My research specialty, fifteenth-century France, rarely offers examples pertinent to modern American life. But in this recent period of “demosclerosis” the story of the relentless feud between the Armagnacs and the Burgundians sheds light on our impasse.
The idea of the day is that our congress is an obsolete mess, excruciatingly ineffective compared to the parliamentary systems of our benchmark nations. Journalists like James Fallows undoubtedly are right that the problem is systemic. As Fallows notes in his recent article in the Atlantic Monthly, our only realistic hope of a way out to start shifting incrementally towards cooperation. Because after all, we are not going to suddenly trash the constitution and develop a parliamentary system wherein one side rams through its legislation. This is where the lesson of the Armagnac-Burgundian feud becomes instructive, and, I believe, offers some hope.
Feuds seem chaotic to modern eyes, but they follow a logic, serving as a form of government in periods where a central power capable of enforcement is lacking. Feuding was a fundamental part of politics in early modern France, a means of assuming and challenging power. If someone wanted to defend against an incursion, he appealed to his lord for military support. A small armed group attacked the aggressor. If one side was stronger, the conflict ended. If the sides were of equal power, however, the conflict would devolve into a long series of attacks and retaliations. Worse, seeing the central conflict, smaller players would settle their own unrelated quarrels by attaching them to the central one, hoping to resolve in this way problems that they did not have the strength to handle on their own. The Armagnac-Burgundian feud got rolling when the King Charles VI began to suffer episodic madness. His male relatives attempted to seize power during his periods of insanity, entering into a rivalry that produced various murders, constant warfare and pillaging, and enable the conquest and occupation of France by Henry V of England. The feud stretched from about 1405 until 1435.
And yet it ended eventually. Our current situation bears the hallmarks of a feud. No single enforcer is capable of bringing the recalcitrant parties to heel, and the parties are of roughly equal strength. One attacks and withdraws; the other retaliates and withdraws. The conflict cannot end because neither party is powerful enough to annihilate the other. In the meantime, special interest groups hook their causes to the central conflict, hoping to resolve problems they cannot settle on their own. But in the case of the Armagnacs and Burgundians, after years of warring and misery, the two sides finally ganged up to get rid of the English. Yes, in our case, the eternal conflict between the Democrats the Republicans is caused to a large extent by the representational abnormalities that are the fault of a decrepit system put in place over two hundred years ago. Huge swathes of the population are under or over represented, leaving business to be carried out by small groups of interested parties rather than by the people through elected representatives. Yes, progress is rendered impossible by the Republicans refusal to play ball at all. Still, it is only our feuding mentality that has brought the system to a complete halt.
But history shows that sooner or later feuds tend to run out of steam. One side either become stronger than the other (this could happen over the next several years as the demographics shift) or the feuding mentality simply runs out of steam as the generations change. It takes a lot of energy to keep up a level of hatred sufficient to fuel a feud. Do we really need to jettison the constitution? Probably not. Let’s just demystify the feuding mentality, long and loudly: let’s make medieval French history a mandatory course in high school and again at university.
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