The 1994 François Guizot Prize

The first Prix Guizot of the Calvados General Council was awarded to Jacques Krynen for his book:

L’empire du roi. Idées et croyances politiques en France, XIIIe-XIVe siècle [The King’s Empire: Political Ideas and Beliefs in France, 13th-14th Centuries]

In France, the last three centuries of the Middle Ages were marked by the construction of a monarchical state with absolutist leanings. But how was this decisive shift in power relations experienced in people’s minds?
One is struck by the abundance and diversity of the evidence of political consciousness. The guiding dogma of the king as “emperor in his kingdom” did not mean that successive monarchs could exercise their sway over a silent society. The opposite occurred. The vital forces of the kingdom never lacked spokesmen to support, accompany, criticise or oppose those in power. Through all manner of channels – treatises, speeches, sermons, grievances, a host of theoretical or occasional writings – rulers and ruled maintained a constant dialogue, the guarantee of an intellectual and moral consensus strong enough to ensure, willy-nilly, the country’s necessary cohesion.
It was in the political ideas and beliefs of the time, thus expressed, that the institutions of the state took root, that the crown came to be seen by all as an inalienable entity, the guardian of the community’s destiny, and that the French, who already proclaimed themselves free, grew accustomed to living under a monarchy quick to display its “Most Christian” and imperial stature.

© Source: Éditions Gallimard (publisher’s description)