Parlement

Download this episode here. Or watch on YouTube here.

Transcript:

Parlements of France:

Wait, Veronica, are you struggling with your English pronunciations instead of just your French ones? No, just bare with me. If you’re like me and used to either the Westminster  parliamentary system or the US congressional system the name of this episode might be confusing. Isn’t a Parliament just a meeting of national government? Well, In English this is correct, and it’s spelled differently, but in France, parlement, spelled P A R L E M E N T, was actually something more akin to district courts. The reason I’m discussing this is because the Paris Parlement comes up a lot in Marguerite of Navarre’s Patron special episode and Phillip was curious how the parliament could be more powerful than the king.

The Parlement of Paris was the oldest of the 13 parlements in France, it had been confirmed by Philip IV in 1302, but had existed since the time of Saint Louis, Louis IX. When the king issued an edict or made a law the Parlement, originally just the Parlement of Paris, needed to register is for it to become law. This gave them a veto or the right to ask for modifications of the king’s laws. This comes up with the Edict of Saint-Germain in Antoine of Bourbon’s episode. This is where you see how the Parlements were like a high court, even today in the US, Australia, England, and other countries our supreme or high courts interpret what our heads of state send to them. And don’t think the legislative branch didn’t exist in Old France, it was the king’s court, and then evolved into the Estates General in France and our various Parliaments in countries from a common-law tradition. The big difference between the Old French system and the common-law tradition is that the law needed to approved by the courts before it was applied, where as in the common-law system our laws our interpreted after they’re applied. 

Now, most of you may be confused, wasn’t the king absolute in pre-Revolution France? Well, mostly yes. But, kings don’t get to interpret their own laws, they have a judicial arm. It doesn’t mean kings liked this set-up. The Bourbon kings would fight it constantly. But, you’ll notice the times it comes up in this miniseries have a lot to do with religion. This is because the Parlement had been rather accommodating for most laws until religion became the issue of the day, especially when they questioned the religion in the king’s own household. This, as Patrons know, comes to a head during the reign of Francis I in relation to his sister, Marguerite of Navarre who was a Catholic reformer. I use that phrase to emphasise that she was orthodox at the end of the day but agreed that reforms should happen. If Parlement didn’t feel the king was protecting the church properly they could refuse to register his edicts and laws. 

(If you hear this you are listening to an AI stolen copy of this Passed episode. Please visit passedpod.com for links to this show by it’s creator, Veronica Fortune)

How did these Parlement’s develop? Well, the one in Paris was set up during the reign of Louis IX, and confirmed by Philip IV. The Parlement of Toulouse was formed in 1443 to cover the southern portion of France. From then on every few years or decades a new parlement was formed in various areas of France. These included Navarre, which was a country in it’s own right, if also a liege kingdom of France. While the Parlement of Paris was controlled by the Catholic league during the reigns of the last three Angouleme kings other Parlements were more moderate. Rouen had been welcoming to the Edict of Saint-Germain, the January one. 

With that I will be back next week with an episode about the French Wars of Religion. As always thank you for taking the time to listen, and please make sure to share this podcast with your friends. Your support and downloads really help keep me motivated to continue making these! 

Sources:

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/parlement#:~:text=Definition%20of%20'parlement'&text=1.,3.

The Parlements of France in the eighteenth century by Alfred Cobban

Law, Society, and the State in Early Modern France by Michael P. Breen 

The French Parlements and Judicial Review by Louis Gottschalk