Aristocratic involvement in Charles VI’s royal progress in Languedoc, 1389–90

Abstract

Abstract While ceremonial progresses and civic entries have been understood primarily through the lens of urban–royal relationships, they were also occasions for the political engagement of the rural elite. A case study of the homages performed by southern French lords to King Charles VI shows that the landed aristocracy was integral to the royal agenda. It also offers an innovative spatial approach to analysing their agency in this process, which reinforced their own authority and social interests. The reciprocity of this interaction attests the deliberate incorporation of local lordship into the co-operative structures of late medieval government.