Peerage of France
For the peerage of the United Kingdom, see British peerage.The
Peerage of France (
French:
Pairie de France) was a system of
nobility which appeared in
France in the
Middle Ages and was abolished in
1789 during the
French Revolution. Recreated after the Revolution, the Peerage of France was definitively abolished in
1848 (hereditary peerage was abolished in
1830).
The very prestigious title and position of
Peer of France (French:
Pair de France) was held by the greatest and highest-ranking members of the
French nobility. In that respect the French peerage was very different from the
British peerage, because the vast majority of French nobles were not Peers. The title of Peer of France was an extraordinary honour granted only to very few dukes or counts and it was dearly sought after.
The French peerage was also imported into the
Holy Land during the
Crusades.
According to one tradition, the French king Louis VII (1137-80) decided to elevate some of his vassals, both clerics and lay, above all others, by creating for them the peerage, a dignity attached to a specific fief (and therefore title; hence the
duché-pairie for a duchy,
comté-pairie for a countship), and was transmitted with it, the episcopal peerages being attached to a see.
The peers played a role in the royal
sacre (coronation), attested as early as 1179, symbolically holding the crown, and each original peer had a specific role, often with an attribute (see below). This paralleled the archoffices attached to the
electorates, the even more prestigious (and powerful) first college in the
Holy Roman Empire, the other heir of Charlemagne's Frankish empire.
By
1216 there were nine peers: the
Archbishop of Reims, the
bishops of
Langres,
Beauvais,
Châlons, and
Noyon, the
dukes of Normandy,
Burgundy, and
Guyenne (Aquitaine), and the
count of Champagne. While the archbishop of Reims had always crowned the king, it is less clear why the other prelates were chosen. The presence of Normandy was only theoretical, since it had been forfeited to the crown and militarily annexed to France in
1202.
A few years later (before
1228) three peers were added to make the total 12. This was apparently motivated by the 12 "peers" of
Charlemagne in the
Chanson de geste popular at that time. In fact, these stories became so attached to the Peer of France concept that for a long time people thought it had actually originated in Charlemagne's reign.
The three peers added before 1228 were the Bishop of
Laon and the
counts of Flanders and
Toulouse.
These twelve original peers are known as the "ancient peerage" (
pairie ancienne). The twelve original peers were divided in two classes (6 clerical peers hierarchically above the 6 lay peers), which were themselves divided in two (3 dukes above 3 counts). Each of the twelve original peers had a specific role and attribute during the coronation of the kings of France:
*the archbishop-duke (French
archevêque-duc) of
Reims (anoints, crowns)
*the bishop-duke (
évêque-duc) of
Laon (bears the Sainte Ampoule containing the sacred ointment)
*the bishop-duke of
Langres (the only of the five suffragans not in the Reims province, which includes the rich, northern Champagne and Picardy regions; bears the sceptre)
*the bishop-count (
évêque-comte) of
Beauvais (bears the royal mantle)
*the bishop-count of
Châlons (bears the royal ring)
*the bishop-count of
Noyon (bears the belt)
*the
duke of Burgundy (Bourgogne in French; bears the crown and fastens the belt; established as dean of the lay peers)
*the
duke of Normandy (Normandie; holds the first square banner)
*the
duke of Aquitain (Aquitaine, or after its refouding Guyenne; holds the second square banner)
*the
count of Toulouse (carries the spurs)
*the
count of Flandres (carries the sword)
*the
count of Champagne (holds the royal standard)
Early in the
13th century Normandy was absorbed by the French crown, and later in the 13th century two more of the lay peerages were absorbed by the crown, so that in
1297 three new peerages were created (Artois, Anjou and Bretagne) to compensate for the three peerages that had disappeared.
Thus, beginning in 1297 the practice started of creating new peerages by letters patent (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 six in 1297 to 26 in 1400, 21 in 1505, 24 in 1588. By 1789, there were 43, including five held by princes of the blood (Orléans, Condé, Bourbon, Enghien, Conti), a legitimized prince (Penthièvre), and 37 other peers, ranking from
Uzès (duchy created in 1572) to Aubigny (created in 1787). One family could hold several peerages; the minimum age was 25.
While many lay peerages became extinguished over time, as explained above, the ecclesiastical peerages, on the other hand, were "immortal", 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 (after centuries as a mere suffraganage), styled as second
archevêque-duc for he held the duchy of Saint-Cloud.
Apart from the coronation of French kings, the privileges of peers were limited to precedence, the titles
Monseigneur,
Votre Grandeur and the address
mon cousin ("my cousin", suggesting parentage to the royal family, or at least equivalence) by the King, and a
priviligium fori (judicial proceedings concerning the peers and their pairie-fiefs were exclusively under the jurisdiction of the court of peers, which later was incorporated into the
Parlement of Paris) and a few minor privileges such as entering the courtyards of royal castles in their carriages.
The French peerage was abolished during the
French Revolution on the night of
August 4,
1789, the
Night of the Abolition of Feudalism.
Napoleon I Bonaparte (Emperor of the French since 1804) 'reinvented' the functions of the anciennes pairies, so to speak, as he created in 1806 the exclusive
duchés grand-fiefs (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. He later reinstituted French noble titles in 1808, but did not create a system of peerages comparable to the United Kingdom.
The French peerage was recreated in
1814 at the
Restoration of monarchy, albeit on a different basis than before 1789. A new
Chamber of Peers (French:
Chambre des pairs) was created, on the model of the British
House of Lords. This chamber acted as a
Upper House, 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-Revolution lay peerages (except the British-held
duchy of Aubigny) and (only) three ecclesiastical peerages: Reims, Langres and Châlon. Thirteen peers, however, were also
prelates (without them, the 1825
Anti-Sacrilege Act wouldn't have included
capital punishment). 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, the Chamber of Peers contained hereditary peers, but following the
July Revolution of
1830, it became a body to which one was appointed for life. In
1848, following the
Revolution of 1848, the Chamber of Peers was disbanded and the Peerage of France was definitely abolished.
*
List of French peerages*
Heraldica.org on the French peerages* Richard A. Jackson, "Peers of France and Princes of the Blood",
French Historial Studies, volume 7, number 1 (Spring 1971), pp. 27â€"46
