In France, the last three centuries of the Middle Ages were marked by the establishment of a monarchical state with an absolutist vocation. But how was this decisive shift in power relations experienced in people's minds?
We are struck by the abundance and diversity of evidence of political awareness. The ruling dogma of the king as «emperor in his kingdom» has not meant that successive monarchs have been able to exercise their empire over a mute society. The opposite was true. There has never been a shortage of interpreters to support, escort, criticise or combat those in power. Through all sorts of means, treatises, speeches, sermons, grievances, and a host of theoretical and occasional writings, rulers and ruled have maintained a constant dialogue, the guarantee of an intellectual and moral consensus that is sufficiently solid to ensure, willy-nilly, the necessary cohesion of the country.
State institutions took root in the political ideas and beliefs of the time, and the crown appeared to all as an unavailable entity, the guardian of the community's destiny. The French, who were already proclaiming their freedom, became accustomed to living under a kingship that was quick to display its «very Christian» and imperial stature.