The Armagnac faction: New patterns of political violence in late medieval France (Bernard VII, Count of Armagnac, Charles VI, King of France)

This dissertation examines the formation of political factions in France during the reign of Charles VI. I examine these political divisions, and the resulting violent struggles, not as aberrations but as parts of the emerging system of late medieval and early modern politics. My research shows that through factionalization different social groups were able to integrate local conflicts into a single system of national contestation, and that this praxis preserved a traditional set of hierarchical relationships during a period of massive economic dislocation.; In order to analyze this new pattern of politics and violence, I focus on the clientele and alliances of Bernard VII, count of Armagnac, and demonstrate how elites from the traditionally autonomous and politically fragmented regions of Languedoc and Gascony became embroiled in the War of the Armagnacs and Burgundians. My study treats factionalization as a "total" social phenomenon: I examine the evolution of Armagnac seigneurial and comital powers, the interaction between the "national" civil war and the pre-existing tensions and disputes within southern France, the Armagnacs' organization and use of violence, and the interpenetration of faction and the royal government.; The construction of new political networks that connected the intrigues within the royal council to struggles in distant and hereto isolated communities was part of an effort to control the crown's capacity for legitimation and the transfer of income in the form of taxes and wages. Many relationships that constituted the faction were not initiated by the count, but by relatively humble groups, such as peasants and artisans, as well as local elites, such as members of the middle nobility and urban consulates, who used bonds with social superiors to organize violence against local opponents and to secure military, financial and legal support from distant adherents of the same faction. Cooperation within factions was based not on traditional feudal bonds, but on new forms of voluntary association and service. In some key cases, mutual support was secured by strategic marriages and formal alliances, but more typically adherence to a faction involved simply the adoption of "nationally" recognized symbols and party labels.