The institutions of Provence were built up in successive layers, and the early modern period carries the greatest weight of them: 22 dates out of 39, against 5 in Antiquity, 8 in the Middle Ages and 4 in the contemporary era. The Edict of Caracalla, the praetorian prefecture set up at Arles, then the great comital reforms under Raimond Bérenger V and René of Anjou, down to the Deixonne law of 1951 and the founding of the Conseil de l'Écrit Mistralien in 2006: each period leaves an administrative or legal stratum in the Provençal landscape.
This map follows these institutional foundations, at Aix, Marseille and Avignon, through the figures who willed them into being, from Romée de Villeneuve to Louis XI.
What the corpus attaches to this theme
Places most present : Aix, Provence, Marseille, Arles, Avignon, Sisteron, Apt, Paris
Figures most present : Raimond Bérenger V, Charles Ier d'Anjou, Louis XI, Romée de Villeneuve, René d'Anjou, Comte d'Alais, Maupeou, Jules César
Antiquity
Under Augustus and the first emperors
Creation of 37 colonies with Latin rights, including Aix, which later received Roman rights; Avignon, Cavaillon, Apt, Carpentras, Digne and Riez receive Latin rights
212 or 213
Edict of Caracalla, citizenship granted to all free men of the Empire; Marseille abandons its regime of timouchoi for the Latin municipal regime
Late 4th century or early 5th century
The praetorian prefecture of the Gauls is installed at Arles
17 April 418
Emperor Honorius convenes at Arles the council (the assembly) of the seven provinces
510
Theoderic restores the praetorian prefecture of the Gauls at Arles; the Ostrogoths also retake Nîmes, Narbonne, Orange and Valence
529
Council of Vaison: creation of parish schools for rural clergy
Middle Ages
794
Council of Frankfurt restoring their powers to the archbishops of Aix and Embrun
end of 948
Otto constitutes, for the benefit of Conrad, the kingdom of Provence united with Jurane Burgundy
948
Conrad appoints three Burgundian counts (Avignon, Arles, Apt-Glandève) to represent his authority in Provence, for want of a real domain
around 1129
Appearance of consuls at Avignon
1131
Appearance of consuls at Arles
1178
Shift of the centre of power toward Aix, which becomes the capital
1181
Erection of the county of Orange into an autonomous principality
8 January 1215
Vicariate of the kingdom of Arles and Vienne granted by Frederick II to Guillaume de Baux
26 July 1252
Compromise granting Marseille wide autonomy
1409
Founding of the University of Aix
Early modern period
29 and 30 December 1481
Meeting of the Estates convened at Aix by the seneschal Pierre de la Jaille, who announces the designation of Louis XI as heir of Charles III
15 January 1482
The Estates of Provence vote, under the impetus of Palamède de Forbin, a charter of fifty-three chapters forming the "Provençal Constitution", its first article already ratifying the recognition of the King of France as Count of Provence
August to October 1486
The Estates ask Charles VIII for the definitive and eternal union of Provence with the crown, letters patent grant their request
9 April 1487
The letters patent are communicated to the Estates gathered at Aix: the union of the county with France is definitively established
1489
Institution of a governor of Provence above the seneschal by the court of France
1490
Edict of Moulins by Charles VIII, opening the process of replacing Latin with modern idioms in the kingdom's justice system
1493
Civil war in Marseille between governor and seneschal, settled by the merger of the two offices in favour of Philippe de Hochberg
1501 to 1502
Creation of the Parlement of Provence (Aix), a court of justice superimposed on the existing jurisdictions
1533
Edict of Joinville by François I, precursor to the edict of Is-sur-Tille on the language of trials in Provence
1535
Edict of Joinville: reform of the Provençal institutions, creation of six sénéchaussées (Aix, Arles, Draguignan, Digne, Forcalquier, Marseille)
1536
Edict of Is-sur-Tille: criminal trials in Provence must be conducted in French "or at the very least in the vernacular of that country", that is, in Provençal
August 1539
Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts (a royal edict requiring judicial acts to be drafted in the vernacular rather than in Latin): judicial acts must henceforth be drafted in French rather than Latin, declared applicable to Provence on 17 October following
1588 to 1589
The lieutenant general La Valette establishes Pertuis as the seat of the royalist Estates and parlements, facing the Leaguers who control Aix
5 January 1594
The Parlement d'Aix, the first of the rebel parlements of the kingdom, still a Leaguer body and not reunified, recognises Henri IV
June 1594
Effective merger of the royalist Parlement, then established at Manosque after residing at Pertuis and Sisteron, with the Leaguer Parlement of Aix, which returns to Aix
October 1596
Henri IV sends Étienne Bernard to preside at Marseille over the restored sovereign Chamber of Justice
1599
Guillaume du Vair becomes first president of the Parlement of Provence at Aix
1630
Promulgation of the edict of the Élus, substituting royal agents for the Estates in the levying of taxes
October 1647
Edict of Fontainebleau, duplicating the offices of parlementaires, triggering the war of the Semestre
5 and 7 March 1660
Letters patent reorganising the municipal government of Marseille after the entry of Louis XIV: the office of viguier granted for life, then (7 March 1662) hereditarily, to Fortia de Piles
1730
The Parlement d'Aix refuses to register the royal declaration on the constitution Unigenitus
12 January 1775
The crowd in Aix acclaims the Messieurs of the Parlement, reinstated and recalled by Louis XVI
end of 1787
The king convenes the provincial assemblies in their former form (third estate, clergy, nobility)
May 1788
The third estate, gathered at Lambesc, once again demands reform of the provincial Estates
22 December 1789
Decree of the National Assembly dividing the kingdom into departments, opening the Bouche/Sinéty controversy over the Provençal division and the assignment of the chef-lieu to Aix
Read the period: Early modern period
Contemporary period
14 January 1790
Decree authorising the translation of decrees and laws into the languages understood by the people
1882 to 1886
Establishment of Jules Ferry's secular, free and compulsory school, which profoundly changes the social and cultural structure of Provence
11 January 1951
Loi Deixonne: the first French law authorising the optional teaching of certain regional languages, including the langues d'oc
2006
Creation of the Conseil de l'Écrit Mistralien, an internal body of the Félibrige, on the initiative of majoral Bernard Giély