Anti-corruption campaigns in thirteenth-century Europe

Abstract The thirteenth century in France saw the initiation of a series of reforms intended to define, identify and root out corruption in government. The principal architect of the campaign was King Louis IX (1226–70), ably supported by a coterie of special officials. Inspired in part by his desire to purify his kingdom in the long preparation for the crusade of 1270, he also drew on longstanding precedents in French administrative history. The campaign on the whole was quite successful. What is also remarkable is that, generated partly from the unique circumstances of individual polities and partly from circumstances, like crusading fervour, which were widely shared, other anti-corruption campaigns were mounted, also with some success. The slogans and practices of anti-corruption campaigns came to be identified intimately with good government, indeed, with the very right to exercise political authority and power. The thirteenth century thus appears to be a foundational moment in the constitution of the ideology and practices of the state. Keywords: BriberyCorruptionGovernmentLouis IXEdward IHenry III of EnglandMagnus VIPedro III of Aragon Acknowledgement This paper is a slightly expanded version of my 2008 Reuter Lecture at the University of Southampton. I wish to thank Patricia Skinner and Anne Curry for honouring me with the invitation. Notes 1 Susan Rose-Ackerman's studies have been central. Among her relevant works are Corruption. A study in political economy (New York, 1978) and Corruption and government. Causes, consequences, and reform (Cambridge, 1999). See also Diego Gambetta, ‘Corruption: an analytical map’, in: Political corruption in transition. A sceptic's handbook, ed. Stephen Kotkin and András Sajó (Budapest, 2002), 33–79. 2 Among the many studies, too numerous to list in their entirety, are Robert Payne, Corrupt society. From ancient Greece to present-day America (New York, 1975); S.K. Das, Public office, private interest. Bureaucracy and corruption in India (Oxford, 2001); Creating social trust in post-socialist transition, ed. János Kornai, Bo Rothstein and Susan Rose-Ackerman (New York, 2004); Building a trustworthy state in post-socialist transition, ed. János Kornai and Susan Rose-Ackerman (New York, 2004); the essays by Vinod Pavarala and Dilip Simeon in Corrupt histories, ed. Emmanuel Kreike and William Jordan (Rochester, NY, 2004), and the essays by Virginie Coulloudon, Ákos Szilágyi, Elemér Hankiss, Quentin Reed, Vadim Radaev, Lena Kolarska-Bobińska, Mark Philp, Daniel Smilov and Tokhir Mirzoev in: Political corruption in transition, ed. Kotkin and Sajó. See also Coulloudon's essay and Michael Johnston's in: Corrupt histories, ed. Kreike and Jordan. 3 See, for example, Polity and place. Regionalism in medieval France, ed. Brigitte Bedos-Rezak, special issue Historical reflections/Reflections historiques, 19:2 (1993); Jean Dunbabin, France in the making, 843–1180 (Oxford, 1985). A partial exception is Olivier Guillot, Albert Rigaudière and Yves Saissier's Pouvoir et institutions dans la France médiévale, 2 vols, 3rd edn (Paris, 1999). 4 In general on the claims for aristocratic privilege in the period under discussion, see David Crouch, The birth of nobility. Constructing aristocracy in England and France, 900–1300 (Harlow, 2005). 5 See, for example, Rose-Ackerman, Corruption and government, 91–110, a chapter on ‘Bribes, patronage, and gift giving’, a subsection of which is titled, ‘The similarity of bribes and gifts’ (at 96). 6 The etymological and semantic suggestions that follow in the next two paragraphs are based in part on information in the Oxford English Dictionary [hereafter OED], the Revised medieval Latin word-list from British and Irish sources, ed. R. Latham (London, 1965), and the Old French-English dictionary, ed. Alan Hindley, Frederick Langley and Brian Levy (Cambridge, 2000). 7 Such were the sentiments expressed, for example, by the early fourteenth-century scholastic, William of Rubio, who was trained at the University of Paris; see Odd Langholm, Economics in the medieval schools. Wealth, exchange, value, money and usury according to the Paris theological tradition, 1200–1350 (Studien und Texte zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 29, Leiden, 1992), 533–5. 8 It is instructive to type in the sentence, ‘It was just a gift’ together with the word ‘bribery’ in a Google search. 9 William Jordan, ‘The struggle for influence at the court of Philip III: Pierre de la Broce and the French aristocracy’, French Historical Studies, 24 (2001), 444; Elena Lourie, ‘Jewish moneylenders in the local Catalan community, c.1300: Vilafranca del Penedés, Besalú and Montblanc’, Michael. On the history of the Jews in the diaspora, 11 (1989), 41–2. The usage parallels custom, meaning business, and custom, legitimately imposed fees imposed on business or merchandise; OED, s.v., custom (n.) definition 5. 10 Joseph Strayer, The royal domain in the bailliage of Rouen (Princeton, 1936), 20. 11 Bill Murray, ‘IRS lures IT workers with bonuses and raises’, Government computer news, 26 October 1998 <http://www.gcn.com/print/17_29/33004-1.html#>, accessed 19 March 2009; Brittany Ballenstedt, ‘IRS seeks strategy to recruit, retain employees’, 28 August, 1997 Government Executive.com, <http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0807/082807b1.htm>, accessed 19 March 2009. 12 The best full study is Martin Wolfe's Fiscal system of renaissance France (New Haven, 1972), which deals with the later medieval period as well. The creation of the five great tax farms in France was meant to correct the horrific effects of tax farming. 13 Martin Wolfe, ‘French views on wealth and taxes from the middle ages to the old regime’, Journal of Economic History, 26 (1966), 474. 14 Quoted in Jean Brissaud, History of French public law (Continental Legal History Series 9, Boston, 1915), 511. 15 Gaines Post, Studies in medieval legal thought. Public law and the state, 1100–1322 (Princeton, 1964); Joseph Strayer, On the medieval origins of the modern state (Princeton, 1970); Heinrich Mitteis, The state in the middle ages. A comparative constitutional history of feudal Europe, trans. H.F. Orton (Amsterdam, 1975) — the original German title specified the ‘high middle ages’; and more recently, Alan Harding, Medieval law and the foundations of the state (Oxford, 2002). 16 Thomas Bisson, The crisis of the twelfth century. Power, lordship, and the origins of European government (Princeton, 2008), 577. 17 These criticisms of Strayer's work are conveniently summarised in the two prefatory essays (the first by Charles Tilly, the second by me) accompanying the recent re-issuing of his On the medieval origins of the modern state (Princeton, 2005). See also Gilles Lecuppre's recent implicit criticism, ‘Ordre capétien et confusion germanique. La competition royale dans les sources françaises au XIIIe siècle’, in: Convaincre et persuader. Communication et propagande aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles, ed. Martin Aurell (Poitiers, 2007), 513–31. 18 On the French campaign in the thirteenth century to recover allegedly devolved regalian rights, see William Jordan, ‘Jews, regalian rights, and the constitution in medieval France’, Association of Jewish Studies Review, 23 (1998), 1–16. Cf., for an interesting variant on recovery, Charles Coulson, ‘“National” requisitioning for “public” use of “private” castles in pre-nation state France’, in: Medieval Europeans. Studies in ethnic identity and national perspectives in medieval Europe, ed. Alfred Smyth (New York, 1998), 119–34. 19 I adopt from a different context Carl Hammer's overarching metaphor, which he adopted from physics, in A large-scale slave society of the early middle ages. Slaves and their families in early medieval Bavaria (Aldershot, 2002). 20 See, for example, James Goldsmith, Lordship in France, 500–1500 (New York, 2003); whose emphasis, with regard to these issues, is on the reign of Philip IV. I would modify this to include the reign of Louis IX. 21 The phrase ‘predatory lordship’, appears for instance in Matthew Strickland's ‘Killing or clemency? Changing attitudes to conduct in war in eleventh- and twelfth-century Britain and France’, in: Krieg im Mittelalter, ed. H-H. Kortüm (Berlin, 2001), 93–122. See also Thomas Bisson, ‘The “feudal revolution”’, Past & Present, 142 (1994), 6–42. 22 As to whether and, if so, how one ought to apply the concept of state to the middle ages, see Hiroshi Takayama, ‘Kingdom and states in medieval France’, in: State and empire in British history. Proceedings of the fourth Anglo-Japanese conference of historians, ed. Kazuhiko Kondo (Tokyo, 2003), 27–36, for a view, contrary to mine, that would seem largely to confine its use to polities below the level of the kingdom. For various views, see, among others, Harding, Medieval law and the foundations of the state, and F.M. Powicke's classic, ‘Reflections on the medieval state’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 4th series, 19 (1936), 1–18; Alain Boureau, La Religion de l'état. La Construction de la République étatique dans le discours théologique de l'Occident médiévale (1250–1350) (Paris, 2006); and the special cluster of articles dedicated to the concept of the state and the utility of the concept in pre-modern societies in the Journal of Historical Sociology, 15 (2002) and 16 (2003). 23 Both Joseph Strayer (On the medieval origins of the modern state, 15–16) and Gaines Post (Studies in medieval legal thought, 264) have wise lines on the Church's state-like character. 24 Paul Freedman and Gabrielle Spiegel, ‘Medievalisms old and new: the rediscovery of alterity in North American medieval studies’, American Historical Review, 103 (1998), 677–704. 25 Three biographies of Louis IX provide a wealth of information on the king's life. Jean Richard's Saint Louis. Roi d'une France féodale, soutien de la Terre Sainte (Paris, 1983) is best on the king as a crusader. Gérard Sivéry's Saint Louis et son siècle (Paris, 1983) situates the king's rule in the wider context of French politics and, with his companion volume, L'Économie du royaume de France au siècle de saint Louis (vers 1180–vers 1315) (Lille, 1984), French economic life. Jacques le Goff's Saint Louis (Paris, 1996) is authoritative on the king's representation as an ideal Christian ruler. 26 One good way to explore the king's relations with his family is through the numerous biographies written on individual members. On his mother Blanche, see Gérard Sivéry, Blanche de Castille (Paris, 1990), and Elie Berger, Histoire de Blanche de Castille, reine de France (Paris, 1895). On his wife, there is Gérard Sivéry, Marguerite de Provence. Une reine au temps des cathédrales (Paris, 1987). On Louis's sister Isabelle, see Sean Field, Isabelle de France. Capetian sanctity and Franciscan identity in the thirteenth century (Notre Dame, IN, 2006), and William Jordan, ‘Isabelle of France and religious devotion at the court of Louis IX’, in: Capetian women, ed. Kathleen Nolan (New York, 2003), 209–23. There are no really satisfying biographies of two of his brothers (Robert of Artois and Alphonse of Poitiers), but Jean Dunbabin has published a short study of Charles, Charles I of Anjou. Kingship and state-making in thirteenth-century Europe (London, 1998). The king's closest friends, the chaplain Robert de Sorbon, the Franciscan archbishop of Rouen, Eudes Rigaud, and the seneschal of Champagne, Jean de Joinville, do not seem to have been favourites in the political sense of the term, unduly influencing political decisions. 27 Although focusing on a slightly later period, Jacques Krynen's Idéal du prince et pouvoir royal en France à la fin du moyen âge (1380–1440). Étude de la littérature politique du temps (Paris, 1981), 118–28, summarises material on the high middle ages. 28 Jacques Le Goff, ‘Le Roi dans l'Occident médiéval. Caractères originaux’, in: Kings and kingship in medieval Europe, ed. Anne Duggan (London, 1993), 1–40, esp. 12. 29 William Jordan, Louis IX and the challenge of the crusade. A study in rulership (Princeton, 1979), 65–104; William Jordan, ‘Cutting the budget: the impact of the crusades on appropriations for public works in France’, Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire, 76 (1998), 307–18. 30 Formal prohibition may have occurred only in 1254, as the king's friend, Jean de Joinville, suggests. He also attributes the king's initiative to his advice; Vie de saint Louis, ed. Jacques Monfrin (Paris, 1995), cap. 655. But Louis's willingness to follow this advice was occasioned both by Joinville's personal criticism of him (Joinville's scenario) and his knowledge of some of the irregularities that accompanied preparations for crusade; cf. William Jordan, ‘Supplying Aigues-Mortes for the crusade of 1248: the problem of restructuring trade’, in: Order and innovation in the middle ages. Essays in honor of Joseph R. Strayer, ed. William Jordan, C. Bruce McNab and Teofilo Ruiz (Princeton, 1976), 165–72. 31 Quentin Griffiths, ‘Les Origines et la carrière de Pierre de Fontaines, jurisconsulte de saint Louis’, Revue historique de droit français et étranger, 93 (1970), 544–67. 32 The Texas-based energy company, Enron Corporation, went bankrupt in 2001 in the course of an investigation into its accounting procedures and amid widespread accusations of mismanagement and corruption. Fairly or unfairly, its name became a byword for financial chicanery in the corporate world. 33 Jean Richard, ‘Les Conseillers de Saint Louis, dés grands barons aux premiers légistes: au point de recontre de deux droits’, À l'ombre du pouvoir. Les Entourages princiers au moyen âge, ed. A. Marchandisse and J.-L. Kupper (Geneva, 2003), 141. 34 Xavier de La Selle, ‘La Confession et l'aumône: confesseurs et aumôniers des rois de France du XIIIe au XVe siècle’, Journal des savants (July-December 1993), 255–86. 35 Compare Jacques Le Goff, La Bourse et la vie. Économie et religion au moyen âge (Paris, 1986; trans. Patrician Ruanum as Your Money or Your Life, (New York, 1988)). 36 On the early friars and the slow but steady erosion of their incorporation into the high offices of the Church, see Williell Thompson, Friars in the cathedral. The first Franciscan bishops, 1226–1261 (Toronto, 1975). 37 Joseph Strayer, The reign of Philip the Fair (Princeton, 1980), 287–8. 38 La Selle, ‘Confession et l'aumône’, 255–86, and Xavier de La Selle, Le Service des âmes à la cour. Confesseurs et aumôniers des roi de France du XIIIe au XVe siècle (Paris, 1995). 39 La Selle, ‘Confession et l'aumône’, 262; La Selle, Service des âmes, 37, 40. 40 La Selle, Service des âmes, 119. 41 Quentin Griffiths, ‘St Louis and the new clerks of Parlement’, Studies in Medieval Culture, 4 (1974), 269–89; Quentin Griffiths, ‘The Capetian kings and St Martin of Tours’, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, new series 9 (1987), 83–133; and Quentin Griffiths, ‘Les Collégiales royales et leurs clercs sous le gouvernement capétien’, Francia, 18 (1991), 93–110. Though somewhat less germane, see also Quentin Griffiths, ‘Royal counselors and trouvères in the house of Nesle and Soissons’, Medieval Prosopography, 18 (1997), 123–37. For the English practice, see Jeffrey Denton, English royal free chapels, 1100–1300. A constitutional study (Manchester, 1970). 42 Griffiths, ‘Capetian kings and St Martin of Tours’, 107; Griffiths, ‘Collégiales royales’, 101. Again, for the English case, see Denton, English royal free chapels. 43 Jordan, Louis IX, 46–7 and for lists of these administrators, 221–31. 44 Four English political tracts of the later middle ages, ed. Jean-Philippe Genet (Camden, 4th series 18, London, 1977), 203–4. For similar exemplary anecdotes, see the saints’ lives written by the king's familiars Geoffroi de Beaulieu and Guillaume de Chartres in Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, ed. Martin Bouquet and others, 24 vols (Paris, 1840–1904), vol. 20, 12, 34. 45 Louis Carolus-Barré, ‘Les Baillis de Philippe le Hardi’, Annuaire-Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire de France (1966–67), 132. 46 On the administration of Philip Augustus, see John Baldwin's magisterial study, The government of Philip Augustus. Foundation of French royal power in the middle ages (Berkeley, 1986). 47 Jordan, Louis IX, 47. 48 The remarks in this paragraph are adapted from Jordan, Louis IX, 46–51, 159–61. 49 For most of the information assembled in this paragraph, see Jordan, Louis IX, 161–71. 50 Gérard Sivéry, ‘La Rémuneration des agents des rois de France au XIIIe siècle’, Revue historique de droit français et étranger (1980), 587–607. 51 Charles-Victor Langlois, ‘Registres perdus des archives de la Chambre des Comptes de Paris’, in: Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale, 40 (Paris, 1916), 218. 52 In Langlois words (‘Registres perdus’, 218), ‘la mode était à ces grandes enquêtes’. 53 Richard, ‘Conseillers de Saint Louis’, 141; Jordan, Louis IX, 51–63. 54 Jordan, Louis IX, 62. 55 Boris Bove, Dominer la ville. Prévôts des marchands et échevins parisiens de 1260 à 1350 (Paris, 2004), 189–200: Arié Serper, ‘L'Administration royale de Paris au temps de Louis IX’, Francia, 7 (1979), 123–39; Jordan, Louis IX, 171–81. 56 William Jordan, ‘Communal administration in France, 1257–1270: problems discovered and solutions imposed’, Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire, 59 (1981), 292–313. 57 For an example of the widely adopted vocabulary, ‘tempters/temptees’, cf. Philip Woodfine, ‘Tempters or tempted? The rhetoric and practice of corruption in Walpolean politics’, in: Corrupt Histories, ed. Kreike and Jordan. 58 Jordan, Louis IX, 105–9, 135–41, 144–7. 59 Jordan, Louis IX, 148–52. 60 David Potter, ‘The king and his government under the Valois, 1328–1498’, in: France in the later middle ages, ed. David (Oxford, 2003), the “feudal revolution”’, Past & Present, 142 (1994), A sense of their from David ‘The of Kings III and Louis IX’, 10 Political in early fourteenth-century by of William of and William of ed. and trans. Studies in the middle ages and the Renaissance 2002), R. The of (Manchester, de (Cambridge, and the English royal and English Historical Review, (1998), of On the see in medieval England (New Haven, 1936), on the to the of that been in the and early of of the of reform and ed. R. and (Oxford, of the ed. and See Paul I and the of the English in: The of the law (London, 1992), The of Royal and in English society and (Princeton, medieval and modern was the in the middle ages of a of a on the of and and Legal in the 9 (the is at Paul barons and The and of in thirteenth-century England (Cambridge, in the reign of (Oxford, and royal in thirteenth-century the and impact of royal American Journal of Legal History, 27 76 other 9 A second The of (Oxford, The phrase is in A second cap. 1 the French is at ed. Robert trans. 2001); del IV. of the Medieval 37, London, the state. and political in the of Aragon 2002), the state, the state, the state, the state, the state, ‘The of an administrative in medieval and government, Journal of Medieval History, 28 of an administrative Daniel The 3rd edn (London, of an administrative of an administrative The medieval A social history (Princeton, 2008), (the is at On medieval in see Jean Dunbabin, and in medieval Europe 2002). For most of on ‘The and in: The history of ed. (Cambridge, 2003), and for on the in see ‘The in: The new medieval ed. David (Cambridge, ‘The in the thirteenth in: Kings and ed. On be an in the early century to recover this by privilege a period of and see 51 93 III of and the crusading of the thirteenth century in: England and Europe in the reign of III ed. and (Aldershot, 2002), On the of the and to corruption of and its in the context of political corruption in thirteenth-century France, see Jordan, for John ‘Killing and political in the British from the twelfth to the early A comparative in: Britain and ed. (Cambridge, See part of Le Goff's Saint Louis, and The of Saint Louis. and crusade in the later middle ages NY, For a at this issue on his see of corruption in: Political corruption in transition, ed. and and other also that if the of the of not to be an of and the procedures and thus economic for the political of this be this has less to the medieval the impact of the medieval state on economic Compare Paul ‘The impact of corruption on economic to the second in: Political corruption in transition, ed. and Joseph one on Louis on in and in the of thirteenth-century part Studies in

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