Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/542

 492 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE numerous new royal officials came to divide into three chief central bodies: the Council of State corresponding to the Privy Council in England, the Chamber of Accounts {Chambre des Comptes) similar to the English Exchequer, and the Parlement or royal court of justice which was equiv- alent to the three English central courts of common law. The kings also created new officials called baillis, who were much like the missi of Charlemagne or the itinerant justices of Henry II of England, and who traveled about overseeing the prevdts (provosts) or royal agents in the localities, who resembled the English sheriffs. By the middle of the thir- teenth century each bailli was assigned a definite territory, but they were frequently transferred. The king also began to hire troops instead of depending upon feudal military service. Our account of feudal France in chapter fourteen ended with the successful reign of Louis the Fat, who completely Reign of mastered the territory immediately about Paris Louis VII an( j f orcec i even the ru iers of distant Auvergne and Aquitaine to recognize his overlordship. His son, Louis VII, however, did little more than hold his own during a long reign from 1 137 to 1 180. It is true that he established friendly relations, which were valuable later, with some of the feudal and ecclesiastical lords in what is now south- eastern and southwestern France, when he passed through those regions upon pilgrimages to the monastery of the Grande Chartreuse in the Alps and to the shrine of St. James at Compostella in Spain. But he left his realm and wasted troops and treasure on the Second Crusade, and he made the grave political error of divorcing his capricious wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, although he loved her immoderately. She thereupon married the young Count of Anjou who soon became Henry II of England, and whose great Plantagenet empire became an extreme menace to the Capetian mon- archy. Louis, however, succeeded in preventing Henry from adding Toulouse to his vast holdings, and he stirred up a deal of trouble for him with his sons and vassals. The medieval King of France who probably most in