Government began in the household
In the early Middle Ages there was little that resembled a ministry or civil service. A king’s government was largely his household: the men and women who lived with him, fed him, looked after his horses and treasure, and advised him. The same people who served at his table or kept his chamber might also carry messages, command troops or collect revenue. Offices with names like steward, chamberlain, marshal and constable began as household jobs and gradually acquired public functions.
The royal household moved with the king. A court that traveled from place to place could govern directly, by being present, and it could consume the produce of royal estates on the spot. This itinerant style is described further in the article on the English crown. As realms grew larger and business increased, rulers needed officials who could act in their absence.
Clerks, writing and the chancery
Writing made much of the change. Early medieval rulers relied on clergy, because clerics were among the few people who could read and write Latin. They served as chaplains and secretaries, and the group of clerks who drafted and sealed royal documents grew into a chancery, headed by a chancellor. The chancellor was often a senior churchman, which linked church and crown.
A chancery issued several kinds of documents.
- Charters granting land or privileges, which served as lasting proof of the grant.
- Writs, short written orders to officials, such as a sheriff, telling them to do something.
- Letters to other rulers, the pope and subjects.
Seals authenticated these documents. In the central Middle Ages, record-keeping became more systematic: copies of outgoing documents were enrolled on parchment rolls, so that the government could check what had been promised or ordered. Rulers used letters and messengers to transmit instructions across the realm, and the speed and reliability of that traffic limited what government could do.
Money and the exchequer
Governments needed income. Medieval rulers drew revenue from royal lands, feudal dues, court fines, customs on trade, income from towns and, increasingly, taxes. Tracking this required accountants and treasurers.
In England, a department known as the Exchequer took shape in the twelfth century. Sheriffs, the king’s local agents, came twice a year to account for the money they had collected, with the sums reckoned on a checkered cloth, which gave the office its name. A treatise from the period, the Dialogue of the Exchequer, describes how it worked. Annual records of these accounts, called pipe rolls, survive for many years and are valuable historical sources. The great land survey of 1086 known as the Domesday survey shows an earlier attempt to gather information for taxation and control.
In France, kings built up their own network of officers in the thirteenth century, with royal agents such as baillis and seneschals supervising local areas, a development often associated with Philip II Augustus and his successors. Other kingdoms, including the Norman kingdom of Sicily and the papal court, also developed sophisticated administrations, and rulers sometimes borrowed ideas from each other.
Local officials
Because the king could not be everywhere, a layer of local officers enforced royal wishes. Sheriffs in England collected revenue, ran the county court and kept order. Counts and viscounts in the Frankish world had similar duties, though many of them eventually turned their offices into hereditary family possessions, which weakened royal control. Preventing that outcome was an ongoing task. Kings tried to appoint men dependent on them, to move them, to send out inspectors and to hold them to account.
Complaints about corrupt or overbearing officials appear throughout the period. Magna Carta contains clauses about sheriffs and bailiffs, which shows the problem was well recognized.
Councils and assemblies
Kings consulted counselors. A council might include household officers, bishops, barons and legal experts. It advised on policy, heard petitions and acted as a court. In a larger sense, kings also summoned great assemblies of nobles and clergy, and in the later Middle Ages sometimes representatives of towns and counties. These assemblies, which developed into bodies such as the English Parliament and the French Estates General, helped rulers obtain consent for taxes and gave subjects a way to voice grievances.
How much real power such bodies had varied greatly. In some places, kings used them as a tool; in others, they became places where nobles and townspeople resisted royal demands. The difference depended on the balance of strength between the crown and its subjects.
From household to bureaucracy
Historians use the word bureaucracy cautiously for the Middle Ages. The system lacked many modern features: there was no clear separation of public and private, offices could be sold or inherited, and loyalty to a patron mattered as much as rules. Still, over time some trends are visible.
- Specialization. Distinct departments appeared for finance, writing and justice.
- Permanence. Offices came to have a fixed home, such as Westminster or Paris, and records were stored there.
- Professionalization. Clerks and lawyers, often educated at universities, took on administrative roles. The article on monasteries and schools in the development of learning gives context for where many of them were trained.
- Record-keeping. Written records allowed continuity beyond a single reign.
Changes like these made it possible for rulers to collect heavier taxes and enforce policies more widely, which was one reason that royal power tended to grow in the later Middle Ages. They also created expenses and new targets of resentment, as seen in revolts over taxes. The credit and money arrangements that supported royal finance, including loans from merchants and bankers, are a related theme.
Limits of medieval administration
Even so, medieval governments were thin by modern standards. Communication was slow, officials were few, and much depended on cooperation from local elites. The nobles’ households, with their own stewards and clerks, mirrored the royal one in miniature. A king’s reach was always partial, and the government’s success rested on a mix of paperwork, personal ties and persuasion.