. The word conseil presents problems for students of medieval political institutions, for it corresponds to two English words, “counsel” (advice) and “council” (deliberative body), while also having, in the medieval setting, a close connection with words that we translate as “court.” Early Capetian kings conducted their business with the help of a small body of close advisers called the curia regis. Vassals who owed the king “counsel” were an important element in this body, but only a few were continually with the king. By the later 11th century, the most stable group of advisers came from the royal household, first the “great officers” and later on people with special expertise in legal or financial matters. When some important business, usually involving military operations, brought together many royal vassals, the small curia became, for the moment, a much larger assembly.
By the late 12th century, Langmuir has shown, this larger assembly was called a curia (“court”) when its business was primarily judicial and a concilium when it deliberated on a major project of common interest, such as a crusade. When the judicial specialists began to act as a separate, sedentary body under Louis IX, the small body that remained with the king tended increasingly to be called his “council” rather than curia regis. Yet the Latin word concilium, when used in the French vernacular (concile) came to refer exclusively to councils of the church. The word conseil (Lat. consilium ‘advice’) meant not only “advice” but also “advice-giving bodies.” By the 14th century, a royal council was called not only conseil in French but also consilium where Latin still was used.
In the 14th century, the documents began to identify as royal councilors those who sat on the king’s conseil. From the disputed succession of Philip V in 1316 until the late stages of the Hundred Years’ War, kings often had to appoint councilors who reflected the political mood of the kingdom. For a time ca. 1340, Philip VI’s council consisted exclusively of the “sovereigns” of the Chambre des Comptes, but discontent with the financial administration led him to abandon this experiment after 1343. For decades thereafter, frequent changes of councilors reflected the power of interest groups, although there was one period of relative stability (1359–74) when the body was dominated by Guillaume de Melun, archbishop of Sens.
Under Charles VI, the council was one arena for the power struggle between successive dukes of Burgundy and their rivals at court. In 1388, the anti-Burgundian faction called the Marmousets persuaded the king to oust his uncle Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy, from the council. In 1406, the council, which had risen to more than fifty in number, was reduced by about half, a “reform” that purged most of the supporters of John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy. After many similar episodes, the council was more fully under royal control by the later 15th century.
Cazelles, Raymond. “Les mouvements révolutionnaires du milieu du XIVe siècle et le cycle de l’action politique.” Revue historique 227(1962):279–312.
——. Société politique, noblesse et couronne sous Jean le Bon et Charles V. Geneva: Droz, 1982.
Langmuir, Gavin I. “Concilia and Capetian Assemblies, 1179–1230.” Album Helen Maud Cam 2 (Studies Presented to the International Commission for the History of Representative and Parliamentary Institutions, 24[1963]):27–63.
Nordberg, Michael. Les ducs et la royauté: études sur la rivalité des ducs d’Orléans et de Bourgogne, 1392–1407. Norstedt: Svenska Bokforlaget, 1964.
Valois, Noël. Le conseil du roi aux XIVe, XVe, et XVIe siècles. Paris: Picard, 1888.
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