Representative Institutions as a Tool for Compliance with Governance

Early representative institutions in Europe emerged alongside state formation when authority and jurisdictions were contested (Boucoyannis Reference Boucoyannis2021; Grzymala-Busse Reference Gryzmala-Busse2023; Major Reference Major1960a; Stasavage Reference Stasavage2016; Reference Stasavage2020). Medieval and early modern rulers needed tax revenue (Levi Reference Levi1988) and access to credit (Stasavage Reference Stasavage2003) and were increasingly expanding their authority by taking over judicial and legal prerogatives from local communities and the Church (Boucoyannis Reference Boucoyannis2021; Grzymala-Busse Reference Gryzmala-Busse2023, 103–43; Kim Reference Kim2021). Yet, these state endeavors faced substantial challenges. Stasavage (Reference Stasavage2016, 151) explains, “The European political landscape circa 1200 was one where numerous autonomous towns, church groups, and other corporate entities all had some claim of self-governance. Both ecclesiastical and secular rulers faced the thorny question of how to interact with these entities.” Not only did rulers have to navigate established claims to autonomy but they also had to do so with limited state capacity. Most states lacked fiscal centralization and had only weak or shared authority to collect revenues (Dincecco Reference Dincecco2009). Coercive capacity was also limited and was not unilaterally controlled by the sovereign (Blaydes and Chaney Reference Blaydes and Chaney2013; Major Reference Major1960a).

Thus, governance activities emanating from a central ruler often relied on the cooperation and compliance of subjects (Dincecco Reference Dincecco2009; Major Reference Major1960a; Stasavage Reference Stasavage2020). In this context, representative institutions were one tool used by rulers to gain consent for revenue collection or input on other governance activities. Representation helped rulers interact with local groups that had claims to autonomy (Stasavage Reference Stasavage2016, 151). Assembled representatives for various corporate institutions, communities, and individuals could negotiate with and advise the ruler and ideally (from the perspective of the ruler) ultimately consent on behalf of their constituents. As Levi (Reference Levi1988, 97) argues, rulers were continually seeking “efficient means of negotiating and enforcing the taxes they wish to impose. They experiment with justification for taxation and with representative assemblies as forums for negotiation.”

If rulers were unable to obtain legitimate consent through representative practices for governance activities, they might raise less revenue (Dincecco Reference Dincecco2009) or face greater obstacles to other governance goals, such as instituting legal (Kim Reference Kim2021, 71) and judicial reforms (Boucoyannis Reference Boucoyannis2021). These risks were especially acute in states with low governance and coercive capacity. Strong states could more easily forgo representative institutions (Stasavage Reference Stasavage2020). Yet, the compliance logic is also sometimes evident in states with greater capacity. As Boucoyannis (Reference Boucoyannis2021, 103) explains, even strong states use “representation as a legal obligation binding communities”; consent makes it less likely that rulers will need to resort to coercion, which can be costly even if the capacity exists (90).Footnote ⁴

Compliance and Inclusion

The compliance logic of representative institutions creates an incentive for rulers to afford rights of representation to actors on whose compliance they depend. In principle, many different domains of compliance could be associated with representative institutions. Scholars have argued that rulers were dependent on subjects for tax payments (Bates and Lien Reference Bates and Lien1985; Dincecco Reference Dincecco2009; Levi Reference Levi1988), the provision of sovereign credit (Stasavage Reference Stasavage2003), participating in or abiding by legal reforms (Kim Reference Kim2021), judicial service (Boucoyannis Reference Boucoyannis2021), provision of military service or troops (Blaydes and Chaney Reference Blaydes and Chaney2013), and acceptance of international treaties (Major Reference Major1960a). Rulers could use representative institutions for various governance purposes, and the bounds of inclusion could vary depending on the domain of compliance in question (Major Reference Major1960a). Generally, however, these domains relied on compliance from actors who had a stake in public affairs through claims of autonomy or authority and actors who contributed, especially financially, to the state. In practice, by the early modern period this usually meant elite property holders with claims to local authority (seigneurial rights), economic members of communities that had some level of established autonomy (towns, various corporate entities), as well as other property owners, taxpayers, and creditors.

When representative institutions were used as a governance tool to aid compliance, it was logical for them to include actors on whose compliance rulers depended. Excluding these actors could result in myriad costs: lower revenue collection, inability to make or universally implement reforms (legal, judicial, etc.), or coercive costs associated with governing in the face of resistance. It may not always be the case that those who are not consulted withhold compliance, but this possibility creates a risk for the ruler when excluding actors engaged in the economic activities described earlier.

Moreover, exclusion might risk the legitimacy of the representative institutions themselves and of collective compliance. The functioning of these institutions relied on the idea that consent was needed from interested parties: those who had a claim in or made contributions to public affairs and thus whose compliance was needed. Central to many early institutions were rules ensuring that representatives had a proper mandate to make commitments on behalf of those who would be bound by these commitments; the failure to secure proper mandates often thwarted the ability or willingness of representatives to grant consent to rulers (Major Reference Major1960b, 4–9; Stasavage Reference Stasavage2020, 128–31). In addition to this legal infrastructure, it is easy to imagine an incentive for interested actors to support the rights of similarly interested parties: if you and I have a similar claim in or contribution to public affairs (i.e., our compliance is needed), and you are not afforded rights, I should worry that this could threaten my own rights, and thus I may be less likely to accept representation in exchange for compliance. Therefore, gaining legitimate and enforceable consent through representative institutions relies on the inclusion of those whose compliance is needed, including in cases where one’s individual claim or contribution to public affairs is small.

Compliance and Women’s Inclusion

This compliance logic of representative institutions means that rulers had good reason to afford rights of representation to female actors who, through their economic activities, had a claim in or contribution to public affairs, even within an otherwise patriarchal context. Women in early modern Europe were systematically disadvantaged: the law privileged men, who had more property (Capern, McDonaugh, and Aston Reference Capern, McDonagh and Aston2019), were paid more for labor, had greater access to professions and trade protections (Hafter Reference Hafter2007; Ogilvie Reference Ogilvie, Beattie and Stevens2013), and dominated Church authority (Hayden Reference Hayden1994; Rapley Reference Rapley1990). Despite their disadvantages, however, women were not universally excluded from the formal economy. Women inherited, owned, and controlled property (Capern, McDonaugh, and Aston Reference Capern, McDonagh and Aston2019; Tudor and Teele Reference Tudor, Teele, Açemoglu and Robinsonforthcoming); engaged in agricultural production, paid labor (Tilly and Scott Reference Tilly and Scott1978), and guilds (Hafter Reference Hafter2007); and served the church and their communities through spiritual as well as economic activities (Baker Reference Baker1997; Rapley Reference Rapley1990).

A minority of women had formally recognized economic roles that were tied to state governance, but for those who did, rulers needed their compliance just as they needed that of their more numerous male counterparts. Rulers maintained a strong interest in the compliance of male and female elites whose individual defiance could directly interfere with their governance goals; for example, by resisting state incursions into matters concerning their seignorial and judicial domains.

Rulers also needed the compliance of less elite economic actors who paid taxes and extended loans to the state, regardless of sex. For these types of contributions, individual compliance on its own might seem less consequential to the ruler; however, as discussed earlier, the legitimacy of representative institutions and thus of collective compliance relies on the inclusion of those with a recognized claim in or contribution to public affairs. This should extend to women. Men with a similar stake as women should want to protect their own rights by acknowledging the rights of their female compatriots. Moreover, similarly positioned actors, regardless of sex, would often have shared economic interests in governance affairs, giving men further motivation to acknowledge the rights of these women. Rulers thus had both direct and indirect incentives to include economic women to ensure the legitimacy and effectiveness of representative institutions as a tool to increase compliance with their governance activities.

Elites and Inclusionary Thresholds

How much rulers rely on the compliance of elites versus less prominent or wealthy persons and communities varies by context. For example, where locally powerful elite intermediaries collect taxes that are then passed to a ruler, we might expect to see more narrow representative inclusion in terms of economic status. In contrast, where rulers engage with towns that pay taxes in exchange for some degree of autonomy and rights to consent, inclusion should be wider. Moreover, as we see with the French context, unequal inclusion is possible when more elite constituencies are given greater voice, but less prominent individuals and communities are nonetheless afforded rights to representation.Footnote ⁵ The exact economic threshold is not the focus here. Rather, I argue that whatever the economic threshold is, we should expect both men and women meeting that threshold to be afforded rights to representation.

Alternative Explanation 1: Elite Women (Alt1)

The first alternative explanation is that only the most elite women are able to overcome gender hierarchy and gain access to politics. Intersectional and Marxist feminists have long emphasized that the oppression of women is not uniform across all women (Collins Reference Collins1989; Crenshaw Reference Crenshaw1989; Vogel Reference Vogel1983; Young Reference Young1994). Elite women sometimes experience attenuated gender inequality by avoiding the harshest oppression. Extending this logic, one might reasonably theorize that only the most economic elite women could overcome gender discrimination and attain political rights. This dynamic would be especially likely when economic elites control political inclusion and wish to limit it as much as possible—an assumption about inclusion that is consistent with many theories of democratization (e.g., Acemoglu and Robinson Reference Acemoglu and Robinson2006; Moore Reference Moore1966; Olson Reference Olson1965; Przeworski Reference Przeworski2009; Yashar Reference Yashar1997). Although economic elites would allow their female compatriots to transgress the gender hierarchy, they would block the participation of less elite women, even in cases where they had to concede to the inclusion of less elite men.

If this explanation were true, we would expect to see elites trying to limit inclusion of economic non-elites, in general, and women of this type, in particular. Even if the elites fail to exclude non-elite men, we should expect all but the most elite women to be excluded. This contrasts with the expectation of the compliance theory: whatever the economic threshold is, both men and women meeting it should be afforded political rights.

Alternative Explanation 2: Gendered Logic of Inclusion (Alt2)

A second alternative argument involves the role of gendered interests. Doepke and Tertilt (Reference Doepke and Tertilt2009) argue that, under the right economic conditions, men support women’s property rights and some political rights because women are perceived to care more about and support the public provision of education. In addition, scholars have argued that women often fare well in election for local offices because these positions are associated with healthcare or education, which are stereotypically female domains (Anzia and Bernhard Reference Anzia and Bernhard2022). From these perspectives, we would expect the inclusion of ecclesiastical women to follow an especially gendered logic. That is, the justification for their inclusion should be distinct from the reasons to include men. If this logic is operating, we might also see women advocating for and gaining traction on issues that are stereotypically feminine.

Elite Ecclesiastical Women

Elite women from noble families held religious titles such as abbess and possessed in benefice lands, cathedrals, or chapels—meaning they had an indefinite grant with use privileges (Baker Reference Baker1997; Hayden Reference Hayden1994). These appointments were possible because the pope shared the appointment prerogative with French kings (Lemoine Reference Lemoine1976, 2). Influential families used their royal connections to gain positions for their daughters or nieces and then to ensure that the title went to a family member upon their death (Baker Reference Baker1997). Placing daughters (and sons) in elite ecclesiastical positions was an important part of multifaceted dynastic strategies. Benefices effectively became another form of family property to be passed down through the generations; placement in a key religious office could bring families prestige, and sending children into religious life was usually a way to secure their future with less expense than marriage, thereby enabling greater wealth concentration within elite families (Baker Reference Baker1997; Choudhury Reference Choudhury2004, 19).

In addition to individual elite abbesses, prominent convents founded in the medieval period also collectively controlled extensive lands (McManners Reference McManners1999, 473–74); initially, many of these convents were filled with noble daughters and later increasingly with the merchant class and non-noble landowners (Choudhury Reference Choudhury2004, 20–21). These women brought with them dowries and connections to benefactors (Choudhury Reference Choudhury2004; Makowski Reference Makowski1997, 3).

The property holdings of titled abbesses and of well-endowed convents made them economic actors within their communities and linked them to the governance ambitions of the king. These individuals and institutions were sources of local financial investment (Rapley Reference Rapley1990, 180), employment, and patronage (Baker Reference Baker1997, 1100). Central to the argument here is that these elite women often possessed property that was endowed with seignorial rights and claims to authority within the domain of their lands (Baker Reference Baker1997, 1096; Choudhury Reference Choudhury2004, 20; Makowski Reference Makowski1997, 2). The records indicate that some convents even controlled lands with rights to administer justice.Footnote ⁸ The property and associated rights possessed by these women made them relevant actors for kings wishing to alter seignorial privileges, shift tax obligations, or integrate local law and justice into the central state. The royally recognized standing of the most elite of these institutions was unmistakable. Historian Mita Choudhury (Reference Choudhury2004, 16) notes, “Under Henry IV (1589–1610), convents such as Maubuisson and Longchamp became extensions of the court itself!”

The political influence of convents is exemplified by a hotly contested legal dispute over the pensions and dowries that novices would bring with them and that constituted an important source of wealth and income for convents. In 1667, Louis XIV and the Paris Parlement abolished the ability of convents to collect pensions or dowries (Gibson Reference Gibson1989, 213; Le Gendre [1655–1733] Reference Le Gendre1863, 170). This declaration came in response to outcries from both the bourgeoisie and some nobles who wished to place their daughters into religious vocation at a lower cost. By 1693, the ban was lifted, and a modified policy of generous caps placed on dowries was put in place. Legal observers at the time attributed this shift to “the powerful ladies who protected the monasteries” and emphasized that “the nuns were granted more than they dared hope for” (170–71). As historian Wendy Gibson (Reference Gibson1989, 213) puts it, this was “an indication both of the tenacity with which the [protectresses of the convents] defended their pecuniary privileges and of the pressure which they could bring to bear in the world outside the cloister.”Footnote ⁹

Common Ecclesiastical Women

Although elite economic status entangled some ecclesiastical women with royal governance, many women, particularly after the start of the seventeenth century, were economically tied to governance through state finances as members of modest religious communities (McManners Reference McManners1999, 534; Rapley Reference Rapley1990, 182). These women came from varied economic backgrounds; they came from families who were non-noble landholders, artisans, and even peasants (Choudhury Reference Choudhury2004, 20–21; Rapley Reference Rapley1990, 187–88). Women engaged in so-called active communities that were dedicated to service by running schools and asylums, working in hospitals, and so on were particularly likely to come from lower-class backgrounds (Rapley Reference Rapley1990, 187–88).

For the majority of female religious communities, particularly after the seventeenth century, maintaining a steady, modest income was the primary economic preoccupation. Communities were usually supported by several sources of income, the most important of which were the dowries that members brought when they entered the convent; these might be a lump sum of capital or a guarantee of an annuity (Rapley Reference Rapley1990, 181, 131). In addition, benefactors or family members of nuns sometimes provided gifts to the community (180). Convents focused primarily on contemplation might supplement their income by selling handicrafts or taking on boarders; active communities were explicitly focused on providing services that also provided revenue (Makowski Reference Makowski1997, 3; McManners Reference McManners1999, chap. 18; Rapley Reference Rapley1990, 180).Footnote ¹⁰

The collective income and assets were usually not sufficient to cover the expenses of a religious community. Long-term sustainability required the management and investment of financial resources—a task that was sometimes left to outside agents but was in other cases conducted by the sisters themselves (Gibson Reference Gibson1989, 214–15, Rapley Reference Rapley1990, 180–83). Funds that were not put to immediate use were invested in land, urban property, or constitutions de rente (Rapley Reference Rapley1990, 180–83). The former two could provide payments of rents to the convent from people leasing farms or dwellings owned by the convent. The constitution de rente, the most common form of investment, was a financial instrument that essentially made monasteries operate as bankers for their local communities and the crown. Religious communities would make lump-sum loans and then collect annuity payments: rents (Rapley Reference Rapley1990, 180–83).

The financial activities of these religious communities connected them to local and national public finances. Monasteries could be liable for a variety of local and national taxes.Footnote ¹¹ Moreover, constitutions de rente were often made to the crown and were effectively government bonds. Indeed, a royal edict in 1749 declared that monastic investments were to be limited to “loans floated by the government, the Clergy of France, dioceses, towns, and provincial estates” (McManners Reference McManners1999, 474). Subsequently, all new financial investments by religious communities basically constituted public loans, of which the crown was in dire need. These contributions were signified by rents, which, as we see, came to be a key political qualification for religious communities.

The Estates General

The Estates General, national assembly meetings, were called starting in the early 1300s; the selection processes of representative sent to the meetings varied early on, but by 1484 they were based on local elections (Major Reference Major1960b, 3–5). The precise governance objectives of assemblies differed to some extent but included gaining consent for taxes (Major Reference Major1960a; Major Reference Major1960b, 6), the indirect promulgation of law (Doyle Reference Doyle2018, chap. 4; Rothrock Reference Rothrock1960), and the transmission of demands and information from “various bodies in the kingdom” to the king (Furet Reference Furet1988, S60). Meetings were held with varying frequency; from 1484 until 1789 there were seven Estates Generals, the time between meetings ranging from 1 to 175 years (5).

Examining briefly the run-up to the convocation of the 1789 Estates General illustrates how the crown turned to representative institutions as a tool to increase the chances of compliance. At the end of the eighteenth century, French state finances were in dire straits, having been exhausted by a series of wars (Doyle Reference Doyle2018, 66). At first the crown managed to raise taxes and register new treasury loans operating only through recalcitrant parlements—nonrepresentative appellate courts with the legislative responsibility of registering the king’s laws without a direct part in their development (67). These acts only provided temporary relief, and soon the treasury director proposed sweeping tax reforms (69).

Knowing that these reforms would face resistance, the treasury director considered convening an Estates General but opted for gathering what he considered to be a more palatable group of hand-selected elites to approve the reforms (Doyle Reference Doyle2018, 70). In 1787, an Assembly of Notables was convened, but the attempt to circumvent legitimate representative consent failed spectacularly. The notables opposed many aspects of the reform and ultimately declared that the assembly lacked the authority to consent to new taxes, a right that “belonged only to the Estates-General” (72–74). The assembly was eventually disbanded. Although the crown managed to implement minor reforms, tax increases were blocked by the Paris parlement, which refused to register them, declaring that only the Estates General had the right to consent to a perpetual tax (76). State finances then collapsed, and an Estates General was announced (76–85).

A nationally representative body was convened in the spring of 1789. Ultimately, the crises proved too far gone for the crown to reanimate his governance activities, and the first French Revolution ensued. Nonetheless, the convening of this meeting and the local elections for its members provide rich records for understanding the nature of representation in the Ancien Régime. Although some aspects of the plans for the 1789 assemblies differed from those of earlier meetings, the basis of political rights grounded in economic interests that reflected claims to local authority, corporate autonomy, or contributions to the state was a point of continuity.

Customary Law Reform Meetings

The king also convoked meetings not meant to supply delegates to a national assembly but instead concerned local governance matters and the state’s interventions in them. Throughout the sixteenth century, French monarchs ordered bailliages, sénéchaussées, towns, local communities, and various other jurisdictions to codify customary law. Assemblies of representatives would meet as part of the codification process, often electing a committee to compile or revise customs and then gathering to discuss, lodge objections, and approve the customs, which would be sent to their respective parlement for registration.Footnote ¹² The process entailed harmonizing to some extent different local traditions and integrating them into the state’s central legal apparatus (Gay, Gobbi, and Goni Reference Gay, Gobbi and Goni2024, 2–4; Kim Reference Kim2021, 64–91).

The customs at the center of these meetings addressed fundamental features of how local communities were organized (Kim Reference Kim2021, 66), such as property laws, seignorial rights, inheritance rules, and marital guidelines (Bourdot de Richebourg Reference Bourdot de Richebourg1724; Gay, Gobbi, and Goni Reference Gay, Gobbi and Goni2024). The existence of these local customs, moreover, reflected local authority and autonomy. In some cases, customs were private agreements that had been made between lords and their subjects (Kim Reference Kim2021, 35), whereas others represented the collective behavior of a group of people (29). The project of codifying and registering these laws was a part of a larger reform through which the crown sought to expand royal power over law, judicial administration, and social organization (43–66).

With so much at stake, it is not surprising that codifying law was not an easy or quick process. The royal campaign began in 1454. An initial decree prescribed that codification was to be carried out by legal experts and officials (Kim Reference Kim2021, 66–68). In the following decades only around five customary laws were registered, and not all were under the authority of the king (68). Codification efforts were renewed in 1494; again, the planned procedure involved only officials and legal experts, which “appeared to arouse resistance from the population” (70). Four years into the process, the king announced that he would convene assemblies of the estates in bailiwicks (bailliages) and other relevant jurisdictions (70).Footnote ¹³ In the century that followed, assemblies were held, and hundreds of customs from across the kingdom were codified and registered.

A leading analysis of this process (Kim Reference Kim2021) contrasts the success of the codification efforts in France with the efforts of the neighboring Holy Roman Empire, which similarly ordered the codification of customs in the Seventeen Provinces of the Burgundian-Habsburg Netherlands. These efforts did not include local assemblies and “proved far less effective… the lack of mechanism for local input seriously marred the customary redaction process in the Empire…. The participation of the local estates made the French enterprise [of codifying so many diverse customs] a singular historical phenomenon” (70).

Focusing on customary law reform and the 1789 Estates General allows me to examine women’s participation in contexts where there is clearly good reason to believe compliance was at stake. Yet, this logic often operated in assembly meetings in early modern France: as a result, we can say something more general about women’s participation during the period. Comparing these two sets of meetings, as well as commentary by historians on Estates General more broadly, yields substantial continuity in the basic rules and practices concerning access to political rights. It is likely, therefore, that the records from the customary law meetings speak to representative assemblies generally in the sixteenth century—the century in which most Estates General meetings were held. This, combined with the eighteenth-century records, gives us an important window into women’s political rights throughout the Ancien Régime.

The Basic Structure of Representative Institutions

Representative institutions in France were divided into three political orders: the clergy (First Estate), the nobility (Second Estate), and commoners (the Third Estate); the members of the Third Estate ranged from peasants and laborers to bourgeoisie and state officials. At the bailiwick level (or similar jurisdictions that I collectively refer to as districts), the orders would meet together and then separate to elect their deputies and prepare their demands; some assemblies, however chose to conduct these matters all together.Footnote ¹⁵ Exact rules varied, but the electoral structure ensured that the church and nobility had a far greater voice than the much more numerous commoners.

For many, participation started at the local level below districts. Rural parishes, towns, trade guilds, and religious communities met to select representatives to send to district meetings.Footnote ¹⁶ Certain members of the clergy and all members of the nobility participated individually, either sending a legal representative (a proctor) to district meetings or attending themselves.Footnote ¹⁷ The use of proctors was frequent and generally considered a privilege.Footnote ¹⁸ For the Estates General, district meetings were followed by the national assembly. At both the local and district meetings, participants or a committee therein would often draw up a cahier de doléances (notebook of grievances) that representatives would take to the meetings at the next level (Hyslop [1936] Reference Hyslop1967).

The Rules of Entitlement

Throughout most of the early modern period, assemblies were initiated by convocation letters that the king sent either directly to individuals or to local officials, who would then invite participants and run district assemblies, exercising substantial discretion over who was included (Major Reference Major1960b, 4–10). These officials were usually local elites who were representatives of the king but also acted on behalf of the district (10). They were imbricated within and knowledgeable about complex governance relations. The authority of these officials diminished over time, but historically they were tied directly to key governance activities, including revenue collection, military duties, and judicial functions (10).

Early in the period, there was substantial geographic and temporal variation in whom officials called to meetings, and participation could be restrictive (Major Reference Major1960b, 10). However, by the time of the sixteenth-century customary law reform meetings, the records of assemblies indicate that individual rights were consistently afforded to several ranks of clergy, ranging from bishops, abbots, and abbesses to minor parish priests (curés)—the last of whom were the most likely to have been excluded earlier.Footnote ¹⁹ These individuals were generally benefice holders.Footnote ²⁰ The bishops, and certain abbots, and abbesses would have possessed benefices with control over extensive ecclesiastical lands with seigneurial rights (Baker Reference Baker1997). For other priests, a benefice was a simple title of office with a guaranteed income and usually a tax obligation (McManners Reference McManners1999, chap. 5, 11). Women did not hold this lower form of benefice.

Collective participation was also common. “Chapters, monasteries, and other ecclesiastical communities” would send deputies to district meetings (Major Reference Major1960b, 10), a practice evident in the customary law records. Most of these communities probably owned property because monastic life was primarily an elite enterprise until the seventeenth century.

In 1789, the king, after consultation with an Assembly of Notables, gave more uniform prescriptions about who was entitled to representation. According to article 9 of the king’s regulation, the officers in each district (bailiwick) “will summon the bishops and abbots, as well as all the chapters, bodies and ecclesiastic communities with rents, regular and secular, of both sexes, and generally all the members of clergy possessing benefice.”Footnote ²¹ Bishops, abbots, and others with a benefice were afforded individual rights to attend the district meetings in person or through a proctor (article 12).Footnote ²²

Collective rights were afforded to monastic communities with a financial public stake: “All other regular bodies and ecclesiastic communities with rents, of both sexes, as well as the chapters and communities of girls, will only be represented by one deputy or proctor [per community] taken from either the secular or regular ecclesiastic order” (article 11).Footnote ²³ Various other male clergy who did not live in communities (secular clergy) were also afforded collective rights, as were clergy involved in religious orders and living in cities but not possessing a benefice (articles 10 and 15). All other clergy who did not reside in the cities were categorized with nobility who did not possess fiefs; they were requested to attend the joint assembly with all three orders in their district and seemingly not included in the deliberations of the clergy, although it is not clear what this weaker right looked like in practice (article 16).

The existence and degree of rights roughly followed how individuals or collectives were economically tied to public affairs. Individuals with substantial land or with a direct obligation to state finances were afforded individual rights. Collectives that held important land or contributed to state finances were afforded collective rights. Clergy with clear ties to the Church but less connection to state finances had collective or otherwise somewhat weaker rights.

Notables’ Perspectives on Entitlement

Before settling on the 1789 regulations, the king re-gathered his Assembly of Notables—who had refused to authorize the crown’s tax reforms and called for an Estates General—and asked them to advise on the rules for the Estates General. Economic considerations alongside religious responsibilities were key themes in the notables’ discussions.

Six committees within the Assembly offered opinions on what conditions were necessary for someone to be an elector in the order of the clergy, a right that the discussions and final regulation suggests was equivalent to an individual right to attend the district meeting personally or through a proctor.Footnote ²⁴ Committees distinguished between religious and economic entitlement because the two did not necessarily overlap. Some committees were troubled by the fact that not everyone who held a benefice had religious responsibilities, but others embraced a purely economic logic. One committee advised that all persons engaged in the Holy Orders and all possessing ecclesiastical property should have electoral rights, stating, “It was thought necessary to also include clerics who, not being in [religious] orders, have benefices, by virtue of the interest their ecclesiastical property gives them.”Footnote ²⁵ Another committee put it similarly: “The beneficer has an interest in public affairs by virtue of his benefice.”Footnote ²⁶ In total, four of the committees thought that possession of a benefice, making a tax payment, or holding ecclesiastical property ought to be either a necessary or sufficient condition for individual rights. Two committees wanted to require engagement in the sacred orders, and three others considered either engagement in the sacred orders or solemn vows (those taken by monastic clergy) enough to qualify for this political right.

Most committees did not address the political entitlement of religious communities directly, probably because the king’s question did not explicitly address it. Nonetheless, two committees provided an opinion on the matter. Both agreed that religious communities (and other chapters and various collections of secular clergy) ought to elect a representative as a community to send to the district meetings. One committee wanted to restrict these rights to communities with rents. Rents as discussed earlier could indicate an investment in public finances. This committee focused on the general way in which rents represented an economic stake in society. As they put it, “Those who do not hold any property in the Society, do not appear to have this right.”Footnote ²⁷ The committee went on to explain that this economic interest should afford rights to female communities.Footnote ²⁸ The crown’s regulations reflect this prescription.

Thus, a gathering of notables, whose earlier refusal to consent to the king’s financial plans instigated the Estates General, recognized the rights of clergy, including female religious communities, based on their stake in public affairs. The crown did not abide by all the notables’ opinions, not least of which because the committees did not all agree. The crown did include female communities with rents in the Estates General and, for most of the regulations, aligned with the suggestions that emphasized public contributions and holding property, activities most closely tied to his governance needs. Neither the king’s regulation nor the committees addressed elite abbesses explicitly. In the next two sections, however, I show that their entitlement was nonetheless often recognized by local officials.

Elite Exercise of Rights

Select abbesses and prioresses were afforded individual rights of representation (exercised through proctors). Local officials (or direct convocation by the king) deemed these women entitled to participate in the customary law reform meetings. For example, in 1607, the Reverende and Honerée Dame Catherine de Lenoncourt participated in the customary law reform of Saint-Mihiel; she was both the abbess and dame of Javigny, the latter title usually indicating seigneurial authority.Footnote ²⁹ Reverende Dame Magdelaine de Bourbon of Poitou was also both an abbess and dame de la seigneurie (lord of an estate).Footnote ³⁰ In 1789 the regulations on individual rights were ambiguous as to the status of elite women, but their participation is evident: I estimate around 16% of districts in 1789 included a representative for an individual ecclesiastical woman.

Seignorial (and other) property was also central to the collective political engagement of female monastic communities, sometimes with explicit credit for their rights given to their property holdings. In Paris in 1789, Les Filles-Dieu are listed with a note “because of their fief.”Footnote ³¹ The records for Mohon, a very different district, a small one in northeastern France, notes that a community of Dames, who were also proprietors, sent a representative to the district meeting.Footnote ³² Their representative was one of four listed for the entire district; their property thus afforded them substantial voice in the small district.

There are similar instances in the customary law meetings; for instance, the abbess, nuns, and convent of Villencourt were represented in Amiens in 1567.Footnote ³³ This convent’s use of their political rights is noteworthy because it highlights the importance of seignorial authority to political engagement. At the district meeting, the representative for the women objected, along with a few others (including representatives for men), to the language in a proposed article that specified the conditions under which a hypothetic (mortgage) could be arranged. Those objecting saw the provision as undermining their seigneurial rights. The minutes state that as a result the law was recorded, but a qualification was included that provided an exemption for the objectors: the law would hold “without prejudice to their rights.”Footnote ³⁴ Recall that the goal of these meetings was to regularize law and bring it under national authority by agreeing on and codifying local customs and registering them with state entities. As such, it was important that registered laws did not deviate from local practices. With this outcome then, the women retained their seignorial rights, and the king got a registered law that was more closely aligned with local practice. Thus, the participation of these women helped the king achieve his governance objectives.

The customary law records further show how legal and judicial jurisdictions tied to land connected convents to governance, making their participation in reform processes beneficial both to them and to the king. The seignorial status of some religious communities seems to have included the right to exercise justice. For example, in Auxerre, the abbess and convent of Saint Julien of the Order of Saint Benoist were Dames of Justice, lands, and seignories of Charantenay.Footnote ³⁵ As the king engaged in the national integration of legal and judicial authority, the inclusion of these actors would have been especially important in codifying the appropriate customs followed in their jurisdictions, which in turn would be adjudicated by the courts belonging to their lands.

A similar dynamic is apparent in Lille. Here we have little information on possible assemblies that accompanied the codification process. However, one of the local customs that was submitted to be codified, thereby preserving the local prerogative to deviate from the general custom, was submitted on behalf of a small group of seigneuries, including that possessed by “les Religiueses, Abbesse & Convent de Flines”.Footnote ³⁶ These women, like their fellow male seigneurs, were able to preserve their local custom, and the king benefited from centrally recorded laws that were likely to be followed.

Common Exercise of Rights

By 1789, female ecclesiastical communities also enjoyed rights pertaining to more minor economic activities tied to public financial contributions. Assembly records demonstrate the use of rents as a qualification for participation, as prescribed by the 1789 rules. In Marseille, the possession of rents was included in the language of the participant list. Among other categories of attendees at the district meeting, we find “Deputies of ecclesiastics with rents, secular and regular, of both sexes.”Footnote ³⁷ In this group there are 29 entries, at least 9 of which are for all-female communities. We cannot assess the magnitude of these rents nor whether they coincided with other property. However, evidence of the inclusion of more modest communities comes from Paris (outside the walls) in 1789. Of the 20 representatives for female communities in Paris, it is likely that at least 5 were active communities that provided public services and that we know from historians generally comprised nuns from common backgrounds (Rapley Reference Rapley1990, 187–88).Footnote ³⁸

We also see the lower economic status of some communities in the grievances they expressed. Communities could actively articulate their requests by creating a cahier. Although records of these are rare, some show female clergy using their political rights to advocate for their community’s interests and indicate the modest nature of those interests.

In their cahier, a female Ursulines congregation in Aups in southeast France requested dispensation from taxes.Footnote ³⁹ The petition explained that the community survived on only a small income and had many expenses for food, firewood, and medicine for community members, many of whom were of “delicate health.” They noted further that the community did not benefit from noble funds that would be free from taxation. Similarly, in the town of Hondtschoote at the northern tip of France, the sisters of Limbourg gathered to establish their demands for the king.Footnote ⁴⁰ Among other requests, the nuns asked the king to prevent the imposition of a new tax on beer and wine that they had heard the “men of the third estate” were to impose and that would presumably increase the convent’s day-to-day costs. The request specified that this tax protection was justified because of the public services they provided by boarding the mentally ill. The demands were taken to the district meeting in Bailleul by the convent’s representative and appears to have made it on the list of grievances for the district that was carried to the Estates General.Footnote ⁴¹ The language of the final request is made on behalf of male and female communities, suggesting that this issue was relevant across the gender divide. Conversely, two issues raised by female communities in Hondtschoote were more gendered—the requirement of entrance dowries for novices and municipal pressure on the sisters to act as nurses— and enjoyed less success: these issues were not integrated into the district demands.

Women used (sometimes successfully) their political rights to defend their economic interests, which often coincided with those of their similarly positioned male counterparts, supporting several elements of the theory advanced here. Where their requests were more gendered, men in districts appeared less inclined to advance them, undermining the Gendered Logic alternative under which we would expect gender issues to dominate demands and receive outsized attention.

Estimating the Prevalence of Ecclesiastical Women’s Political Participation

For the 1789 electoral assembly meetings, I consulted the records for 128 meetings, constituting a majority of the 216 districts in which the clerical order met. Of these, 107 had reasonably sufficient information to determine whether women were represented; another 7 had less reliable information on attendees, and 14 did not contain enough information to assess women’s representation.Footnote ⁴² This sample was selected according to the logics of archival records, in which some archive boxes contain more districts than others. There is no reason to think that this would bias toward districts more likely to have a woman participating. Nonetheless, as a robustness check against potential nonrandom bias, I present analysis of a smaller randomly selected sample in appendix I.

For the sixteenth century, I consulted 224 customary law records reported in the compiled volumes of Bourdot de Richebourg (Reference Bourdot de Richebourg1724). These records correspond to general laws covering various jurisdictions, often bailiwicks or similar units. Only 53 of the 224 records contain sufficient information on assembly meetings associated with the reform process to assess women’s representation. Another 10 records have less reliable information that is likely incomplete. The remainder did not provide enough information on or did not hold full assembly meetings. These records have a strong geographic skew toward the north of France. Southern jurisdictions often submitted already codified legal documents based on local versions of written Roman law without convening full assembly meetings.

I use the gender of the titles of religious communities and individuals to identify meetings in which women sent representatives to a district meeting. Selection of a representative was an active form of participation, and the choice was usually based on community deliberation; for individuals it was the result of a private decision that was often notarized (see appendix III for details). If at least one community with women or an individual woman was represented, I designate the district as having had women participate in the process. Figure 1 provides examples of archival records used to construct the data.

Figure 1 Example of Entries in District Lists from Archival Records

Source: French National Archives. Saumur, Box B/a/78 Marseille, C/19/96. Top images show two participant entries; one for an abbess who sent a procureur whom she appointed on the fourth day of the month of the meeting. The second entry is for a community of dames who selected their procureur a day earlier. The third image presents a sub-list heading indicating that communities of “both sexes” would be listed. Below that are the entries for several “religieuses,” female religious communities.

Table 3 summarizes the descriptive findings. In 1789, the estimate for meetings with sufficient information indicates that women sent representatives to 80% of districts in the sample (75% for the less reliable sample; the shares in the random sample are 74% and 66%, respectively). For the sixteenth-century meetings, the estimates are 72% and 60%, respectively. A simple average over the more reliable estimates suggests around 75% of districts included a representative for ecclesiastical women. Moreover, if we combine the sufficient data across the two periods, in total women were represented at 124 of the 160 meetings, nearly 78% of meetings.

Table 3 Meetings in which Women Exercised Political Rights

Source: Data from archival and primary sources detailed in appendix I; data and replication files are available in Tudor Reference Tudor2025. 1789 sample based on consultation of meeting minutes for 128 districts. Customary law samples based on consultation of 224 records. Partial info sample is made up of meetings with less reliable information on attendees and may not be sufficient for determining women’s representation. Meetings are identified as having women represented when at least one representative at the district meeting was sent by a female religious community or an individual (usually an abbess). Representation of individual women refers to instances where abbesses or prioresses exercised rights independently of the convent. Typically, this coincided with other ecclesiastical women participating as communities; only two districts included individual women and no communities. Representatives at district meetings were male; female participation occurred at the primary level that fed into the district level.

The data indicate widespread participation of ecclesiastical women and are likely underestimates. We may fail to see women in the records because there were no female communities or elite abbesses who resided in the district; yet this would not be an indication of nonparticipation. A true lack of participation—either because a female community chose not to participate or was not allowed to—is generally indistinguishable from false negatives. The estimates using the less reliable samples should be viewed with caution as they may be especially likely to include false negatives because they are based on incomplete records and may fail to capture instances of women’s participation.Footnote ⁴³

Most female participation occurred at the level of community deliberations. However, in 15–16% of districts at least one woman exercised individual rights in 1789. Religious women qualified for individual rights based on holding an elite title and property, which was a relatively rare phenomenon compared to the existence of female religious communities, and so the lower prevalence of this sort of participation is expected.

In the majority of districts, women participated in the proceedings of the clerical order. As figure 2 indicates, the districts known to include women were reasonably well distributed across France: women’s exercise of political rights was not limited to one or a few specific regions. Data limitations do mean that we cannot say much about women’s participation in Brittany in either period, in southern France especially in the sixteenth century, and in parts of the Languedoc and Dauphine in the eighteenth century.

Figure 2 Mapping Ecclesiastical Women’s Exercise of Political Rights across Districts

Source: Data come from archival and primary sources detailed in appendix I. This is a geographical representation of data presented in table 2. Small dots indicate partial information. The external boundary of France corresponds to 1700, with the internal boundaries indicating the departments in1800. Maps drawn with the Euratlas historical georeferenced vectorial data © 2008, Christos Nüssli, Euratlas – www.euratlas.com, reproduction prohibited, utilization license of December 17, 2009.

The data demonstrate the geographic prevalence of ecclesiastical women’s participation. Measuring their relative magnitude within meetings is more difficult because of data limitations.Footnote ⁴⁴ However, I sketch a picture based on the large district of Amiens in the north of France that is anchored by the protoindustrial city of the same name. The district was selected because of the data quality with detailed records for both the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. An analysis of participant entries in these meetings gives an illustrative image of magnitude, if not a representative picture (see appendix II for details).

Representatives for female collectives constituted about 2% of district attendees in both periods. This low rate derives largely from the fact that most women had collective, not individual, political rights and is not primarily the result of their gender. The share of representatives for female religious communities was fairly similar to that for male religious communities (for 1789: 2% female, 5% male and possibly mixed sex; for 1567: 2% female, 1% mixed sex, 6% male). In contrast, most attendees appeared on behalf of individuals (89% and 87% for 1789 and 1567, respectively); there were no abbesses of this type in Amiens. Calculations detailed in appendix II suggest that, given the gender distribution of all who participated in the political process by selecting a representative to send to the district meeting or attending themselves, women may have constituted around 14–19% of all clerical participants in Amiens in the eighteenth century and 12–14% in the sixteenth century.

Overall, the low share of women does not undermine the central argument of this article, which claims that women whose economic activities connected them to the governance of the kingdom should be afforded political rights, even when such women are a minority. However, women’s minority status does weaken the Gendered Logic alternative explanation. If women were included so that they could advance issues thought to be prioritized by women, we would expect them to have sufficient representation to achieve this aim.