The crown and the provinces in the fourteenth century
Michael Jones
Abstract Although the huge realm over which later Capetians and early Valois kings ruled had fairly stable external borders—essentially those demarcated as long ago treaty of Verdun (843)—internally it was fragmented into a myriad smaller political units (duchies, counties, viscounties, baronies, lordships). Some (Auvergne Burgundy, for instance) histories crown France itself. Most can be traced back to administrative arrangements made in Carolingian or immediately post-Carolingian periods. Certainly by fourteenth century virtually all existed within general feudal structure Capetian France. They formed their own particular legal institutional ties with monarchy, whether simple fiefs part much larger complexes, whose rulers equally owed homage fealty king.
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