Law And State-Building In France, 1285-1715

As a historical phenomenon, the concept of positive law emerged quite late in western history, which related law directly to the state. As far as the author understands, positive law and modern state more like two sides of a coin. In this dissertation, it is held by the author that as discovered in the transition of state-construction and governance in France starting from Philip IV (1285-1314) to Louis XIV (1638-1715), law is a constructive factor of modern state. On one hand, judicial sovereignty was a basic tool of construction and integration for early monarchy state; on the other hand, after basic integration of the state, theory legislative sovereignty and relevant practice made it possible that the state could be governed in a modern way.It is divided into three chapters according to historical progress.The first chapter discusses mainly about how the feudal monarchs united the state by integrating the judiciary in late middle ages. In details, it discusses the revival of the middle-age concept"king as the judge", how the monarchs reinforced appeal mechanism by setting up the specialized central judiciary"Parlement de Paris", and how the monarchs gradually established a regular way of state-governance by judicial activities of the parliamentary courts and local judicial administrators to achieve domestic political integration. It is emphasized that, generally, state-governance was of judicial characteristic in late middle ages. The second chapter discusses some preliminary factors in the transition of state-construction and governance model taking place in France from late times of the middle age to early modern times, including codification of customary laws, which was the first trial of integrating national law, and systematic establishment of legal science, which was a necessary prerequisite for modern legislation and made it possible to set up a system of generally applicable rules. Needless to say, it is most important to demonstrate legislative sovereign in theory, which started from Jean de Coras's theory of"four causes of law"and was finally completed by Jean Bodin.The third chapter mainly focuses on the operation of legislative sovereignty in practice. By manipulating legislative power, the king realized its fundamental transition from"king as the supreme judge"to"king as sovereignty lawmaker", resulting from downfall of the Estates-General and successful oppression on parlements by Louis XIV. After that, legislation, especially large scale codification, became the king's most important means of governance; correspondingly, the administrative bureaucracy, originating from the legal profession, began to take the place of traditional judiciary as the most important force in state-governance.By all of these, the author tries to illustrate that, starting from Philip IV to Louis XIV, France eventually found a useful way of governance for its modern state by constructing and practicing theories of judicial sovereignty and legislative sovereignty. In this sense, modern state-building is a transitional process from judicial sovereignty to legislative sovereignty in terms of law, during which theoretical and practical evolution of law brought about the formation of modern state. In the last part of the dissertation, the author gives a few brushes to the nature of French Revolution, which, in the opinion of the author, realized legale herrschaft under legislative sovereignty more completely.