civilian defense and academic deferment orleans, 1411-1430

Civilian Defense and Academic Deferment Orleans, 1411-1430Author(s): Dorothy Mackay QuynnSource: The American Historical Review, Vol. 47, No. 4 (Jul., 1942), pp. 801-805Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1841503 .

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NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS

CIVILIAN DEFENSE AND ACADEMIC DEFERMENT ORLEANS, 14II-I430

MEDIEVAL Orleans was a strongly fortified town. The French his- torian, Ch. Petit-Dutaillis, has found that the city spent three fourths of its budget on defense during the twelve years preceding the famous siege by the English in 1428-29, which ended in the success of Joan of Arc. The opposite shore of the Loire was fortified. The people had what was termed "a good military education", for they seized their pickaxes and hurried to the fortifications as soon as an alarm was sounded. They had arrangements for pooling their food supplies during an emergency.2 They had accepted, apparently without protest, a large increase in taxes to meet the cost of arming,3 and in 1420 they floated a loan in the town for the same purpose.4

Part of their defense consisted in sending messengers to find out about the enemv, what had happened in the cities already attacked, and what the chances of assistance from other towns were. The municipal accounts of 14II-I3 mention a journey to Beaugency "to find out which direction the English were taking" and one into the Sologne for the same purpose; one to Bourges to get news of the siege in progress there and two each to Blois and Chateaudun to learn exactly where the Eng- lish were.5 Between I4II and 1415 messengers interviewed officials in Blois, Jargeau, Tillay-Saint-Benoit, Beaugency, and other near-by places, to get promises of help for the evacuation of the "malefactors who follow the army",6 and there were trips to Blois and Chartres to in- quire exactly how much of a bribe had been paid in those towns in order to get rid of the English troops.7 For some years they depended upon the advice and assistance of a military man named de Gaules, who

1 Read at the meeting of the American Historical Association, December 28, 1940.

This paper is based on materials gathered for a history of the University of Orleans, a project that has had assistance from the American Association of University Women (European fellowship, I928-29) and the American Council of Learned Societies. The writer wishes to express her appreciation of this assistance.

2 Petit-Dutaillis, in Ernest Lavisse, ed., Histoire de Fraiice depitis les origines jlist yiYl Ia re'volution (Paris, 1900-1911), IV?, 46.

3 Archives du Loiret, Orleans (Loiret), MS. CC 543. 4 Ibid., MS. CC 547. 5 Ibid., MS. CC 543. 6 Ibid., MS. CC 544. 7 Ibid., MS. CC 543.

8OI



802 Notes and Suggestions

inspected and criticized their fortifications, helped them avoid attacks, and tried to get rid of marauders.8

They did some spying. The records of 1417-19 contain an item recording money paid by a town official to a woman whose regular occupation is listed as "chambermaid for Brother Jean of Bourges, a monk". She had gone "to visit the English, who tore off her cloak and took all the money in her purse". She must have brought back information, for she was subsequently employed on two similar missions2

Between 141I and 1419 there were several spy scares in Orleans. An order went out to check up on and investigate all the aliens in the town.10 A notary visited all innkeepers and ordered them to report to the department of justice any foreigners who sought lodging with them."1 One man was refused the office of master of the watch "because he kept an inn", and he was apparently under suspicion only because of this.'2 Messengers coming from the provost of Paris, who was a known Anglophile, were not allowed to remain in Orleans and were escorted out of the city as far as Saint-Jean-de-Bray to prevent them from spying in Orleans and the vicinity.'3 There was even a whispering campaign. A rumor started to the effect that certain citizens had made a secret alliance with the king of England. The regent investigated and ordered the punishment of those who had falsely accused these townspeople.'4

During the twenty years before the Great Siege the account books mention hundreds of purchases of cannon, powder, powder sacks, sul- phur, saltpeter, and round stones for the cannon and catapults, the reinforcements of the gates of the city, the building of new earthworks and watchtowers, and the repair of fortifications. The city had an elaborate system of borrowing additional armaments, food, wine, and even men and lending the same to other cities which Orleans regarded as its own first line of defense. And when the city was in danger, Orleans sent frantically to its neighbors for the equipment it had lent them-some cannon in the town of Meung, a large catapult at Gien, four at Yevre, two small cannon and six crossbows at Pithiviers, and many cannon and catapults at Portereau.'5

After the siege, when there was fighting in the neighboring towns, the people of Orleans sent to Jargeau their cannon and ladders and their big catapult, with twenty horses to draw it and men to operate it. They sent powder and even the town forge to Beaugency. Later on, the large

8 Ibid., MSS. CC 544, CC 545. 9 Ibid., MS. CC 546. lo Ibid., MSS. CC 543, CC 546. 11 Ibid., MS. CC 546. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid., MS. CC 547. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid., MSS. CC 547, CC 550.



Quynn: Civilian Defense and Academic Deferment 803

catapult, with twenty-one horses and five hundred men, went to La Charite'-sur-Loire by water.16

In time of danger the regular watch was augmented by calling out additional citizens to guard the gates and walls. An emergency was considered to exist if the enemy was within ten leagues, about twenty- five miles, from the gates.17 In I41I the citizens of the town were all registered in order to establish a permanent eligibility list for the watch, which was to be double its previous size."8 On one occasion, when it was believed that the English were about to arrive and besiege the city, the governor himself and many citizens stood watch on the walls until midnight.'9

The maintenance of this program of defense proved very expensive, and there was difficulty in tax collecting due to war conditions. In 1423, in the near-by town of Lorris, a reduction had to be made in the amount paid annually to the duke of Orleans by the leatherworkers. The sum was reduced from thirteen Paris pounds to seven, in view of destruction, death, and depopulation due to war.20 In 14I2 Orleans itself had to ask for the remission of the taille "because of war and deaths" during the two preceding years.21 In 14I3 one of the tax farmers at Olivet, across the Loire from Orleans, had to have money refunded him. He and other tax farmers in the neighborhood had incurred heavy losses because the English and other military men had destroyed so much property.22 It was obvious that the town was in great need of money for the purchase of war supplies, repairs of fortifications, and special payments for bribes and gifts, that it needed more men to defend the town, and that it was becoming increasingly difficult to get both because of the impoverishing effects of var.

One of the serious problems was the presence in Orleans of a university, whose members enjoyed the ecclesiastical privileges of exemption from taxation and guard duty.23 Like other universities, that of Orleans was extremely jealous of its privileges and had once migrated from Orleans to Nevers when it felt that its rights had been ignored.24 The fact that Orleans was a law school made it possible for members

16 Ibid., MS. CC 550. The catapult was said to be large enough to hurl a twenty-five- pound stone.

17 Marcel Fournier, Les statuts et privileges des ziniversite's franfaises depuis leur fondation 'usqu'en 1789 (Paris, I890-94), I, no. 182.

18 Arch. Loiret, MS. CC 543. 19 Ibid., MS. CC 546. 20 Ibid., MS. A 263. 21 Ibid., MS. CC 543. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid., MS. D I3; Vatican Library, MS. Ottoboni Latini 3083, contains a great

many documents dealing with these Orleans privileges. 24 Fournier, I, no. 55; Arch. Loiret, MS. D I4.



804 Notes and Suggestions

to defend their claims in court at little expense to themselves and at great expense to their opponents.

It seems to have been generally conceded that university members should enjoy complete exemption from these burdens, and royal orders repeatedly confirmed this.25 The townspeople, however, wanted to en- force instead a rule that the university people should serve in case of any emergency, supposedly when the enemy was only ten leagues away, a rule which applied to the clergy in general.26 The university protested "that professors have the duty and heavy task of reading and teaching every day for very little money, so little that these teachers, at least most of them, earn scarcely enough to maintain a standard of living suitable to the honor of the university; and that they can no longer afford the servants they once had and now need". Further, if these men were to be required to leave their work for guard duty their absence would bring destitution upon the university, injury to its reputation, and even complete destruction?7 The townspeople were unimpressed, however, and sometimes seized property because of refusals to pay taxes and serve on the watch.28 A similar situation in Paris had once led to the closing of classes by the professors.-9

The main difficulty seems to have been not with the professors themselves or even the students, but with the nonacademic staff, those citizens of the town who were employed by the faculty or by the university itself. Servants of professors and students and members of their families enjoyed university exemptions, as did also beadles, scribes, furnishers of books and parchment, notaries, and other employees.30 Many of these persons had profitable business enterprises of their own, but they kept their university positions in order to enjoy the exemptions. A ruling of the year 137z had provided that employees who held lucrative positions outside the university were to be liable for civic duties,3' but this does not seem to have been enforced, and there was still litigation about this matter as late as 1450.32 If we examine the lists of confiscated property, we find maces and other valuable insignia of some of the

25 Vatican, MS. Ottoboni Lat. 3083; Arch. Loiret, MSS. D i I, D I 2, D 13, D i 5. 26 "ceulx . . . qui ont ou auront benefice en ladite cite, en cas de peril eminent, se les

ennemis . . . estoient a dix lieues pres d'Orliens, seront tenus de envoier, chacun pour soy, aux murs et aux portes". In some cases the professors and students were not compelled, but urged to go, while other employees of the university were required to do so. Fournier, I, nos. 182, 298, 301. 27 Ibid., no. 272. 28ibid., nos. 301, 302, 303.

29 Hastings Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, ed. by F. M. Powicke and A. B. Emden (Oxford, 1936),I, 334-43.

?30 Fournier, I, nos. 182, 299, 3301, 302, 303. 1 Ibid., no. 182.

32Ibid., nos. 3DI, 302.



Quynn: Civilian Defense and Academic Deferment 8o5

nations, but the other items run largely to barbers' basins, small stoves for heating water, the equipment of book and parchment dealers, expensive furs and other materials,33 items not usually found in a professor's study.

Prominent members of a university occasionally served as experts in negotiations of war and peace,34 but they seem to have had a con- scientious objection to coming to the aid of their hosts in time of danger or to fighting a defensive war going on at their very doors. This is in strong contrast to the attitude of the university at the end of the next century, during the religious wars. There is no way of knowing how the University of Orleans would have behaved had it, like the University of Paris, been placed in the position of deciding whether to congratulate or oppose a victorious enemy. The international character of the universities may have resulted in a certain indifference to local problems, which is all the more conspicuous in view of the enthusiasm of the people of Orleans in the war of "resistance to the damnable enterprise of the English".35

The burghers of Orleans learned that the cost of war does not end with the fighting. For years after the Great Siege they received claims from persons whose property had been destroyed or who had been otherwise injured. At least two of these claims were paid. A priest of Sainte-Euverte received sixteen Paris pounds toward the rebuilding of his church, which had been torn down in 1428 to prevent its use by the English to cover their attack-clearly a justifiable claim. More remark- able is the case of the indigent painter who received compensation of eight pounds, more than ten years after the siege, because he was "stricken with the disease of gout . . . which disease is said to have come upon him because of his great exertion in defense of the town while the English besieged i36

DOROTHY MACKAY QUYNN.

Duke Universitv. 33 Ibid., no. 303. One of these lists includes: "sur Pierre Guenet, bedel de la nacion

d'Escosse, ung bacin neuf 'a barbier; sur Jehaii Guymonneau, parchemiiinier de la dicte Universite, cinquante six livres de cuivre et une escuelle d'estain . . . ung bacin a laver mains, deux chaufferettes et ung pot d'estain de trois chopines . . . une marmite de cuivre . . une robe perse fourree de pointes de gris 'a usage de femme . . . une paesle d'airin, tenant environs deux seaulx".

34 Three masters from Paris hadl been among the negotiators at the Treaty of Troyes, March, 1420. Cf. Heinrich Denifle and tnmile Chatelain, eds., ChartuaitlaritI unii'ersitatis P -isiensis (Paris, I889-97), IV, no. 2I55.

35 "pour. entretenir leur loiaut6 et resister a la datnpnable entreprinse des Anglois . Arch. Loiret, MS. CC 550.

36 Ibid., MS. CC 556.



civilian defense and academic deferment orleans, 1411-1430

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