The paradoxical framework of French royal power

Chabrot, Christophe (2023) The paradoxical framework of French royal power. In: Golden Bulls and Chartas. Legal Heritage . Ferenc Mádl Institute of Comparative Law; Central European Academic Publishing, Budapest; Miskolc, pp. 85-107. ISBN 9786156356246; 9786156356253; 9786156474261; 9786156474278

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Abstract

The French monarchy is not organized by a particular Bulla aurea, because it has never known a counter-power strong enough to impose rules on it like in England the Magna carta adopted by Parliament or in Hungary the Bulla aurea of 1222. On the contrary, it triumphed, sometimes by art and sometimes by luck, of all those who wanted to limit it: King of England, German Emperor, Duke of Burgundy and various local lords or the mayor of Paris, parliamentarians, States General. But becoming an absolute monarchy, the Crown then had to paradoxically protect itself from the will or weaknesses of its own kings. With the Hundred Years War against England, it first consecrated by its jurists the Salic Law, Frankish customary law put in writing by the first King Clovis around the year 500, and in particular the rule of succession by automatic inheritance and by male primogeniture, which will be applied throughout continental Europe and which prevents the king from choosing his successor. Subsequently, other endogenous rules will be put in place to strengthen the power of the Crown by imposing itself on the king. These rules which establish French as the official language or which prohibit the dispersal of lands in the royal domain, for example, will become the Fundamental Laws of the kingdom which the monarchs must respect and which still form part of French public law today.

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