De lance en quenouille. La place de la reine dans l'État moderne (XIVe-XVIIe siècles)

摘要

"De lance en quenouille": The Place of the French Queen in the Modern State (14th-17th centuries). F. Cosandey. Although the role of the queen has always been acknowledged in French historiography, few studies have examined the specific judicial and historical circumstances that established the queen as an essential person in the institutional history of the Ancien Régime. Following a chronological perspective imposed by the successive threats to succession beginning of the fourteenth century, this article examines how these crises led to a redefinition of the legal statute for the queen. Jurists, wanting to stabilize the lines of succession, formed a specific law, known as the Salic law, that prohibited women from rule; however, the laws devised for governing the regency, specifically the ordinance of 1407, paradoxically integrated the queen to the center of power. The ordinance of 1407, often misunderstood by historians, emerges as one of the key documents because it establishes the role of the queen in the monarchical system by linking the Salic law to the Regency. The Salic law prohibited direct succession and thus assured women could not usurp the throne; the ordinance of 1407 demonstrates the women could weld power and were therefore essential to the functioning of the monarchical system. Specifically, the queen assured passage of power from one king to another while simultaneously assuring the continuity of the dynasty.