The Origins of French Centralisation

France is famous for having a heavily centralised and big state with a huge buerocracy. In many ways France invented the modern buerocratic state. In this video, a collaboration with my friend @RavignonCh we try to tell the story of how the centralised french state came to be.

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[CivilWarWeekByWeek]

You know this video is made with love because its a German speaker talking about buerocracy

[Dadscap]

11:59 & 12:08

The fact Louis XIV tried to establish a French church was such an important point Kraut repeated it TWICE to REALLY bring it home!

Brilliant!

[Clapbox]

Now you know: when there are protests or riots in France, it means that the system is working as intended

[pomtubes]

"an apathetic society, with such an enormous state, could look very different" is the defining difference

[letefte]

As someone who is studying French Law, I can say that the constantly changing and evolving bureaucracy is doing severe damage to my grades.

[knpark]

In Seoul the Gyeongbok Palace looks quite massive for the country it was meant to serve. Namely it is too big to fit in just the King's residence and the seat of the royal court, in context of the country Joseon's relatively small size. Rather, it was meant to contain most of central government organizations within its structures. Put simply, the Gyeongbok Palace was built by Confucian ideology to be the place where the King and his government do their job of ruling the whole country. And for the first half of Joseon Dynasty's duration it was the seat of the entire central government with all officials and bureaucrats commuting to and from it. Joseon's central government sent hand-picked governors from Hanyang (modern Seoul) to each provinces when Japan was ruled by feudal Daimyos. When Toyotomi Hideyoshi invaded Korea he delegated his war to a collection of his most loyal feudal lords, but Yi Sun Shin was a hand-picked general sent from the northern frontier all the way to the southern shores of Joseon by King Seonjo's direct orders.

Korea copied a lot of its homework from Chinese government over the history, and copying a Byzantine bureaucracy from a country that is a couple orders of magnitude bigger than itself meant that Joseon ended up with a central bureaucracy that is both grossly oversized for the country's size, but way ahead of its time in the level of micromanagement because of it. The government in Hanyang published one of the earliest newspaper on recorded history. It was to distribute policy decisions and current events, it was in hand-written and hand-copied form, and it was distributed to all corners of the country in days. Its official court record "Sillok" is just as large as its Chinese equivalent, meaning that the Korean Sillok is far denser in its detail, with a lot of micromanagement on its local governors recorded in its contents. There is even a different journal other than the royal court's one, and this collection of archived documents, Seungjeongwon Ilgi, was kept by the centeal bureaucracy and it is several times bigger than the Sillok itself. It is so big, it is still not fully translated into modern Korean yet. Germany is famous for its obsession to bureaucracy, but we Koreans secretly joke of ourselves as being obsessed with everything that has to do with archives. Something had to fill all those empty archives, and it was filled well by Korean bureaucrats.

Now, after a tradition of massive centralized bureaucracy for more than six centuries, Seoul and its surrounding metropolitan region accounts for half of South Korea's population, and more than half of its economy. Seoul and its satellite cities have virtually everything you can find in this country, and things are seldom exclusive to other regional cities. "This (country) is Republic of Seoul" is a well-spoken term to describe (and sometimes lament) South Korea's super-high centralization. *If the history and size of a country's bureaucracy impacts the level of concentration at the country's capital region, then it neatly explains why modern Seoul is practically South Korea itself.*

[In_Our_Timeline]

“Rulers who destroy men's freedom commonly begin by trying to retain its forms. ... They cherish the illusion that they can combine the prerogatives of absolute power with the moral authority that comes from popular assent.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville,

[panklo]

Although completely different circumstances, this reminds me of the effect Athens has on Greece. Half the country's population in one place, with all the ministries and administration, basically sucking the life out of the rest of the country. Outside of the 2 major cities, Crete and (maybe) the south-eastern islands, the rest of Greece is empty because everyone left and the people who remained don't have children.

[ChrisCleg]

I feel like you forgot include the economic rent seeking behavior that characterized the feudal relationship between lords and peasants.

[YaroTheCutest]

The sutble shift from the French flag to the Russian flag while referencing societies and state gave me tingles

[FredoRockwell]

This video made me realize that my European History high school class (which was an entire year and was excellent in many ways) just assumed the rise of the centralized nation-state was just an inevitable thing, the causes of which didn't need exploring or explaining.

Or, as this was in the US, perhaps no one wanted to give any credit to the French!

Great video - thank you!

[LivingIronicallyinEurope]

It's commendable that you're trying to evolve & improve your art style, & I can see what you were going for, but I don't think it works that well for your video. The art in the first half is maybe too abstract & it's not very pleasant to look at.

[cathakjordi]

I very much disagree with the statement that the french noble casualties in Agincourt would be such a significative point in the French centralization process. Apart from the fact that only nobles from one particular faction of the French civil war (the 'Armagnacs') were involved is one factor that must be taken in account... and in any case the captured and killed nobles in the battle is still nothing truly significant compared to a lot other factors. If you follow a decent and extensive enough history of the 100 years war (say, Lord Sumption's), in fact Agincourt did not have as much signifcance in this particular regard as it had with Poitiers. In fact, you have years later Verneuil which was a victory just as devastating as Agincourt (and in many ways just as decisive) and you can see that not only does not stop the power of the noblity and the noble parties of the moment, but in a way it exacerbates it. If you consider French the nobles in the Burgundian or the semi independent side of things (like the Bretons or the Gascons) in fact this victory actually inforces regional nobility away from the French crown. In fact the French civil war that Henry V capitalized on to invade France killed way more key nobles than Henry V could ever aspire to off in a pair of battles.

If I had to single out a *truly* significative millstone for this process first it should be the reign of Philip IV ('le Bel' or more significately 'le roi de fer') both the use of low nobility in his govern and his incorporation of upper Navarre, and the final stages of the Albigesian crusade helped to neutralize in a very significative way a key sector of independent enough nobility in Southern France, a part of this country that might very well could have gone apart on its own under other circunstances (for a start, considering it had a different language back then). The neutralization of both regional powers *and* nobility in this reign is basically unprecedented, That and indeed his confrontation with the Papacy that would detooth major religious interference in French policiy for generations (and would never actually recover fully, this is actually the main precedent and historical base for gallicanism). After this, from the 100 years war it's not Agincourt what really marks the thrust for centralization of the power in the Crown's hand, but Poitiers and the Black Prince and Duke of Lancasters 'cheuvachees', the ransoms to be paid for the king and other nobles after Poitiers and the utter devastations of these military operations that could be considered crimes of war even in their own time period was what truly made the French regional parlaments to agree to the raising of semipermanent great new taxes (the 'Taille' and others) that the reign of Charles V would actually turn permanent 'de facto' and truly give the basis for a start of true centralization in France. As you can see, Agincourt and the noble casualties in it have very very little to do with it.

Even then, this is the start of the process. The fight to supress the Burgundians would take several generations (and be inherited by the Habsburgs), and as far as the later wars of religion and then the Fronde with Louis XIV you still have the process ongoing (and then indeed I agree with you that the court politics was indeed one of the key factors and solutions of the monarchy against the regions and the surviving nobles). Funny enough it would be actually the First Republic the government to really rip out the full benefits of the culmination of this centralization process, even more than the Sun King himself.

[leobibi]

The comparison with the US talks lore about France versus USA rather than the difference between a decentralised state and a centralized one. Switzerland can be considered to have the same perks as the ones listed for France (efficient railway network, walkable cities, great healthcare and almost free universities) whilst having a very decentralised state.

One could say France and Switzerland have a population difference of one order of magnitude but the same is true vis-à-vis France and the US.

[tibsky]

The factor Agincourt is quite overestimated. The roots of nobility was powerful in France, and they were numerous enough. The nobles dead at the battle still had children, and big heritage behind them. This somewhat crippled the kingdom for a short while at this moment, but was quickly recovered afterward. In fact, the effects of the civil war between Armagnacs and Burgundians were more devastating for nobles at this point than the battle itself.
Even after HYW, The Kings of France still had struggle establishing their authorities with Feudal lords. Louis XIV had to face a big revolt of many lords in France as a child ("Les Frondes" 1648-1653), hence his wish to control them after this trauma.

[Inaki]

Here in Spain have a similar problem with Madrid: It sucks all the resources of the rest of the country, specially both Castilles. Barcelona, Valencia and Seville stands up as a sort of secondary powerhouses, being Barcelona the most powerful of the three at competing with Madrid.

Railroad system in Spain is also centralized around Madrid: Many important ways go through Madrid.

[RavignonCh]

Can't believe we released a flying object in the first three days of the month.

[hothoploink]

Small nitpick: At Agincourt the french didn't ride in on horseback, they'd already learnt that lesson at Crecy, only a small force fought on horseback.

[marktaylor]

1. Crecy was where 'The Flower of France' comment came from. The process by which the old medieval French army was replaced by an early modern one was as long as The Hundred Years War.
2. The other great impact of Hundred Years War was gunpowder. You cannot overstate the importance of gunpowder. It gave the centralised state the means to enforce its authority.

[KnowHistory]

As I am currently working on a study on various romance languages throughout time, seeing a video about the same topic from you being recommended was probably the best thing that happened to me today