カペー朝末期のノルマンディにおける王権と都市 : 都市ルーアンの商業特権と紛争解決をめぐって

抄録

One of the most important rights of kingship in medieval France with regard to regional control was the exercise of jurisdiction. The aim of the present article is to clarify how the attitudes toward and intervention by kings regarding the settlement of disputes changed during the late medieval period, a time which saw the royal exercise of jurisdiction develop by leaps and bounds. Within the lively debate that has arised of late on the subject of dispute settlement, it has been found that in France from the last half of the 13th century on, the frequent tendency to settle disputes out of court by mediation, reconciliation, etc. became dominated by settlements adjudicated in the king's court. Therefore, one clue to further clarifying the role of kingship in dispute settlement would be to better understand the actual situation surrounding the king's efforts to administer the provincial society. In this article, the author focuses on disputes that arose over privileges granted to merchants by the city of Rouen, as one instance of how the Capetians ruled over regional society by settling legal disputes there. He concludes that in the early stage of royal intervention in dispute settlement, prior customs, practices and privileges were given priority; however, during the 1270s, emphasis came to be placed on royal approval and the interests of the king, meaning that the king's will tended to take precedence over traditional rights and customs. Then at the turn of the 14th century, a new aspect of settlement dispute by the king was introduced in the form of "the public interest," which resulted in the elimination of Rouen's right to grant commercial privileges. Although the element of "public interest" in the process of adjudication took into consideration the demands of a wide spectrum of persons, one can assume that it also included the king's prerogative. Therefore, the author argues, the king's arbitrary use of "public interest" in his settlement of disputes should be interpreted as one attempt to overcome regional custom, meaning that dispute settlement by the medieval French kings played an important role in crushing deep-rooted "regionalism" throughout their realms and establishing a centralized state.