Peerage of France - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Peerage of France was a distinction within the French nobility

French nobility

The French nobility was the privileged order of France in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern periods.In the political system of the Estates General, the nobility made up the Second Estate...

which appeared in the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

. It was abolished in 1789 during the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

, but it reappeared in 1814 at the time of the Bourbon Restoration

Bourbon Restoration

The Bourbon Restoration is the name given to the period following the successive events of the French Revolution , the end of the First Republic , and then the forcible end of the First French Empire under Napoleon – when a coalition of European powers restored by arms the monarchy to the...

which followed the fall of the First French Empire

First French Empire

The First French Empire , also known as the Greater French Empire or Napoleonic Empire, was the empire of Napoleon I of France...

. On 10 October 1831, by a 324 against 26 vote of the Chamber of Deputies, hereditary peerage was abolished, but peerage for the life of the holder continued to exist until it was definitively abolished in 1848.

The prestigious title and position of Peer of France (French: Pair de France) was held by the greatest, highest-ranking members of the French nobility. French peerage thus differed from British peerage (to whom the term "baronage", also employed as the title of the lowest noble rank, was applied in its generic sense), for the vast majority of French nobles, from baron to duke, were not peers. The title of "Peer of France" was an extraordinary honour granted only to few dukes, counts, and princes of the Roman Catholic Church.

The words "pair" and "pairie"

The French word pairie
Pairie
The French word pairie is the equivalent of the English word peerage, in the sense of an individual title carrying the rank of Pair , which derives from the Latin par 'equal', and signifies the members of an exclusive body of noblemen and prelates, considered to be the highest social order -not...

is equivalent to the English "peerage

Peerage

The Peerage is a legal system of largely hereditary titles in the United Kingdom, which constitute the ranks of British nobility and is part of the British honours system...

". The individual title, pair
Pair
The word pair, derived via the French words pair/paire from the Latin par 'equal', can refer to:* 2 , two of something* Topological pair, an inclusion of topological spaces.* Tuple* Product type* Au pair, a work agreement...

in French and "peer" in English, derives from the Latin par, "equal"; it signifies those noblemen and prelates considered to be equal to the monarch in honor (even though they be his vassals), and it considers the monarch thus to be primus inter pares

Primus inter pares

Primus inter pares is Latin phrase describing the most senior person of a group sharing the same rank or office.When not used in reference to a specific title, it may indicate that the person so described is formally equal, but looked upon as an authority of special importance by their peers...

, or "first among equals".

The main uses of the word refer to two historical traditions in the French kingdom, before and after the First French Empire of Napoleon I. The word also exists to describe an institution in the Crusader states.

Some etymologists posit that the French (and English) word baron
Baron
Baron is a title of nobility. The word baron comes from Old French baron, itself from Old High German and Latin baro meaning " man, warrior"; it merged with cognate Old English beorn meaning "nobleman"...

, taken from the Latin baro, also derives from the Latin par. Such a derivation would fit the early sense of "baron", as used for the whole peerage and not simply as a noble rank below the comital.

Under the Monarchy: feudal period and Ancien Régime

Medieval French kings conferred the dignity of peerage upon certain of his preëminent vassal

Vassal

A vassal or feudatory is a person who has entered into a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. The obligations often included military support and mutual protection, in exchange for certain privileges, usually including the grant of land held...

s, both clerical and lay. Some historians consider Louis VII

Louis VII of France

Louis VII was King of France, the son and successor of Louis VI . He ruled from 1137 until his death. He was a member of the House of Capet. His reign was dominated by feudal struggles , and saw the beginning of the long rivalry between France and England...

(1137–1180) to have created the French system of peers.

Peerage was attached to a specific territorial jurisdiction, either an episcopal see

Episcopal See

An episcopal see is, in the original sense, the official seat of a bishop. This seat, which is also referred to as the bishop's cathedra, is placed in the bishop's principal church, which is therefore called the bishop's cathedral...

for episcopal peerages or a fief for secular. Peerages attached to fiefs were transmissible or inheritable with the fief, and these fiefs are often designated as pairie-duché (for duchies) and pairie-comté (for counties).

By 1216 there were nine peers:

Archbishop of Reims
Archbishop of Reims
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Reims is an archdiocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in France. Erected as a diocese around 250 by St. Sixtus, the diocese was elevated to an archdiocese around 750...

who had the distinction of anointing and crowning the king
Bishop of Langres
Bishop of Beauvais
Bishop of Châlons
Bishop of Noyon
Duke of Normandy
Duke of Burgundy
Duke of Aquitaine also called Duke of Guyenne
Count of Champagne

The presence of Normandy – held by the English crown by Angevin heritage – was theoretical, since in French eyes it had been forfeited to the crown in 1202.

A few years later and before 1228 three peers were added to make the total of twelve peers:

Bishop of Laon
Count of Flanders
Count of Flanders
The Count of Flanders was the ruler or sub-ruler of the county of Flanders from the 9th century until the abolition of the position by the French revolutionaries in 1790....
Count of Toulouse
Counts of Toulouse
The first Counts of Toulouse were the administrators of the city and its environs under the Merovingians. No succession of such royal appointees is known, though a few names survive to the present...

These twelve peerages are known as the ancient peerage or pairie ancienne, and the number twelve is sometimes said to have been chosen to mirror the 12 paladin

Paladin

The paladins, sometimes known as the Twelve Peers, were the foremost warriors of Charlemagne's court, according to the literary cycle known as the Matter of France. They first appear in the early chansons de geste such as The Song of Roland, where they represent Christian martial valor against the...

s of Charlemagne

Charlemagne

Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...

in the Chanson de geste (see below). Parallels may also be seen with mythical Knights of the Round Table under King Arthur

King Arthur

King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...

. So popular was this notion, that for a long time people thought peerage had originated in the reign of Charlemagne, who was considered the model king and shining example for knighthood and nobility.

The dozen pairs played a role in the royal sacre or consecration

Consecration

Consecration is the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service, usually religious. The word "consecration" literally means "to associate with the sacred". Persons, places, or things can be consecrated, and the term is used in various ways by different groups...

, during the liturgy of the coronation

Coronation

A coronation is a ceremony marking the formal investiture of a monarch and/or their consort with regal power, usually involving the placement of a crown upon their head and the presentation of other items of regalia...

of the king, attested to as early as 1179, symbolically upholding his crown, and each original peer had a specific role, often with an attribute. Since the peers were never twelve during the coronation (due to the fact that most lay peerages were forfeited to or merged in the crown), delegates were chosen by the king, mainly from the princes of the blood.

This paralleled the arch-offices attached to the electorates

Prince-elector

The Prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire were the members of the electoral college of the Holy Roman Empire, having the function of electing the Roman king or, from the middle of the 16th century onwards, directly the Holy Roman Emperor.The heir-apparent to a prince-elector was known as an...

, the even more prestigious and powerful first college in the Holy Roman Empire

Holy Roman Empire

The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...

, the other heir of Charlemagne

Charlemagne

Archbishop of Reims

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Reims is an archdiocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in France. Erected as a diocese around 250 by St. Sixtus, the diocese was elevated to an archdiocese around 750...

Counts of Toulouse

The first Counts of Toulouse were the administrators of the city and its environs under the Merovingians. No succession of such royal appointees is known, though a few names survive to the present...

Count of Flanders

The Count of Flanders was the ruler or sub-ruler of the county of Flanders from the 9th century until the abolition of the position by the French revolutionaries in 1790....

Duchy of Normandy

The Duchy of Normandy stems from various Danish, Norwegian, Hiberno-Norse, Orkney Viking and Anglo-Danish invasions of France in the 9th century...

was absorbed by the French crown, and later in the 13th century two more of the lay peerages were absorbed by the crown (Toulouse 1271, Champagne 1284), so in 1297 three new peerages were created, the County of Artois, the Duchy of Anjou and the Duchy of Brittany

Duke of Brittany

The Duchy of Brittany was a medieval tribal and feudal state covering the northwestern peninsula of Europe,bordered by the Alantic Ocean on the west and the English Channel to the north with less definitive borders of the Loire River to the south and Normandy to the east...

, to compensate for the three peerages that had disappeared.

Thus, beginning in 1297 the practice started of creating new peerages by letters patent

Letters patent

Letters patent are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch or president, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, title, or status to a person or corporation...

, specifying the fief to which the peerage was attached, and the conditions under which the fief could be transmitted (e.g. only male heirs) for princes of the blood who held an apanage. By 1328 all apanagists would be peers.

The number of lay peerages increased over time from 7 in 1297 to 26 in 1400, 21 in 1505, and 24 in 1588. By 1789, there were 43, including five held by princes of the blood (Orléans

House of Orleans

Orléans is the name used by several branches of the Royal House of France, all descended in the legitimate male line from the dynasty's founder, Hugh Capet. It became a tradition during France's ancien régime for the duchy of Orléans to be granted as an appanage to a younger son of the king...

, Condé, Bourbon

Duke of Bourbon

Duke of Bourbon is a title in the peerage of France. It was created in the first half of the 14th century for the eldest son of Robert of France, Count of Clermont and Beatrice of Burgundy, heiress of the lordship of Bourbon...

, Enghien, and Conti), (Penthièvre

Bourbon-Penthièvre

The House of Bourbon-Penthièvre was an illegitimate branch of the House of Bourbon, thus descending from the Capetian dynasty. It was founded by the duc de Penthièvre , the only child and heir of the comte de Toulouse, the youngest illegitimate son of Louis XIV of France and the marquise de...

) (who was the son of a legitimized prince, the Count of Toulouse

Louis-Alexandre de Bourbon, Comte de Toulouse

Louis Alexandre de Bourbon, comte de Toulouse , duc de Penthièvre , d'Arc, de Châteauvillain and de Rambouillet , , was the son of Louis XIV and of his mistress Madame de Montespan...

, also a pair de France), and 37 other lay peers, ranking from the Duchy of Uzès, created in 1572, to the Duchy of Aubigny, created in 1787.

One family could hold several peerages. The minimum age was 25. The majority of new peerages created up until the fifteenth century were for royal princes, while new peerages from the sixteenth century on were increasingly created for non royals. After 1569 no more countships were made into peers, and peerage was exclusively given to duchies (duc et pair). Occasionally the Parlement
Parlement
Parlements were regional legislative bodies in Ancien Régime France.The political institutions of the Parlement in Ancien Régime France developed out of the previous council of the king, the Conseil du roi or curia regis, and consequently had ancient and customary rights of consultation and...

(Parlement de Paris) refused to register the lettres of patent conferring peerage on them.

Apart from the coronation of French kings, the privileges of peers were largely matters of precedence, the titles Monseigneur

Monseigneur

Monseigneur is an honorific in the French language. It has occasional English use as well, as it may be a title before the name of a French prelate, a member of a royal family or other dignitary. Also it is sometimes used as a name for a Frenchman who has a position on the court.Monsignor is both...

, Votre Grandeur and the address mon cousin, suggesting parentage to the royal family, or at least equivalence, by the King, and a priviligium fori. This meant that judicial proceedings concerning the peers and their pairie-fiefs were exclusively under the jurisdiction of the Court of Peers. Members of the peerage had also the right to sit in a lit de justice

Lit de Justice

Lit de Justice is an American Champion Thoroughbred racehorse. He was bred by Robert Sangster's Swettenham Stud, and purchased by the French racing operation Mise de Moratalla who named him for a famous Parlement of Paris known as the Lit de justice...

, a formal preceding and speak before the Parlement, and they were also given high positions at the court, and a few minor privileges such as entering the courtyards of royal castles in their carriages.

While many lay peerages became extinguished over time, as explained above, the ecclesiastical peerages, on the other hand, were perpetual, and only a seventh one was created before the French Revolution, taking precedence behind the six original ones, being created in 1690 for the Archbishop of Paris

Archbishop of Paris

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Paris is one of twenty-three archdioceses of the Roman Catholic Church in France. The original diocese is traditionally thought to have been created in the 3rd century by St. Denis and corresponded with the Civitas Parisiorum; it was elevated to an archdiocese on...

, after centuries as a mere suffraganage

Suffragan bishop

A suffragan bishop is a bishop subordinate to a metropolitan bishop or diocesan bishop. He or she may be assigned to an area which does not have a cathedral of its own.-Anglican Communion:...

, styled as second archevêque-duc for he held the Duchy of Saint-Cloud.

The expression pair was also sometimes used for groups of nobles within a French fief (e.g. the Prince-Bishop of Cambrai, who held the County of Cambrai, was the overlord of its twelve pairs). These "peers" did not benefit from the royal privileges listed above.

Under the First Republic and the First Empire : the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period

The original peerage of the French realm, like other feudal titles of nobility, was abolished during the French Revolution

French Revolution

, on the night of August 4, 1789, the Night of the Abolition of Feudalism.

Napoleon I

Napoleon I

Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...

(Emperor of the French from 1804) 'reinvented' the functions of the anciennes pairies, so to speak, as he created in 1806 the exclusive duchés grand-fiefs
Duke
A duke or duchess is a member of the nobility, historically of highest rank below the monarch, and historically controlling a duchy...

(in chief of politically insignificant estates in non-annexed parts of Italy) in 1806 and first recreated the honorary functions at (his own) imperial coronation, but now vested in Great officers, not attached to fiefs.

Napoleon reinstituted French noble titles in 1808 but did not create a system of peerages comparable to the United Kingdom. He did create a House of Peers on his return from Elba in 1815, but the House was not constituted before his abdication at the end of the Hundred Days

Hundred Days

The Hundred Days, sometimes known as the Hundred Days of Napoleon or Napoleon's Hundred Days for specificity, marked the period between Emperor Napoleon I of France's return from exile on Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815...

(Cent jours).

Under the Restoration: the Chamber of Peers

The French peerage was recreated by the Charter of 1814

Charter of 1814

The French Charter of 1814 was a constitution granted by King Louis XVIII of France shortly after his restoration. The Congress of Vienna demanded that Louis bring in a constitution of some form before he was restored. It guaranteed many of the rights that most other countries in western Europe had...

with the Bourbon Restoration, albeit on a different basis from before 1789. A new Chamber of Peers (Chambre des pairs) was created, on the model of the British House of Lords

House of Lords

The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....

.

This chamber acted as a Upper House

Upper house

An upper house, often called a senate, is one of two chambers of a bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the lower house; a legislature composed of only one house is described as unicameral.- Possible specific characteristics :...

, like the House of Lords in the United Kingdom. Members of the Chamber of Peers were appointed by the king, without limit on their numbers, starting with 154, including all surviving pre-Revolutionary lay (except the British-held duchy of Aubigny

Duke of Aubigny

The Scottish Dukes of Aubigny had their origins in Aubigny-sur-Nère, France, from the 15th century, which was an important honour throughout the Auld Alliance and Ancien Régime...

) and ecclesiastical (Reims, Langres, and Châlons) peerages.

Thirteen peers were also prelate

Prelate

A prelate is a high-ranking member of the clergy who is an ordinary or who ranks in precedence with ordinaries. The word derives from the Latin prælatus, the past participle of præferre, which means "carry before", "be set above or over" or "prefer"; hence, a prelate is one set over others.-Related...

s. Peerage was for life or hereditary, granted at the king's will. Male members of the royal family and descendants in male line of previous kings (princes du sang) were members by birth (pairs-nés), but needed explicit permission from the king to sit at each session of the Chamber of Peers.

At first comprising only hereditary peers, the Chamber became a body to which one was appointed for life following the July Revolution

July Revolution

The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution or in French, saw the overthrow of King Charles X of France, the French Bourbon monarch, and the ascent of his cousin Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, who himself, after 18 precarious years on the throne, would in turn be overthrown...

of 1830. In the Revolution of 1848, the Chamber of Peers was disbanded and the peerage of France was abolished definitively.

Peerage of Jerusalem

The Kingdom of Jerusalem

Kingdom of Jerusalem

The Kingdom of Jerusalem was a Catholic kingdom established in the Levant in 1099 after the First Crusade. The kingdom lasted nearly two hundred years, from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession, Acre, was destroyed by the Mamluks, but its history is divided into two distinct periods....

, the only crusader state equal in rank to such European kingdoms as France (the origin of most of Jerusalem's knights) and England, had a peerage modelled on the French and using the French language.

Charlemagne's twelve peers

In the medieval French chansons de geste and material associated with the Matter of France

Matter of France

The Matter of France, also known as the Carolingian cycle, is a body of literature and legendary material associated with the history of France, in particular involving Charlemagne and his associates. The cycle springs from the Old French chansons de geste, and was later adapted into a variety of...

that tell of the exploits of Charlemagne

Charlemagne

and his knights -- such as The Song of Roland
The Song of Roland
The Song of Roland is the oldest surviving major work of French literature. It exists in various manuscript versions which testify to its enormous and enduring popularity in the 12th to 14th centuries...

-- the elite of the imperial army and Charlemagne's closest advisors were called "The Twelve Peers". The exact names of the peers vary from text to text. In The Song of Roland (Oxford edition), the peers are: Roland

Roland

Roland was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne who became one of the principal figures in the literary cycle known as the Matter of France. Historically, Roland was military governor of the Breton March, with responsibility for defending the frontier of Francia against the Bretons...

, Olivier

Olivier (The Song of Roland)

Oliver , sometimes referred to as Olivier de Vienne or de Gennes, is a fictional knight in the Matter of France chansons de geste, especially the French epic The Song of Roland...

, Gerin, Gerier, Berengier, Oton, Samson, Engelier, Ivon, Ivoire, Anseïs, and Gérard de Roussillon (Charlemagne's trusted adviser Naimes and the warrior-priest Turpin

Turpin (archbishop)

Roland]].He is probably identical with , an 8th-century archbishop of Reims alluded to by Hincmar, his third successor in the Holy See. According to Flodoard, Charles Martel drove Rigobert, archbishop of Reims, from his office and replaced Rigobert with a warrior clerk named Milo, afterwards bishop...

are, however, not included in the 12 peers in this text; neither is Ganelon

Ganelon

In the Matter of France, Ganelon is the knight who betrayed Charlemagne's army to the Muslims, leading to the Battle of Roncevaux Pass. His name is said to derive from the Italian word inganno, meaning fraud or deception....

the traitor). The number of peers is thought to parallel the twelve apostles.

Sources and references

Richard A. Jackson, "Peers of France and Princes of the Blood", French Historical Studies, volume 7, number 1 (Spring 1971), pp. 27–46
La Chanson de Roland, edited and translated by Ian Short, Paris: Livre de Poche, 1990, ISBN 978-2-253-05341-5

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