and SCRIBNER’S, n.d. -The Feudal System in its Definite Form) (Durant 1950, 564-565)

^[20] (Asbridge 2005, 4)

^[21] (GILES, n.d.[A.D. 1126.] THE EMPRESS MATILDA. )

^[22] (Tierney and Painter 1983, 195-196) (Asbridge 2005,6, 57)

^[23] (Beisner 2022)

^[24] (La Monte 2014, 97)

^[25] (La Monte 2014, 95-96)

^[26] (La Monte 2014, Intro)

^[27] (La Monte 2014, 137)

^[28] (Tierney and Painter 1983, 258)

^[29] (Barber 2012, 113-114)

^[30] (Kern 2013, 70-73)(Hoppe 2001, 268-269)(Jarrett 2007, 10)

^[31] (Wickham 2016, 158)(Merkle 2009, 17)

^[32] (Kern 2013, 151)

^[33] (Jones 2017, 115)

^[34] (Reynolds 1996, 36-37)

^[35] (Samuel Thorne 1968)

^[36] (Morrall 2021, 16)

^[37] (Carroll 1993, 93)

^[38] (Seebohm 2018)

^[39] (Seebohm 1911, 295)

^[40] (Hoppe 2001, 20)

^[41] (Hoppe 2001, 268-272)

^[42] (Pernoud 1950, 82) Also see (Durant 1950, 975)

^[43] (Hoppe 2001, 20)

^[44] (Kern 2013, 154-155)

^[45] (Durant 1950, 566)

^[46] (Ross and McLaughlin 1977, 313)(Peters 1989, 38)

^[47] (Monte October 10 2014, 65-66)

^[48] (Blosser 2016)

^[49] (Kern 2013, 149)(Jarrett 2007, 133)

^[50] (Weidenkopf 2020, 3)

^[51] Saint Augustine. n.d. City of God.

^[52] (Aquinas 1265—1273)

^[53] (Ross and McLaughlin 1977, 276)

^[54] (Morris 2022, 376)

^[55] (THATCHER and SCRIBNER’S, n.d. The Bull “Clericis Laicos” of Boniface VIII, 1298)

^[56] (Keen 1999, 3)

^[57] (Carroll 1993, 360)

^[58] (Kern 2013, 185)

^[59] (Durant 1950, 968)

^[60] (Jarrett 2007, 54-55)

^[61] (THATCHER and SCRIBNER’S, n.d. Germanic tribal law early – XLV. The Man who Removes from One Village to Another)

^[62] (Reynolds 1996, 240, 317)

^[63] (Jarrett 2007, 19-21)(Keen 1999)

^[64] (Bloch 2014)

^[65] (Kern 2013, 89, 137)

^[66] (Tierney and Painter 1983, 163)

^[67] (Falco 1964, 126)

^[68] (Carroll 1993, 77)

^[69] (Carroll 1993, 94)

^[70] (Carroll 1993, 209)

^[71] (Durant 1950, 817)

^[72] (Smith 2023, 116) Also see (Durant 1950, 975)

^[73] (Carroll 1993, 77)

^[74] (Jarrett 2007, 191)

^[75] (John of Salisbury., n.d.,)

^[76] (Trewhella 2013, 17)

^[77] (Jarrett 2007, 11)

^[78] (Carroll 1993, 190)

^[79] (“The Avalon Project : The Declaration of Arbroath; April 6, 1320”, n.d.)

^[80] (“The Avalon Project : The Declaration of Arbroath; April 6, 1320”, n.d.)

^[81] (Hoppe 2001, 22)Unless it was an obligation owed to a king for the property he had been granted, which, as we will see later, was also agreed upon.

^[82] (Reynolds 1996, 317)

^[83] (Tyerman 2006, 355-356)

^[84] Kantorowicz 2016, 284)(England: The Collection of Scutage, 1159-1195, Charters of English Constitutional History, n.d.)

^[85] (Reynolds 1996, 314-315)

^[86] (Stark 2010 240)

^[87] (Tyerman 2006, 391)

^[88] (Wickham 2016, 226)

^[89] (Wickham 2016, 233)

^[90] (Smith 2023, 118)

^[91] (Woods 2010)

^[92] (Tierney and Painter 1983, 244)

^[93] (Daileader, n.d. Emperor Frederick the Second)

^[94] (Durant 1950, 665)

^[95] (Tierney and Painter 1983, 139)(Peters 1989, 34)

^[96] (Samuel Epes Turner, n.d.,)

^[97](Tyerman 2006, 397)(Campbell 2021, 39)(Monte October 10 2014, 100) (THATCHER and SCRIBNER’S, n.d. The Cities of Germany-The People of Cologne Rebel against Their Archbishop, 1074-Confirmation of the Immediateness of the Citizens of Speyer, 1267-Municipal Freedom is Given to the Town Called Ebenbuchholtz, 1201-The Decision of a Diet about the Establishment of City Councils in Cathedral Towns, 1218)

^[98] (Wickham 2016, 82)

^[99] (Durant 1950, 502)

^[100] (Keen 1999, 81)

^[101] (Tierney and Painter 1983, 541)(Carroll 1993, 398-400)

^[102] (Durant 1950)

^[103] (Morrall 2021, 61)

^[104] (Pernoud 1950, 61)

^[105] (Wickham 2017, 1)