3.3.1 Serfdom: Decline, Persistency and an Anachronistic Édit Royal
Starting from the 13th century, French serfs started to be individually and collectively enfranchised at a faster pace. There are many reasons for this evolution. Economic conditions slowly started to improve from the 11th century onwards as the countryside gradually became more peaceful and agricultural production increased.
Likewise, the founding of cities attracted many new settlers, who were often freed from their servile bonds if they became citizens of the city or resided there for a certain duration. And even on the countryside, many serfs were freed as they succeeded in becoming wage labourers, or when the lord freed them in order to evade them from flocking to the cities.73Legally speaking, serfdom did not disappear completely from France until the French Revolution. Whilst there were almost no more serfs in the area of Paris, Toulouse and Bretagne at the end of the Middle Ages, it lingered on for three more centuries in other parts of the kingdom, notably in the east of France.74 Personal servitude was only abolished by an edict of the King in 1779, and any other kind of servile dues were abolished by the French revolutionaries in 1789.75
It is with this context in mind that we must look at the ordonnance of 3 July 1315 of Louis X. In the sixteenth century, Jean Bodin (1530–1596) believed that this ordonnance was responsible for setting all French slaves free.76 Likewise, it was one of the arguments used in the eighteenth century cause célèbre slavery case of Jean Boucaux v. Verdelin.77 Even up to today, a great many scholars mention 1315 as the year in which slavery was abolished in France.78 At first hand, one would be inclined to acknowledge this claim, as the ordonnance, in its preambles, said that:
Comme selon le droit de nature chacun doit naître franc […] notre Royaume est dit & nommé le Royaume des Francs & voulant la chose en vérité soit accordant au nom.79
However, notwithstanding these strong terms, the ordonnance really only had a very limited scope. First, the ordonnance did not say anything about slaves, and explicitly mentioned that it was applicable to persons “en lien de servitude”, which were serfs.
Second, the king did not just give freedom out of magnanimity, reminding that enfranchisement could only happen at “bonnes et convenables conditions”. Finally, by explicitly saying that he hoped that other feudal lords in the Kingdom would follow his example, it was clear that the ordonnance was only meant to be applicable to those areas of France which were part of the royal domain.80Marc Bloch devoted a whole book to this statute (and a comparable ordonnance of 1318). According to Bloch, the reason for its promulgation was certainly not the principled opposition of the French king to serfdom, but rather an attempt to raise money to fund the wars between the French king and the rebellious County of Flanders. Previous appeals to raise extraordinary taxes were staunchly opposed, and as a result, the king turned towards enfranchising rich serfs to collect the necessary funds for his war effort.81 Bloch’s conclusion was equally clear. The 1315 act is not spectacular at all, since the freeing of serfs to raise revenue was a practise used by the French kings well before and after this attempt. This particular attempt only applied to a small part of the royal domain, and it was executed so unsuccessfully that a 1318 ordonnance was made to try and remediate this.
In short, the only remarkable thing about the act was the eloquent wordings of its preambles. This could easily lead to an overestimation of the very limited goals of the substantive clauses.82
Serfdom continued to be an existing though declining institution right until the end of Ancien Régime France, and the famous 1315 act of Louis X enfranchised hardly any serfs, and no slaves at all. Though it certainly gained a mythical meaning afterwards, as is visible from Bodin’s work, it does not explain the origins of the French freedom principle.