PART III THE LINK WITH ROYAUTÉ
WE have seen that clerical theory accepted violence for right causes and
not for wrong—a distinction that is tricky to make at the best of times,
and especially so in an imperfect world. Kings and royal administrators, no less
than their counterparts in the clerical hierarchy, had mixed feelings about basic
issues of war, violence, and rightful authority. They had two goals: to move in
the direction of a working monopoly—or at least a royal supervision—of warlike
violence within their realm, and to maintain vigorous leadership of the
violence exported beyond the realm in the form of organized war. These royal
goals inevitably entailed a complex pattern of cooperation and conflict
between emerging kingship and emerging chivalry. Like powerful bar magnets
turning at different speeds in close proximity, chivalry and kingship now
drew each other together, now forced each other apart.
Yet on either side of the Channel—or at least within spheres dominated by
the Capetians and the Plantagenets—kingship was rooted in specific historical
circumstances and gathered its strengths and capacities on differing timetables.
These important differences, as well as many shared characteristics, shape
the chapters of Part Three. Common features, particularly well illustrated in
French chivalric literature, appear in Chapter 5, which only begins to sketch
out differences between Capetian and Plantagenet political culture. Chapter 6
takes up the case of chivalry and English kingship, emphasizing differences. As
so often, the particularities of English political and social circumstances repay
separate, close investigation.