The central administration

A miniature painting in a register of gifts to the diocese of Oviedo in the kingdom of Asturias in northern Spain from the 1120s gives a glimpse of an early medieval court. The king is surrounded by the queen with two servant women, a bishop, two clerical scribes and three knights.

On the other hand, she was also often in an exposed position. With the sharper distinction between the king and the aristocracy from the twelfth and thirteenth century onwards, the king usually married the daughter of another king, which meant that the queen was always a foreigner, arriving very young, normally in her teens, without knowing the language and culture of her new country. In some cases, her marriage might be a means to end a war against this country, which meant that she might easily be suspected of disloyalty to her new homeland. Her main duty was to produce an heir, not to participate in the government of the realm, but depending on her personal qualities, she might also play a part in poli­tics. At least, if she had her husband’s confidence, she might be an important link between him and the many people who sought access to him, or she might inter­cede for people in trouble, as Queen Philippa is said to have done on behalf of the burghers of Calais in 1347. In practice, however, she might have considerable political influence; there was no sharp distinction between the court and the bureaucracy.

It has been pointed out that women were consistently barred from all positions of authority in medieval and early modern Europe; all employed or elected offi­cers, from army commanders and royal councillors to jury members and local administrators, were men.⁸⁵ However, access to many of the most important positions in society at the time was based hereditary claims or personal links. Women might inherit the throne or great estates or get access to them by marriage. Although the husband mostly governed the common property during his lifetime, his widow might take over after his death.

The success or failure of these queens of course depended on their personal qualities, but some of them rank as among the most important European rulers, such as Isabella of Castile, Elisabeth of England and Maria Theresa of Austria. Margareta of Denmark, who founded the union between the three Scandinavian countries in the late fourteenth century, also belongs in this category, although strictly speaking, she never held royal office herself. She acted first on behalf of her son and then, after his death, her nephew, who was also a minor, but continued to do so until her death, long after he had reached majority. Margareta illustrates an important phenomenon; the dowager queen ruling during her son’s minority. This was not the general rule, an alternative might be another member of the dynasty or one or more prominent nobles, but there are several examples of queens acting in this capacity. Queen Agnes ruled Germany on behalf of her son Henry IV but was later deposed and replaced by two archbishops. Blanche of Castille ruled France in a critical phase during her son Louis IX’s minority and suppressed several aristo­cratic rebellions.⁸⁶

The titles of the five leading officials around the king give a further impression of the combination of household and administration.

The word court (Latin curia) had a wide range of meanings in classical antiquity and the medieval and early modern period, some of which are retained in modern English and French, notably its use in the sense of both court of law and the king’s household. Originally, the term implied no distinction between the household and the central administration, as indicated by the titles of the leading household offi­cers. Although such a distinction gradually emerged, this fact points to important differences from the conditions usual in modern democracies. While kings and queens and to some extent even presidents have courts, these institutions have no formal political importance but deal with ceremonials and various practical matters to cater for the needs of the head of state and his or her family and guests. Con­cerning the government, led by a prime minister or a president, there is a clear distinction between the political and the administrative sector. The former consists of representatives elected by the people, who legislate, govern the country and are responsible for its welfare, while the latter are professionals in permanent positions, appointed according to merit and with the possibility of promotion through long service or distinction.

This system hardly goes further back in European history than to the nineteenth century. In the period we are dealing with here, there was no clear difference between political and administrative offices and only a vague distinction between the court in the sense of the administration and that of the household. On the other hand, there was an enormous quantitative change from twelfth-century Oviedo to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The most obvious expression of this is the expansion of the chancery, determined by the increasing importance of writing. Based on what is extant, the king of England issued 115 letters per year under Henry II (1154—89) but the actual number is probably much higher. A great increase took place in England from the thirteenth century. Already Henry III (1216—72) issued around 5,000 letters per year, which had increased to 30,000— 40,000 by the mid-fourteenth century.⁸⁷ Philip IV (1285—1314) of France issued 15,000 per year, while estimates from the French chancery in the 1330s suggest 20,000 letters issued annually under the great seal and 15,000 under the secret. Another change took place at around the same time in the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries in most countries: the language of the letters changed from Latin to the vernacular, indicating both the greater importance of the national language and an increase in the number of people to whom the royal letters were addressed.

The output from the chanceries continued to increase manifold during the fol­lowing centuries, corresponding to the increase in the bureaucracy and the inter­ference by the central governments in the life of their subjects: legislation, judicial decisions, taxation, and so forth.

As all letters had to be written by hand, this evidently led to an increase in the number of scribes. It also led to routinization. From the early Middle Ages, letters were issued according to standard formulas and a number of cases were decided according to precedent and routine. Although most of the men recruited to the royal service for these purposes had little political influence and little hope of advancing to important offices, the necessity of delegation did not stop at purely routine matters. Eventually, the king was confronted with so many decisions that he had to delegate even important ones to others. The use of seals in the English chancery gives a glimpse of this development. Seals rather than signatures were used to authenticate documents in the Middle Ages. Originally, the seal was sup­posed to be attached to the document by the king himself or in his presence. The great seal was kept by the chancellor who became the leading royal minister in the later Middle Ages. The growth of business and the distance between the king and the chancery in England meant that the king could no longer supervise what was sealed by the great seal. Instead, he used the smaller privy seal to give direction to the chancellor and for matters directly relating to the king. Eventually, a special keeper of this seal was also appointed, the keeper of the privy seal, and the same happened with this as with the great seal; it became divorced from the king in person. In the sixteenth century, the king had one or two private secretaries who kept his signet. Documents issued by the king in person were signed by the king’s own hand, countersigned by the secretary with the signet and passed on for further sealing with the privy seal or great seal or both. Only documents signed in this way were recognized as authentic royal documents.

This of course placed a heavy responsibility on the royal ministers and gave rise to the doctrine of ministerial responsibility, which assumed great importance under later parliamentary rule. In contemporary monarchies, of course, it is obvious that what is issued in the king’s name is actually the work of his ministers. At the time when the king in person still had governing power, it was normal practice that he could not directly be made to answer for his decisions, but that his ministers were responsible. Thus, the minister would have to resign to avoid punishment for a decision with which he disagreed or feared would lead to accusations from Parlia­ment. No formal system like this existed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but attacks against royal ministers were an important instrument for oppositional Parliaments, notably under Charles I. It is also easy to see that the idea of mon­archy as an institution was not only developed by lawyers and philosophers but is the result of the practical experience of the royal bureaucracy and government.

The actual influence of kings on government varied greatly, depending on the country as well as the skills, interest and character of individual kings. Some kings might decide on a remarkable number of cases as late as in the eighteenth century, whereas others left most decisions to their ministers. According to contemporary opinion, the king was not supposed to be a specialist; he should rely on expert opinion on law and finance, eventually also on military matters, although he was usually more involved in the latter; kings might lead their armies in the field as late as in the early nineteenth century. Nevertheless, the growth of bureaucracy did not generally reduce the importance of the king in person. He was still responsible for the main decisions, on war and peace, alliances and the main lines in internal policy. As we shall see, there is much to indicate that the king’s skill was crucial for the success or failure of a country. Admittedly, an excellent first minister might have the same effect but the problem was that he could only rule as long as he had the king’s confidence, which meant that he might easily be replaced by someone less competent.

The pressure of business, illustrated by the increasing number of letters and charters emanating from the royal chancery, evidently increased the number of people in the king’s administration. In recruiting these people, various considera­tions had to be taken into account. On the lower level, the most important was to recruit qualified people who could write quickly and correctly, knew Latin or other useful languages and had some knowledge of law and administration. On the higher level, political considerations became more prominent. The King's Mirror puts it in this way: people who have no wealth and position in society will be more loyal to the king, because they only depend on his favour.⁸⁸ On the other hand — as the author is also aware of — such people may easily cause resentment, while in addition, a good relationship with the leading men in the country is necessary and the king can hardly rule without their advice. The balance between these considerations varied from country to country and from king to king. In some cases, as under Philip IV of France, the inner circle consisted of men of low rank, whereas the members of the top aristocracy were also consulted but more rarely.⁸⁹ A frequent solution was to use clerics, often high-ranking ones who might nevertheless come from a fairly humble background. This had the further advantage that their ecclesiastical benefices could serve as salaries. In addition, kings sought advice from the leading men in the country, formally or informally. Although the rules about consent were mostly vague, the king would be subject to criticism and risk rebellion if he consistently acted without con­sulting important people.⁹⁰

There are many examples of prominent first ministers, many of them clerics, who often seem to have been the real rulers of a country, such as Cardinal Wolsey under Henry VIII of England and Cardinal Richelieu under Louis XIII of France. An alternative practice was to use a number of high officials with responsibility for particular fields, either the five traditional offices or some other kind of division. This was practised by Elizabeth of England and Louis XIV of France, in Denmark and Sweden and later in Prussia and eventually developed into the modern cabinet.