In France the effect of the war was to strengthen the Crown as against the Nobility, a process developed by the subtlety of Louis XI.  Out of the long contest in which the diplomatic skill of the king was pitted against the fiery ambitions of Charles of Burgundy, Louis extracted for himself sundry Burgundian provinces.  The supremacy of the Crown was secured when his son Charles VIII. acquired Brittany by marrying the Duchess Anne.

The essential distinction of ranks in France was found in the possession of land.  Besides the National lands, there were lands reserved to the Crown, which, under the name of benefices, were bestowed upon personal followers of the king, held more or less on military tenure; and the king’s vassals acquired vassals for themselves by a similar process of subinfeudation.  On the other hand freeholders inclined, for the sake of protection, to commend themselves, as the phrase was, to their stronger neighbours and so to assume the relation of vassal to liege lord.  The essential principle was a mutual contract of support and fidelity, confirmed by the ceremonies of homage, fealty, and investiture, which conferred upon the lord the right to various reliefs, fines, and rights capable of conversion into money payments.

Gentility, now hereditary, was derived from the tenure of land; the idea of it was emphasised by the adoption of surnames and armorial bearings.  A close aristocracy was created, somewhat modified by the right claimed by the king of creating nobles.  Prelates and abbots were in the same position as feudal nobles, though the duty of personal service was in many cases commuted for an equivalent.  Below the gentle class were freemen, and the remainder of the population were serfs or villeins.  It was not impossible for villeins to purchase freedom.  In France the privileges possessed by the vassals of the Crown were scarcely consistent with the sovereignty.  Such were the rights of coining money, of private war, and of immunity from taxation.

Such legislation as there was appears to have been effected by the king, supported by a Royal Council or a more general assembly of the barons.  It was only by degrees that the Royal ordinances came to be current in the fiefs of the greater vassals.  It was Philip the Fair who introduced the general assembly of the Three Estates.  This assembly very soon claimed the right of granting and refusing money as well as of bringing forward grievances.  The kings of France, however, sought to avoid convocation of the States General by obtaining grants from provincial assemblies of the Three Estates.

The old system of jurisdiction by elected officers was superseded by feudal jurisdiction, having three degrees of power, and acting according to recognised local customs, varied by the right to ordeal by combat.  The Crown began to encroach on these feudal jurisdictions by the establishment of Royal courts of appeal; but there also subsisted a supreme Court of Peers to whom were added the king’s household officers.  The peers ceased by degrees to attend this court, while the Crown multiplied the councillors of inferior rank; and this body became known as the Parliament of Paris—­in effect an assembly of lawyers.