Abstract
The integration of Bas-Languedoc into the kingdom of France through the war of conquest in the early thirteenth century has been considered as an important step in the process of expansion of the royal governance.
The records of the enqueteurs dispatched by Louis IX to receive the grievances and petitions of local inhabitants and local seigneurs against the crown can serve as a rich mine of information to examine and describe the nature of the royal governance in this region at the village level.
Focusing on Biterrois, where the records are amply extant, this paper aims to reconstruct the royal territorial governance practiced at the village level and to elucidate the relationship between the crown and the village communities.
During the progress of the war, the crown located the center of governance in the city of Beziers, and secured selectively as intermediary strongholds a few villages of military and economic importance by taking into consideration the size and location of the villages and the state (expulsion or subsistence) of the seigneurs who held them. In this way, the original drawing of the governance map under Louis IX was produced.
After the war, the crown proceeded to establish the local governmental institution and continued to strengthen the territoriality by taking over the rights and properties of some eliminated seigneurs or by encroaching upon those of some who persisted on their land.
Meanwhile, in an everyday practice of governance, the crown developed selectively a favorable relationship with particular villages which could not be politically ignored in terms of their size of population and their military or economic importance, in order to embed itself within the local society and to secure smoothness and effectiveness of governance.
