The counts [of Auvergne] thus succeeded to the kings [of the Arverni], and the kings were converted into counts, and the kingdom into a county, and just as Clermont was the head city of the kingdom, it was thus the principal city of the county, which has since been divided into two counties: to wit, into that of Clermont and that of Auvergne.1
In 1607, when Savaron published his history of his native city, Clermont was embroiled in a long dispute with its rival, Riom, regarding each townâs right to call itself the capital of Lower Auvergne and to enjoy the rights and privileges then coming to be associated with French provincial capitals.2 In the dispute, Clermont rested its rights on its claims to have been the ancient head city of the Arverni, one of the most powerful Gallic peoples amply discussed in Caesarâs Gallic War, and thus the natural capital of the subsequent county of Auvergne that emerged after the period of Roman domination. However, by the early seventeenth century, some serious flaws had surfaced in this argument. Clermontâs identity with Gergovia, the famous principal city of the Arverni that had courageously fought off Caesarâs attack under the leadership of the Gallic king, Vercingetorix, was under serious dispute, as were Clermontâs claims to have been the capital of the county of Auvergne in any of the forms that this county had taken since the High Middle Ages.3 Riom, for its part, also laid claim to the status of capital of Lower Auvergne but rested its arguments not on any assertions about origins but on its claims to have been the center of royal justice in the region since a royal sénéchaussée had been established there in 1345. Where Clermont built its arguments on a ânaturalâ predominance first established in the mists of antiquity, Riom made reference to a specific record of royal grants. Its argument, however, was equally open to question, since although the establishment of the sénéchaussée was not disputed, the Riomois did have to account for the fact that during much of the period between 1345 and 1531, Riom was in fact the capital city of a separate duchy of Auvergne and not under direct royal authority.
that Clermont was the universal seat of the sovereign justice of a monarchy before the birth of Rome, that the Roman governors held their own [seat of justice] there during the time that it was under their domination and that [the town] having submitted to France, the counts were sent there by the kings in order to render justice in the province. These counts having become hereditary, they continued their judicial seat in the city, which is the same that the officers of the sénéchaussée of Clermont fulfill today.7
A historical continuity founded in Clermontâs accepted position as the natural seat of justice and ecclesiastical authority in the province was fundamental to the inhabitantsâ claims for retaining or expanding their current advantages.
The use of history to justify specific privileges or to argue for particular rights was certainly not unique to Clermont.8 In seventeenth-century Toulouse, as Pierre Bonin has shown, Germain de la Faille referenced an unbroken history of the nobility of the capitouls to argue that such nobility did not depend on royal privilege but originated in ancient times before the institution of the monarchy. For La Faille, customs that went back to antiquity could be considered as authored by God himself, and since Toulouse had remained a capital city in each era of its history and had never been taken by force, it was evident that it had retained all of its local customs intact.9 As Bonin concludes, La Faille thus âused history as the basis for an idealized law.â10 While the issues at stake in the rivalry between Clermont and Riom were different from those in Toulouse, many of his observations about how local history and legal argumentation could influence each other apply equally well to this case. Not only does this extended rivalry indicate the ways that historical representations could inform the developing concept of âcapitalitéâ and vice-versa but it also demonstrates the enormous power that origins stories could encapsulate in the historical and judicial spheres. Identifying the origins of French towns with particular Gallic peoples could underline a localityâs contributions to the French kingdom or suggest the possibility of alternative political structures. In the case of Clermont, these origin stories were particularly effective not only in asserting a fundamental French character but in claiming a privileged position in a hierarchy of communities under the aegis of the French crown. Part of the success of this recourse to origins resided in these assertions being very difficult to refute: even though Clermontâs status as the head city of the Arverni was subject to serious debate, the power of evoking the Gallic victory over Caesar and his legions at Gergovia prompted Clermontâs apologists to continue to make reference to it despite historical doubts. Further, although Riom marshaled its own arguments residing in the greater age and certain foundation of its judicial institutions, it was always possible to counter them with claims to greater seniority rooted in the ancient past.
This chapter examines the early modern debate over the location of the ancient Gergovia before turning to the competing claims of Clermont and Riom to be the rightful capital of Lower Auvergne. It demonstrates the active role that urban historical writing could play in shaping judicial arguments, just as developing rivalries could influence historical claims. An individual such as Savaron, who was both a respected scholar and the chief judicial official of his city, could play an especially large role in this interaction, but it is also important to recognize that exterior political circumstances could also shift the balance of argument. That both cities rested their claims to precedence on historical factors also prompted an expansion of the historical controversies deemed relevant to the debate. Thus by the seventeenth century, largely thanks to Savaronâs works and connections within the Republic of Letters, the question of the location of the ancient Gergovia had expanded to include the controversy over the rights and descent of the house of La Tour dâAuvergne and disputes over the regionâs early sacred history.
1 The Argument from Antiquity and the Debate over Gergovia
In his Origines de Clairmont, Savaron took pains to establish that Clermont was an ancient city, synonymous with the Augustonemetum mentioned by Ptolemy and the city of the Arverni, or Arverna, mentioned by writers from Pliny to Gregory of Tours. As it was common to rename cities after the emperor in whose reign the location was rebuilt, Savaron asserted that this practice had also affected the head city of the Arverni. Later, as the principal city of each province took on the name of that province itself, Augustonemetum became known variously as Arverni, Arvernia, and Arverna.11 Material remains stood proof to this continuity. As the capital city of the kingdom of the Arverni and later the host to numerous Roman senators, Clermont had impressed early writers as large, rich, and well populated. Indeed, it was still âa town in which it was impossible to dig in the ground without finding classical medallions, medals, urns, sepulchral arches, Roman and Christian inscriptions, baths, aqueducts, marbles, pottery of a marvelous redness and polish, farmsteads, and other monuments of antiquity.â12 Further, early ecclesiastical manuscripts described the churches of âAuverneâ as being the same as existed in Clermont in the seventeenth century, and the saints who were mentioned as being buried in and around Auverne were the same as those currently buried in Clermont.13 So eager was Savaron to establish the connection between the current city of Clermont and the âArvernaâ of an earlier age that he consistently interpreted all references to the lands of the Arverni (the âcivitas Arverniâ) as referring to Clermont itself.14
Despite Savaronâs enthusiasm to identify his native town with the head city of the Arverni, with an important Gallo-Roman administrative center, and with the seat of early bishops and saints, he said not a word about whether it was also synonymous with the Gallic oppidum, Gergovia. When Pierre Durand republished Savaronâs work with considerable new material in 1662, he was sure that the erudite lieutenant général had believed that Clermont was the descendent of the famous Gallic city that had repulsed the onslaught of Caesar and his Roman legions, and he referred to Savaronâs list of the times when Clermont had been taken by force to support this view. Yet, where Savaron discussed these occasions, he included two instances in which authors had discussed the defeat of the Arverni as a people without once mentioning Gergovia. For example, the second event occurred after the battle of Alesia, when Caesar narrates that he required the Arverni as a people to turn over numerous hostages to maintain his goodwill after his great victory. In his characteristic way, Savaron elided the city of Clermont itself with the territory of the Arverni.15 Doing so certainly implied that the town was identical to the ancient Gergovia, but it is significant that Savaron, who was after all writing on the origins of Clermont, never overtly made this claim. His silence was perhaps advisable, since by the early seventeenth century, the best erudite opinion held that Clermont was not on the site of the ancient Gergovia, and popular opinion was at best divided on the subject.
The debate over the location of the ancient oppidum of Gergovia, head city of the Arverni, seemingly dates to the middle of the sixteenth century. In his Description de la Limagne dâAuvergne en forme de dialogue, published in Italian in 1560 and translated into French by Gabriel Chappuys in 1561, Gabriel Syméoni claimed to establish for the first time that Gergovia was not located on the present site of Clermont, but was rather situated on the summit of a steep mountain two leagues away. Whereas Clermont was located on a gentle hill of easy ascent, the steepness of the mountain in question and the disposition of the surrounding area corresponded exactly with Caesarâs description. As Siméoni explains, âit is far less likely that the city that is today called Clermont could be Gergovia, as others have claimed, since this hill is very easy to ascend, whereas this mountain is inaccessible from all directions, as Caesar relates (and as I have tested many times on foot and on horseback).â16 Further, at the base of the mountain it was still possible to see the ruins of a tower in the form of a church currently named âGergoye,â and several villages in the area betrayed their original Roman names, referring to events from the siege. Finally, Siméoni, in the guise of his character Uranio, claimed to have mounted up to the summit, at that time known as Mount Merdogne, and to have paced out the area, finding the remains of numerous streets, squares, houses, and roof tiles, all of which must have belonged to the ancient Gergovia. To aid the reader, Siméoni also provided a map, in which he labeled all the geographical features in question according to lettered passages from Caesarâs account.17
Siméoni certainly launched the published debate on the question of the location of the ancient Gergovia, but it is worth inquiring what piqued the interest of the Florentine humanist in the first place.18 Although the tendency throughout the Middle Ages was to equate Clermont with Gergovia, advocates of Saint-Flour, the small episcopal seat of Upper Auvergne, had also claimed this honor for their own community.19 A humanist who had already taken an interest in the antiquities of his native Florence as well as Lyon, Siméoni knew Clermont well. A familiar of the Du Prat family, he supplied Antoine iii du Prat, prévôt of Paris, with news from court and spent considerable time in the company of Guillaume du Prat, bishop of Clermont, at his residence of Beauregard just outside the town, in the 1550s.20 Indeed, it was during one of Siméoniâs stays in the area that the alternate site of the ancient Gergovia must have drawn his attention. In 1555, the monks of the abbey of Saint-André-lès-Clermont were involved in a lawsuit against the lady of Merdogne regarding grazing rights on the summit of the mountain in question. The monks claimed these rights thanks to their farm at the foot of the mountain, vulgarly called âGergoyeâ but which they had a tendency to call âGergobiaâ in light of its Latin name, and in 1556, they won their case.21 Although there is no evidence that the monks themselves argued that the summit of the mountain was the site of the ancient Gergoviaâand the general identification of this locale as the âcostaut de Merdogneâ during their suit strongly argues against this ideaâtheir interest in the area and spotlight on their farm called Gergoye at the mountainâs base surely suggested the possibility to Siméoni and his humanist friends at Clermont.
Siméoniâs assertions that Clermont was not on the site of the ancient Gergovia had a remarkably speedy impact, possibly due to the developing popularity of speculations on urban antiquities and debates over city origins at this time. Locally, the former Mount Merdogne came to be known as Mount Gergoye, so that even the supporters of Clermontâs claims to be the ancient Gergovia adopted this terminology.22 Here, the influence of Siméoniâs map, with its mountain labeled Gergoye, may have been determinant. As Abbé Lancelot, an eighteenth-century commentator on the debate, pointed out, the map was widely adopted in geographical works and atlases, so that very quickly readers of Orteliusâs popular Theatrum orbis terrarum could examine it and learn that there existed âa small mountain, named Gergoie, with some evidence of the old ruins of the very renowned city of Gergobia ⦠of which Caesar makes mention.â23 There is also evidence that some limited archeological excavations were carried out in the area, on the property belonging to the abbey of Saint-André-lès-Clermont.24
inquired of those who had been at the site regarding the space on this mountain top and if it were capable of supporting such a large city, including the force of its citizens and the army of Vercingetorix. They assured [him] of the narrowness of the place so that it would barely be possible to hold a review of a flying camp and that a besieger could not possibly launch an assault of the spot.26
Although Belleforest admitted that ruins and stone fragments littered the mountain plateau, he denied that these remains sufficed to prove that the famous Gallic head city had once stood there. If the inhabitants of Gergovia had indeed fended off the Roman forces, he reasoned, why would they then abandon their city to resettle at Clermont? On the other hand, Clermont itself offered up numerous proofs that it was the capital that had repelled Caesarâs legions. At Clermont, remains from the ancient city abounded, including statuary, cornices, inscriptions, and medals. Further, since Clermont was called âthe city of Auvergneâ or the âcity of the Auvergnatsâ under Roman domination and since numerous tombs of Christian martyrs and early bishops remained, this evidence surely proved that the city had once been Gergovia, the capital of the Gallic Arverni.27
For, if it is necessary to make a defense through these antiquities and ruins, we have the better material with which to arm ourselves, given that at Mount Gergoye all one sees are tiles and stones scattered here and there whereas at Clermont there is a wonderful expanse of ground where one finds strong and thick walls and infinite ruins of buildings.30
Since there is no evidence that Belleforest himself ever visited Clermont, his descriptions of its ruins and his reference to âweâ must have come from the memoranda he received from Clermont, or at best from the description of his friend, Villevault, a native of the city. Thus, the strong argumentation in favor of Clermontâs identity with the ancient Gergovia to be found in the Cosmographie universelle surely reproduced the claims that the aldermen of Clermont themselves assembled to send to Paris. It was certainly the aldermen who first resumed, âthus, you see what is the antiquity of Clermont and what right have those who say that Saint-Flour is the ancient seat of the bishopric and even less those who wish to make Riom the capital of Auvergne against all history and true reckoning of years.â31 These developed arguments show that by the mid-1570s, Siméoniâs thesis was spreading in influence locally and in publications focused on French geography and history, and that the Clermontois felt compelled to mount a strong defense.
it is certain that the town and episcopal city of Clermont form one of the ancient towns of Gaul, principal and capital city of the province, commonly called Gergovie, according to the testimony of Julius Caesar in his commentaries, even though some poorly intentioned people have denigrated this passage because of the discrepancies in the name.32
Further, when in 1589 Villevault published a compilation of works including a translation of Caesarâs description of the siege of Gergovia, a translation of an epistle of Sidonius Apollinaris, fifth-century bishop of Clermont, and a rudimentary account of the cityâs antiquities based entirely on the writings of Gregory of Tours, a sonnet dedicated to the author by âI. D. C. Gergovienâ explicitly identified Villevault with Vercingetorix, claiming that both of these notable inhabitants of Clermont had struck a powerful blow against Caesar: âHere are two Clermontois lit by a worthy desire; / One battles Caesar by arms, the other by the pen, / But greater is the blow that never heals.â33 In this poetâs estimation, Villevaultâs contribution to Clermontâs freedom was thus more noteworthy than the Gallic generalâs!
Outside of Clermont, the Cosmographie universelle no doubt also asserted some influence. Duchesne was very likely following Belleforest when he asserted in his Antiquitez et recherches des villes, first published in 1609, that it would be pointless to deny that Clermont was the ancient Gergovia, given that its situation and Caesarâs original description made this identification perfectly clear. It is interesting to note that Duchesne did not see fit to alter this description in any of the subsequent editions of the Antiquitez, despite his later acquaintance with Savaron and his works.34 The attraction of the argument of the continuity of French cities, from Gallic head city, to Roman administrative center, to ecclesiastical seat, to provincial capital also likely played a role. Thus, Sanson maintained in his Remarqves svr la carte de lâancienne Gavle that if Clermont was certainly the Augustonemetum of the Romans and the âmunicipum Arverniâ or Arverna of Gregory of Tours, it was naturally also the Gergovia mentioned by Caesar. These three names for the capital of Auvergne corresponded to the same city, and if a Mount Gergoye stood nearby, this name arose from the propinquity of the city of Gergovia and not its situation on the summit.35 Indeed, the logic of this argument appealed to other scholars of urban antiquities, so that Jean Munier and Thomas both assumed that Clermont was on the site of the ancient Gergovia, even though the two Burgundian historians disagreed about whether the ancient Bibracte had been located at Autun.36
Meanwhile, the best erudite opinion embraced the thesis that the ancient Gergovia had been located on the summit of the mountain now universally called Mount Gergoye. Thus, when De Thou passed through Clermont on his tour of France in 1582, he spent time visiting the city as well as âthe remains of the ancient Gergovia located on a nearby mountain.â37 A half-century later, the learned Jesuit Gilles Lacarry also paid a visit to the plateau, where he was not overwhelmed by the archeological evidence he found but where he persisted in locating the Gallic oppidum.38 This view was all the more secure within learned circles since by the early seventeenth century, documentary evidence had emerged to confirm Gergoviaâs original placement on the mountain. In the mid-1580s, the monks of Saint-André-lès-Clermont hoped to acquire the right of high justice for their farm of Gergoye. To support these ambitions, a charter dating from 1149 was forged to show that Guillaume, count of Clermont and dauphin of Auvergne, had granted the monks high, middle, and low justice âin Gergovia, both within its bounds and on the mountain or plateau, which is above, within the use of and included in the venerable farm from antiquity.â39 Although the forged charter likely dates from the late sixteenth century,40 Savaron was aware of it by 1609, when he made an oblique reference to it in his second edition of the works of Sidonius Apollinaris.41 Several decades later, the brothers Sainte-Marthe published a copy of it in their Gallia christiana (1656), explaining that they had obtained it from their friend, Savaron.42 The scholar from Clermont had aided Scévole ii de Sainte-Marthe when he visited Clermont in 1612 in locating materials for his Histoire généalogique de la maison de France.43
From the very beginning, scholars noticed problems with the charter. As early as 1645, Christofle Justel cautioned in his Histoire genealogiqve de la maison dâAvvergne that the title given to Guillaume, the founder of the monastery, was anachronistic, since the title of âdauphin of Auvergneâ accorded to him in the text was only first adopted by his son, Dauphin.44 Ãtienne Baluze went further in asserting that the charter of 1149 was a forgery, even while retaining the notion that although the text had been doctored, the foundation of the monastery represented in it was still accurate.45 Despite these concerns, the existence of this charter stood for a time as a powerful proof for the location of the ancient Gergovia on the mountain plateau contiguous to the farm of Gergoye owned by the abbey of Saint-André. The monksâ ambitions thus exerted a notable influence over the debate. Their first concerns to gain grazing rights on the plateau may have alerted Siméoni to the site as the possible location of the ancient oppidum, and the resulting text led to the mountainâs change of name from Merdogne to Gergoye. This alteration may very well have suggested additional strategies for the abbey to acquire new rights of justice for its farm, and the charters forged to support these claims only reconfirmed the view that the ancient Gergovia had been situated on the summit. Without this charter, the evidence was far from overwhelming. In the early eighteenth century, Abbé Lancelot was not at all convinced that Gergovia had been situated on this spot, and despite Napoleon iii (r.1852â70) having officially recognized the site as the location of the Gallic city, doubts persisted into the twentieth century. It has only been since the 1990s that archeologists have definitively established that the ancient Gergovia was indeed located on this site, while ascertaining that this oppidum was one of three inhabited by the Arverni in the centuries immediately preceding Roman domination.46
For those who supported the view that Gergovia had been located two leagues from Clermont, a problem immediately emerged: Why would the inhabitants of the victorious head city abandon the houses they had so successfully defended to build them elsewhere? What then, too, would be the relationship between the Gergovians and the inhabitants of the other major center of the Arverni, Clermont? Belleforest, as we have seen, made reference to this difficulty in asserting that Gergovia had always been located at Clermont. Others, however, accepted this idea of the re-founding of the head city of the Arverni. Visiting Clermont for the Grands Jours of Auvergne in 1582, Masson composed a short history, in which he suggested that the Gergovians had departed from their mountain to found their city in a more convenient place.47 Pierre Durand advanced the same idea in his republication and expansion of Savaronâs Origines de Clairmont in 1662. In his view, the Romans had destroyed Gergovia as a punishment for being one of the last places in Gaul to offer its submission. The inhabitants had then founded their new city in the most pleasant spot in the vicinity, while maintaining its status as the capital and passing on their special valor to their descendants. He thus concluded âthat Clermont succeeded and having been born of this generous Gergovia, the Clermontois, true offspring of these brave Gergovians who so powerfully repulsed the invincible Caesar, have not degenerated from their worth.â48
If some historians adopted the idea that the Gergovians had left their original site to establish the city of Clermont, others found this view, which provided a specific, datable origin for Clermont, unacceptable. Therefore, Pierre Audigier, who wrote his own history of Clermont in the late seventeenth century, proposed that the Arverni had in fact peopled two great cities during the time of Caesar, Gergovia and âNemetum.â During the time that the other Gallic communities were fighting against the Roman general, the inhabitants of Nemetum continued to respect their alliance with Rome and even went so far as to serve as a retreat for the Roman legions during their siege of Gergovia.49 Prompted by their discontent in having witnessed the Gergovians elevated over them thanks to Roman influence, they duly regained their previous status as the capital of the Arverni after Gergoviaâs fall.50 Further, it was at this time that Nemetum changed its name to become the Augustonemetum or the Arverna of the writers of antiquity.51
Audigierâs mythical account of the early history of Clermont demonstrates how important it was to the cityâs residents to imagine a past with no point of origin. It was unacceptable to the people of Clermont to admit that their community dated to the reign of Augustus Caesar, although that was the most logical conclusion to draw from the likelihood that the ancient Gergovia had been located elsewhere. Indeed, modern scholars now definitively state that Augustonemetum was newly founded and built under Roman authority in the last decades of the first century bce.52 Audigier was thus left to imagine the existence of two cities peopled by the Arverni, the rivalry of which strangely mimicked the contemporary hostilities between Clermont and Riom. It was no doubt satisfying for the historian to argue that Clermontâs ancient rival had been destroyed and its land sewn with salt, thus allowing Clermont to resume its rightful place in Auvergne.
Thus, by the second half of the seventeenth century, the debate over Gergovia was far from completely resolved. It is true that a significant number of erudite scholars maintained that the Gallic head city had not been located at Clermont, but a noticeable number of works of historical geography continued to claim that it was. Given that Savaron was aware of the existence of the charter of 1149 by 1609 at the latest and that he was himself responsible for sharing it with other savants, it is virtually certain that the erudite judicial official sided with those who held that Gergovia and Clermont did not occupy the same site. This may be why he maintained an absolute silence on the subject of Gergovia in his Origines de Clairmont; there was no good way to argue that Clermont had always enjoyed the status of principal city of the Arverni if Gergovia had stood elsewhere. Savaronâs doubts on the subject, though, did not prevent him from making use of the prestige of Gergovia when it suited him. In a Remonstrance to Henri iv designed to excuse a popular disturbance over the pancarte tax, Savaron marshaled his cityâs long record of fidelity to argue that Clermont should not serve as a scapegoat for similar uprisings in other French towns. In particular, he recounted that Clermont had been the only town able to stand against the tyranny of Caesar and to force him shamefacedly to give up his siege as a signal instance of the cityâs fortitude and loyalty.53 During the Estates General of 1614, too, Savaron cited the proverbial liberty of the Gergois, or Auvergnats, in an attempt to promote the precedence of the government of Auvergne over that of Lyonnais within the Assembly of the Third Estate. Lyon, he ironically argued, had originated as a Roman colony, thus revealing that cityâs initial servitude.54 Despite his reputation for erudition and probity, the lieutenant général of Clermont was not above using selective evidence and making specious arguments to promote the privileges and prestige of his hometown. Likewise, advocates of Clermont resoundingly based their case for their cityâs rights and preeminence on its natural status as the capital of Auvergne since ancient times, despite this historical identification being widely disputed.
2 Capitalité and the Rivalry between Clermont and Riom
By the mid-sixteenth century, Clermont and Riom had entered into a long dispute over the right of each town to declare itself the capital of Lower Auvergne and to exercise the rights and privileges they identified as generally attributed to French provincial capitals. Clermont, as we have seen, based its arguments on its long history as the principal city of the region, from the time of the kingdom of the Arverni to the period of the hereditary counts of Auvergne to the present. It was true, the inhabitants conceded, that after being annexed to the kingdom of France under the reign of Clovis and after receiving numerous advantages from its counts, the city had been extracted from the rule of the true counts of Auvergne for a period of three hundred years and placed under the temporal lordship of its bishops. During that time, âsome piddling villages [petites Bourgades] recently built into towns had sought to make advances on its authority and to contest the capitalitéâ of the region, but the city was now happily in the position to reassert its rights.55 At a time when Gregory of Tours described Clermont as flourishing and rich, Riom was nothing but a village. Accordingly, St. Austremonius saw fit to establish the bishopâs seat at Clermont in the third century, and since that time, Clermont had always been considered the capital of the province and the natural place of convocation for the provincial estates.56 In 1566, the inhabitants of Clermont were declared exempt from the taille, in line with the other bonnes villes, capitals of their regions. Riom, by contrast, saw its exemption revoked in 1573.57
For the supporters of Riom, all of Clermontâs historical arguments were at best irrelevant and at worst entirely inaccurate. It was indisputable that Clermont had always been the episcopal seat, but this dignity was beside the point since ecclesiastical prestige had never guaranteed temporal authority.58 Otherwise, for the inhabitants of Clermont to claim that their town was the ancient Gergovia or the seat of royal justice under the counts of Auvergne was nothing but âchimeras in the air and willful fantasies without any foundation whatsoever and which they would not be able to justify by charters or the testimony of any author.â59 Rather, Riom rested its rights on the foundation of its royal sénéchaussée in 1345, when Riom was confirmed as the capital of the royal lands of Auvergne (âterre dâAuvergneâ). If this territory was later removed from direct royal authority by being raised to a duchy and given in appanage to Jean, duke of Berry, in 1360, jurisdiction over royal cases was always immediately returned to it when it re-entered the royal domain. Since 1531, it had stood as the undisputed center of royal justice for the region.60 Nevertheless, through a treaty of January 1557, the inhabitants of Riom were pressured into dividing the capitalité of the province with Clermont, after which Riom still retained principal authority over justice and the right to call the ban. Without this agreement of 1557, Clermont would have no right whatsoever to style itself a capital, since should not the city where the royal court has been established for all time be reputed such?61
Although they agreed on little else, both cities thus referred to capital status as a recognizable position with specific rights, and each sought to ground its standing in a developed historical narrative. Each city, too, sought to represent itself as the wronged party: where Riom pointed to specific grants and agreements that its rival was wrongfully and aggressively seeking to overturn, Clermont represented itself as the natural regional head that had seen an upstart community abrogate its rights during the time that it had been forced into relative obscurity thanks to feudal disputes. The complexity of these narratives and the tenacity on both sides also led the controversy to touch on numerous areas of dynastic and religious history in addition to the particularities of each cityâs urban past. Over the course of the period, Clermont did clearly gain in advantages over its rival, but it is also significant that neither side truly obtained the upper hand. Both kinds of historical justification seemed credible to the royal jurisdictions charged to adjudicate the controversy, and their rulings often sought to accommodate both visions of the rightful balance of authority in Lower Auvergne.
2.1 The Treaty of 1557 and the âCounty of Clermontâ
In many of their productions, the inhabitants of Riom made reference to a treaty of January 1557 between themselves and representatives of Clermont. This official agreement, overseen by Catherine deâ Medici, recently designated as the rightful countess of Clermont, apportioned the rights and preeminence that each city would enjoy within the region. The parties agreed that thenceforth Riom would be called âHead of the duchy of Auvergneâ and would have precedence in all matters relating to justice and the calling of the ban, while Clermont would be styled âHead and capital city of the lands of Auvergneâ and would preside at the provincial estates. The généralité, chambre du domaine, and the mint would remain perpetually in Riom, while Clermont would house the recette ordinaire des tailles, the recette générale du taillon, and the élection. All cases heard in the sénéchaussée of Clermont would go to the presidial court at Riom on appeal. In all general assemblies, the judicial officials of Riom would have precedence over those of Clermont, but the judicial officials of Clermont would be given honorable places when they visited Riom.62
In referencing this agreement, the inhabitants of Riom argued both that it definitively confirmed their city as the judicial capital of Lower Auvergne and that it had been extracted from them under unfavorable conditions. While it declared that Riom and its officials were to retain precedence in all judicial matters, the town reputedly had been forced to cede some of its rightful prerogatives to its rival. The assault on Riomâs privileges had begun in 1551, when Catherine deâ Medici, queen of France, had obtained a provisional ruling from the Parlement of Paris declaring her countess of Clermont. A descendant in the maternal line from the house of La Tour dâAuvergne, the queen asserted her right to the counties of Clermont and Auvergne thanks to this inheritance and disputed the temporal authority exercised by the bishops of Clermont over the city since the early thirteenth century. In a definitive ruling of 1557, the Parlement denied Guillaume du Prat, bishop of Clermont, of his lordship, ârestoringâ it to Catherine instead.63 The queen, the Riomois charged, had then conferred all sorts of advantages on her newly won city of Clermont and had favored its ambitions when overseeing the agreement. Her authority in the matter was demonstrated by the treaty having been signed by her own officials, âto such an extent that one can deduce that equality was not preserved given the regard and affection that the said lady the queen had to aggrandize the said town of Clermont that she had newly acquired.â64 Of course, Riom only dared to make such arguments beginning in the reign of Henri iv, after the death of the Queen Mother.
Whether or not Riomâs complaints against the queenâs favoritism were well founded, Clermont certainly did benefit from its change of lordship. Thanks to Catherineâs intervention, the consulat was converted into an échevinage in 1556, and the inhabitants were enfranchised from paying the taille a decade later.65 In 1551, a sénéchaussée was established at Clermont to hear all of the cases coming from the queenâs lands on appeal, and in 1556, Henri ii agreed to convert the court into a royal jurisdiction.66 Although Riom obtained a ruling in 1574 from the Cour des Aides upholding the division of rights established by the accord of 1557, in 1576 Henri iii ordered that cases heard at the sénéchaussée of Clermont would go directly to the Parlement of Paris on appeal and not to the presidial court at Riom. In 1582, Clermont managed to obtain its own presidial court, and it was finally inaugurated in 1584.67 All of these advantages tarnished the terms of the 1557 agreement in the eyes of the inhabitants of Clermont. By the seventeenth century, the Clermontois came to argue that the treaty was null and void, since it had never been carried out, had been contravened by both parties, and had neither been ratified nor registered. No-one from Clermont had held the authority to sign it, and it had been disavowed by the city within a month of its signature. In fact, it could be said that the treaty had never even existed, since the Riomois could not produce more than a single copy.68 Clermontâs disenchantment with the treaty is also notable by its absence from historical works such as the Origines de la ville de Clairmont. Although Durand provided extensive documentation testifying to the rights of Clermont and its rivalry with Riom in his updating of this work in 1662, and even produced royal letters patent and a procès-verbal of May and June 1558 in which certain judicial rights accorded by the treaty were confirmed, he failed to include the text of the agreement itself.69
In the eyes of Riom, certain inhabitants of Clermont had connived in dispossessing Bishop Prat of his temporal authority over the city and in aiding Catherine in her quest to acquire lordship for herself.70 And, in fact, the queenâs claim to the âcounty of Clermontâ was highly useful to the cityâs inhabitants, not only because of her influence but also because her arguments explained how Clermont could have slipped from being the natural capital of the ancient county of Auvergne to a city under the temporal jurisdiction of its bishop. Several aspects of the queenâs case, however, were historically controversial. First, the authenticity of the principal document on which her advocates rested her claim was questionable, and second, the historical existence of the county of Clermont itself was highly debatable. Neither of these problems, though, seems to have worried Savaron or others seeking to assert Clermontâs rights over Riom. As a result, the historical arguments involved in this urban rivalry became embroiled with larger dynastic concerns involving the descent of the major noble families of the region.
The heart of the queenâs case involved an agreement of deposit dating from 1202. By 1199, Guy ii, count of Auvergne, was at odds with his brother Robert, bishop of Clermont, thus inciting Philippe ii to send an army into Auvergne to defend the bishop against the count. Three years later, however, Guy ii, fearing further conflict with the king, purportedly gave his brother Robert his capital city of Clermont in guard, to prevent the possibility of its being confiscated by the crown. By 1209, Guy ii was indeed embroiled in further hostilities. At this time, he took his brother hostage and seized his lands, leading to a second descent of a royal army into Auvergne, the siege of both Clermont and Riom, and the subsequent confiscation of Guyâs lands in 1210.71 Although by 1229 Guyâs son, Guillaume, had gained back a small portion of these lands, henceforth styled the county of Auvergne but of greatly diminished extent, the majority, now known as the âlands of Auvergne,â were given to Guy de Dampierre to govern in the name of the king.72 These were the lands that gained their royal sénéchaussée in 1345 and were raised to a duchy and given in appanage to Jean, duke of Berry, in 1360. The thirteenth-century county of Auvergne and the lands of Auvergne, it should be noted, were also distinct from the dauphiné of Auvergne, which had been separated off from the original county of Auvergne when Guillaume vi, the older, had dispossessed his nephew, Guillaume v, the younger, of the county of Auvergne in approximately 1155. The heirs of Guillaume v never gave up their claim to the original county of Auvergne, and beginning with Dauphin, the son of the dispossessed count, styled themselves as dauphins of Auvergne and counts of Clermont to mark their claim.73 Meanwhile, the city of Clermont remained in the hands of the bishops of Clermont, to be administered by them for the next 350 years, until Catherine deâ Medici launched her case. Her right to lordship over the city and âcounty of Clermontâ rested in the rights of the original counts of Auvergne having devolved on the house of La Tour dâAuvergne, from which she descended in the maternal line.
Although the queenâs arguments were powerful enough to persuade the Parlement of Paris to rule provisionally in 1551 and then definitively in 1557 in her favor, the authenticity of the 1202 agreement of deposit was questionable. Justel, whose Histoire genealogiqve de la maison dâAvvergne (1645) argued strongly for the ancient descent of the La Tour line, nevertheless asserted that the charter could not be legitimate. According to Justel, it was not likely that Guy ii would give his brother his principal city in guard, given that the two men were in constant conflict and that this hostility was the prime reason that Guy feared an attack from Philippe ii in the first place. Further, the document qualified Guy as both count of Clermont and count of Auvergne as if these were two separate entities, which, Justel explained, was not the case. The confusion had arisen because the dauphins of Auvergne had continued to style themselves counts of Clermont in memory of their claim to the entire county of Auvergne.74 Thus, according to Justel, Clermont was never transferred from Guy to Robert, on deposit or otherwise, but was likely confiscated by Philippe ii in 1210 along with Guyâs other lands.75 He did not explicitly explain how Clermont fell under the temporal authority of its bishops, but the obvious implication of his argument was that Catherineâs claim to lordship over the city and the âcounty of Clermontâ had been fraudulent.
It is very likely that the weaknesses of the queenâs arguments were well known in Clermont and that the inhabitants could have supported their bishopâs rights had they so chosen. Although Baluze reported in 1708 that he had found a copy of the 1202 charter written out in the hand of Duchesne and marked as coming directly from the Trésor des Chartes, where the original could still be consulted, documents attesting to the temporal authority of the bishops of Clermont since at least the twelfth century existed within the ecclesiastical archives.76 Thus when Jean Dufraisse, canon of the cathedral, penned his Origines des eglises de France (1688), he concurred with Justel that the 1202 deposit had been a fake. According to Dufraisse, the bishops of Clermont had obtained their lordship over the city in the tenth century, at the same time that the counts of Auvergne had gained their hereditary rights. He stated that he could prove this contention if necessary, but since justice was well administered at present and the city had not suffered from its change of lordship, there was no reason to do so.77 Nevertheless, Dufraisse did mention in passing that Abbot Sugerâs Vita Ludovici Regis (Life of Louis le Gros [1138]) clearly demonstrated that in 1124 the château of Clermont belonged to the canons of the cathedral and that the bishops were the seigneurs of the city. Moreover, the chapter had always possessed the keys to the château, and there were many documents in the archives of the chapter showing that cens (seigneurial dues) were owed to the bishop as count and to the chapter, indivisibly.78
As an erudite scholar who clearly had access to manuscripts from the various local religious establishments, Savaron could certainly have built a case against the 1202 deposit if he had so desired. Instead, his Origines de Clairmont supported Catherineâs claims to lordship over the city and insisted on identifying a long, continuous series of the counts of Clermont. Under the tenure of Robert, bishop of Clermont, Savaron reported his reception of the county of Clermont on deposit in 1202 but nevertheless described each subsequent bishop as acting under the rule of a secular count.79 In his list of the âcounts of Clermont,â Savaron also mixed up the different comital houses of Auvergne, listing numerous dauphins of Auvergne as counts of Clermont, but failing to mention Dauphin himself. He also listed Guy ii as a count of Clermontânaturally, since Guy was supposed to have given Clermont to his brother on depositâwhile failing to account for the line of the dauphins of Auvergne having split off from the main comital line before Guyâs time. Catherine duly held her place as the fifty-sixth count of Clermont.80 Perhaps to solidify her claim even further, Savaron fantastically identified Guy ii and his brother Robert as âde la Tour,â thus reinforcing this familyâs rights to the âcounty of Clermontâ long before any alliance had truly taken place.81 In revisions to his list of the counts of Clermont that Savaron was collecting with an eye to a second edition, he also added a âRobert de la Tourâ as the son of Guillaume the Younger.82
It is not certain whether Savaronâs confusion of the various lines of descent of the important noble houses of Auvergne reflected genuine ignorance or considered strategy, but there is some evidence that he was weighing in on the earliest aspects of the major controversy that would later engulf the genealogy of the house of Bouillon, an offshoot of the La Tour line. The controversy would later lead to the disgrace of Baluze and the forgery of a series of documents proving that the La Tour family owed its descent from the line of the hereditary counts of Auvergne with the existence of a Bernard, sire de la Tour, in 928.83 At the very least, Savaron showed an interest in the question, since he sent a document on this issue to Pierre Dupuy and a calendar from Saint-André-lès-Clermont to De Thou that was later sought as being able to shed light on the question.84 Further, in a letter that Duchesne addressed to Besly in 1619, he informed his friend about the work that Justel was undertaking on his historical genealogy of the house of La Tour dâAuvergne. According to Duchesne, it was highly improbable that there existed, as Justel asserted, a Guillaume de la Tour, count of Clermont, living in 1020, or that the name of âDe la Tourâ belonged to the hereditary house of the counts of Auvergne. Justel, in his opinion, would make great errors following Savaron, who did mention a Guillaume de la Tour, although at a later date.85 It is therefore evident that although Justel limited himself to correcting small inaccuracies in Savaronâs lists of counts without pointing out the fundamental confusions they demonstrated, the two erudite scholars shared an interest in placing members of the La Tour family within the line of the hereditary counts of Auvergne far earlier than less partisan historians thought advisable.86 Although the major scandal would only emerge later, the prestige of the La Tour family seems to have been linked in Savaronâs mind with Catherineâs claim to the âcounty of Clermont.â
In the region of Auvergne we have long witnessed a great contention and jealousy between the towns of Clermont and Riom. One proclaimed itself the first; the other raised its head above all its neighbors; one sustained itself in duty; the other could not maintain itself, but was overcome by the too great opinion it had conceived of itself.88
We hope that with Godâs help this reunion will restore the splendor and dignity of the city of Clermont, which has been much diminished by the individual lords who have held it, and will refurbish the marks of honor of which she has been despoiled for having been removed from it.92
Oddly, in the same work, Savaron insisted both on the continuous identity of the counts of Clermont and on the disadvantages that the city had suffered under individual lordship. He now looked forward to a time when Clermont could wrest additional advantages from its rival city, an intention that he signaled by styling himself lieutenant général in the sénéchaussée of Auvergne on the title page of his history.
2.2 The âSénéchaussée dâAuvergne,â the Seat of Royal Justice, and Religious Rivalries
The right to be recognized as housing the âsénéchaussée dâAuvergneâ and to oversee royal justice for the whole of Lower Auvergne was the single most contested privilege in the rivalry between Clermont and Riom. For Riom, that a royal sénéchaussée was established within its walls in 1345 demonstrated both that it was the ancient seat of royal justice in Auvergne and that it had since retained the status of provincial capital for all judicial matters. For Clermont, the contention that it had been the capital city of Lower Auvergne since the times of the kingdom of the Arverni and the hereditary counts argued that it also had the right to preside over royal justice in the region. The Clermontois looked askance at their rivalâs claims, arguing that when the lands of Auvergne had been raised to a duchy and given to Jean, duke of Berry, in appanage in 1360, the sénéchaussée had become a ducal jurisdiction and Riom nothing more than the head of the duchy.93 In turn, the Riomois responded that before the arrival of Catherine deâ Medici on the scene, Clermont had never housed any court beyond the temporal jurisdiction of the bishop.94 For both cities, judicial precedence and âcapitalitéâ were thus intimately related, so that their arguments addressed both the practical matter of what royal courts would be housed in each location and the more symbolic question of which royal jurisdiction could style itself the sénéchaussée of Auvergne, judicial head of the province. For each, history provided the most vital means to argue its claim.
For Riom, the argument about which town had the right to preside over royal justice in the region was based on a series of royal acts. Although Louis ix (r.1226â70) had given his brother, Alphonse of Poitiers, the lands of Auvergne in appanage, by 1283 Philippe iii (r.1270â85) had declared that Riom could never be separated from the royal domain. Whereas Philippe vi (r.1328â50) had perpetuated a royal bailliage jurisdiction at Riom in 1345, Jean ii (r.1350â64) had temporarily transferred all royal cases elsewhere in 1362, after he had granted the new duchy of Auvergne to his son, Jean, in 1360. Despite being given in appanage repeatedly, however, Riom routinely regained its royal jurisdiction when the duchy of Auvergne returned to the crown. This was the case in 1410, when the Parlement of Paris insisted that the duchy be returned to the king, and in 1504, when Montferrandâs pretentions to house the royal jurisdiction in Lower Auvergne were rejected in favor of Riom. This situation was confirmed definitively in 1531, when royal letters patent firmly denied any lordship claimed by the house of Bourbon.95
Despite Riom having spent much of the late Middle Ages as the capital of a duchy outside of royal hands, therefore, the inhabitants still held that it had preserved its status as a royal city and head of the kingâs justice in the region. Any aberrations from this situation were merely temporary, and no other town in Auvergne could lay a similar claim. For Clermont, these same acts showed that Riom had been under the authority of individual lords far more consistently than it had exercised royal justice. However, the inhabitants of Clermont had difficulty asserting any rival claim based on specific grants, since their own embrace of the claims of Catherine deâ Medici meant that they were forced to concede that their town had rightfully belonged to the counts of Auvergne rather than being under direct royal authority. It was true that in 1266 Bishop Guy de la Tour had successfully countered Alphonse of Poitiersâs claim to Clermont by obtaining recognition from Louis ix that the bishop held the city directly from the crown, but this evidence was of limited use to those, such as Savaron, who argued that the bishopsâ temporal authority over the city had been illegitimate.96 Instead, the Clermontois referred back to their cityâs status as the capital of the ancient county of Auvergne and argued that the jurisdiction at Riom had been subtracted from the original seat at Clermont, rather than the reverse.97
Over the course of these arguments, the inhabitants of Riom, who had believed that the establishment of a presidial court in 1551 and the terms of the 1557 agreement had confirmed their townâs status as head of royal justice in Lower Auvergne, witnessed Clermontâs growing pretensions in the judicial sphere with alarm. Although the privy council had ruled on April 5, 1575 that the presidial court would remain in Riom in perpetuity and that the royal courts located within the jurisdiction of the sénéchaussée of Auvergne could not be removed from its purview, by May 1576 Henri iii had ordered that cases heard by the sénéchaussée at Clermont would go directly to the Parlement of Paris on appeal.98 In 1582, Clermont had succeeded in obtaining its own presidial court, through a process that the Riomois described as occurring âthrough the powerful helping hand of the departed queen,â who had importuned both her son and the Parlement to such an extent that she obtained her goal.99 Indeed, before the inauguration of the new presidial court at Clermont in 1584, Pasquier was of the mistaken opinion that it would cause so many difficulties that its promoters would eventually decide to put it aside, so Riomâs account of its institution may well have been correct.100 By July 1588, moreover, the Clermontois had sent a deputation to court to plead that a parlement be established in their city, and in September the Riomois discovered that this request had been inserted into the cahier des doléances (list of grievances) of the third estate of Lower Auvergne in preparation for the meeting of the Estates General. Their initial alarm faded, though, as they determined to support this request with the stipulation that any new Parlement of Auvergne be housed in Riom.101 Since neither town was successful in obtaining a parlement, the Clermontois then launched a suit before the Grands Jours of Lyon in 1596, arguing that Clermont should be officially declared the capital city of Lower Auvergne and Riom prohibited from assuming this title, that the jurisdiction of the sénéchaussée of Auvergne should be divided in two with half being transferred to Clermont, and that all of the presidial courts of the province should be repressed except the one housed at the rightful capital.102 This suit was clearly unsuccessful, though, and Durand mentioned not a word of it in his expanded Origines de la ville de Clairmont.
By 1608, one year after the initial publication of Savaronâs history, the judicial officials at Riom had launched their own suit before the Parlement of Paris to prevent the legal officials at Clermont from calling their court the sénéchaussée of Auvergne. Riomâs charters, the plaintiffs argued, proved that the town had a venerable history of communal government and that it had always housed the principal court of Auvergne. When the lands of Auvergne were raised to a duchy, Riom became its capital. When the duchy returned to the crown after being given out in appanage, the rights associated with being the principal royal court were always restored.103 Nevertheless, the legal officials of Clermont had continually sought to provoke them by attempting to usurp their rightful title to the sénéchaussée of Auvergne and by claiming jurisdiction over all of the commissions and orders directed to the sénéchal of the principal court. Such enterprises on their rights had only increased once Savaron had become lieutenant général in 1604.104 However, the very seal of the sénéchaussée of Clermont testified to the proper name of this jurisdiction, and the agreement of 1557 consistently distinguished between the sénéchaussée of Auvergne, located at Riom, and the sénéchaussée of Clermont.105
In Clermontâs response, assuredly penned by Savaron himself, we see the full force of the erudite historical arguments brought to bear on the defendantsâ behalf. After producing documentary evidence that the sénéchal at Clermont had indeed been addressed as the sénéchal of Auvergne, the lieutenant général launched into a series of arguments designed to show the temerity of the inhabitants of Riom in asserting any claim to the general title of âAuvergne.â106 According to Savaron, Clermont had been the principal and capital city of Auvergne for all time, and since presidial courts were to be established in capital cities only, the presidial court at Riom rightfully belonged at Clermont. During the period that Clermont had been occupied by its bishops and counts, the presidial court had merely been âon depositâ at Riom, but it should now be returned. Further, since Clermont had anciently been honored by the names of Arverna and Arvernium, it should rightfully house the sénéchaussée of Auvergne.107 Clermont, Savaron asserted, had possessed a continuous line of baillis, sénéchaux, and counts since the time of Clovis, as the historical works of Gregory of Tours and the Grandes chroniques de France attested. Further, from Gregory of Tours, it was evident that Riom was situated within the county of Auvergne, with its capital at Clermont, and that while Riom was there identified as a mere village (âvicus Recomagensisâ), Clermont was referred to as a city (âurbs Arvernaâ). In fact, Savaron wrote, the author of the Histoire de Saint-Amable published in Riom in 1595 had attempted to usurp the title of Auvergne for his own community by altering the text of the office of St. Amable from the original manuscript and the source of the story in Gregory of Tours.108 As a later erudite scholar explained, Savaron was here referring to the fact that Antoine Bonnefonds, a member of a prominent literary and ecclesiastical family from Riom, had mistakenly altered the text of the Book of St. Amable in order to describe his hometown as a city (âcivitasâ) rather than a village (âvicusâ).109 Additional proofs of Riomâs inferiority and persistent lack of fidelity to the French crown could be gleaned from the foundation charter of the abbey at Mozat (or Mozac) and from the manuscript collection of Paul Petaud.110
In referring to evidence from Gregory of Toursâs Lives of the Confessors and from an updated life and office of St. Amable, Savaron was incorporating some of his most contentious assertions about the religious history of Auvergne into his legal arguments for the precedence of Clermontâs sénéchaussée. At the same time that he produced his Origines de Clairmont, the lieutenant général also published his De sanctis ecclesiis et monasteriis Clarmontii (1609), an edition of a tenth-century manuscript describing the religious monuments of Clermont, complete with his own commentary. Most notably, Savaron remarked on a line describing the relics of St. Amable as present within the church of Saint-Hilaire at Clermont at the time of the manuscriptâs redaction to argue that St. Amable, the patron saint of Riom and namesake of its most prestigious religious establishment, had remained entombed in Clermont for six hundred years after his death. It was only in the period between the writing of the manuscript and the occurrence of an important miracle in 1124, he asserted, that the body of St. Amable had been translated to Riom.111 The implication was that Clermont had equal or better right to claim the benefits and prestige of this local saint than the community in which his relics were currently deposited.
It is difficult to be sure whether anyone before Savaron had questioned the saintâs original place of burial, but the circumstances surrounding St. Amableâs life and death soon became the subject of intense disagreement between the two cities. The text of the saintâs office was revised several times, and numerous authors had weighed in on each side by the beginning of the eighteenth century.112 For Savaron, this questioning of the local tradition of Riom as it had been recorded in a manuscript account of the life and miracles of the saint purportedly written in the twelfth century caused notable historical problems. For example, in his Origines de Clairmont, he provided information from this Riomois manuscript that St. Gal ii, bishop of Clermont in the mid-seventh century, had embellished the tomb of St. Amable, without mentioning that the text held that the tomb was located in what later became the abbey of Saint-Amable at Riom.113 Moreover, for Bishop Estienne vi, Savaron was forced to reverse the order of the bishops maintained in all of the local catalogs at Clermont.114 This rearrangement was necessary so that Savaron could report this bishopâs rule to the reign of Louis vi, when the same Riomois manuscript described a miracle that St. Amable had performed at the bishopâs request within the walls of Riom, thus providing the final date of 1124 by which the translation of the saint from one town to the other had taken place. It does not seem to have concerned Savaron that he was privileging a single ambiguous line in one Clermontois manuscript over an entire local tradition that he nevertheless supported in all other particulars.115 Yet although his treatment of these ecclesiastical manuscripts was clearly inconsistent, he certainly helped to incorporate arguments over the evidence for the life and death of St. Amable into the legal realm and introduced this religious controversy into the general rivalry between the two towns.
Savaron thus forcefully defended the prestige of his city and the prerogatives of his court and employed a full range of scholarly arguments and documentary sources to do so. There is evidence, as well, that the kind of erudition he marshaled to make his case was persuasive to those passing judgment. Although Savaronâs use of the local ecclesiastical manuscripts left much to be desired, later erudite scholars by and large accepted his view that St. Amable had originally been buried at Clermont. In the view of Adrien Baillet, for example, the body of St. Amable had first been laid to rest in the church of Saint-Hilaire at Clermont and only translated to Riom sometime after the end of the tenth century. However, unlike Savaron, who relied on the Riomois manuscript as an authentic twelfth-century account, Baillet pronounced the various versions of the life and miracles of the saint as fabulous legends penned in the fifteenth century.116
Further, Savaronâs historical arguments in favor of Clermontâs prestige and privileges carried weight. During the Estates General of 1614, the lieutenant général not only made what a fellow delegate described as âa very learned and elegant discourseâ on the antiquity and dignity of Auvergne, but he argued forcefully that he should be given precedence within the Assembly of the Third Estate over Antoine de Murat, lieutenant général of the sénéchaussée at Riom. Although Riom possessed a sénéchaussée created in 1345, he declared, that of Clermont was inexpressibly older. There had certainly been letters addressed to the sénéchal of Auvergne before the mid-fourteenth century, and since Clermont was certainly the capital of Auvergne while Riom was at that time nothing but a village, these must surely have been addressed to Clermont.117 His concern to argue for the great age of the sénéchal of Auvergne at Clermont must have been all the more acute, since the city had to defend its presidial court from the proposal to disband all such courts founded after 1576.118 Clapisson, a judge at the Châtellet and secretary of the assembly, was highly impressed by his arguments, judging that Savaron had shown âby good and certain authorities that it [Clermont] was the capital of the region.â Although the majority held that the two lieutenants généraux should not be listed by name in the register to avoid having to rule on the question of precedence, the minority opined that Savaron, as the deputy of the capital city, should be named first.119 It is revealing that although Riom ultimately obtained a ruling in its favor regarding its sole right to style its court the sénéchaussée of Auvergne, it had to wait for this decision until 1626, four years after Savaronâs death.
It is also significant that after decades of legal arguments over the rights and precedence of the two rival cities and their courts, neither had managed completely to invalidate the claims of the other. Although it was indisputable that Riom had possessed a royal jurisdiction in 1345 and Clermont had lacked any judicial venues outside of the bishopâs temporal court before 1551, this argument could not definitively defeat the claims for natural âcapitalitéâ that the Clermontois rooted in the ancient past. The predisposition for historical continuity was so powerful in early modern France that if Clermont could demonstrate that it had been the capital of the region in Gallo-Roman times, the seat of the bishop since the areaâs evangelization, and a religious center drawing in all of the regionâs most important saints, it followed that it should rightfully also have been the site of royal justice and administration since the time of Clovis. Thus, numerous rulings on issues involving the rivalry of the two towns tended to try to reach a compromise rather than ruling definitively for one side. In a decision of 1675 regarding which sénéchal had the right to call the ban, for example, the Conseil dâÃtat ruled that the sénéchal of Clermont could convoke assemblies particular to his jurisdiction but that general reviews would take place alternatively in each city, beginning with Riom, at which the sénéchal at Riom would preside.120 Such rulings recognized Riomâs privileges, created by royal grants and confirmed by the agreement of 1557, but they also acknowledged Clermontâs statusâgrowing with each such decisionâas the historical capital of the province.
The kinds of historical considerations at play within the rivalry between Clermont and Riom could not have been formulated without the developing scholarship on the origins and early history of French cities, just as historians were often motivated in their research by very practical considerations of local advantage. We have seen that Savaron, simultaneously respected local historian and chief judicial official, was a key player both in articulating a highly favorable historical narrative for his city and in deploying this past to gain concrete advantages for himself and his fellow inhabitants. Drawing on views of the Gallic origins of French cities then being developed and employing all of the scholarly techniques in evidence during his lifetime, the lieutenant général was able to create a continuous history for his city linking its current privileges with its status as the capital of the first hereditary counts of Auvergne, its clear authority during the early centuries of the Christian era, and ultimately its prestige as the head city of the Gallic Arverni that had succeeded in repelling Caesarâs forces. If not all of these assertions turned out to be true, Savaronâs prestige as an important erudite scholar served to smooth over the difficulties. His Origines de Clairmont clearly helped to provide the scholarly support for Clermontâs claims in court, just as it is difficult to understand all of the historical assertions of this work without taking into account the specific judicial context in which it was written. Although Savaron did not himself create the terms of the rivalry with Riom, several advocates of the rival city noted his particular energy and effectiveness in asserting his own cityâs claims.121
Whereas Clermont was busy developing an elaborate urban history, Riom interestingly failed to produce any comparable historical narrative. It is true that in 1559 Claude Barthélemy Bernard fashioned an origin story for Riom, claiming that the town had been founded by Prince Gherion, native of Greece and great-grandson of the god Poseidon.122 Yet, although the Riomois set aside these fanciful beginnings, no-one sought to write an alternative history attesting to the importance of the town since at least the time of Gregory of Tours. Why was this the case? Riom certainly boasted important legal scholars and antiquarians in residence, such as Jean de Basmaison Pougnet and Louis Chaduc, and its supporters were clearly impelled by the rivalry with Clermont to develop a history that could support its claims in court.123 However, whereas Clermont had the advantage of a figure such as Savaron, Riom witnessed contemporary chief judicial officials such as Claude Binet, who was not native to the region and who was better known as a poet and biographer of Pierre de Ronsard than a historian, and Antoine de Murat, who only rarely turned his hand to publication.124 Further, although the community of Riom certainly existed in the late antique period, there was no certain evidence of its earlier origin. If Clermont could definitively point to its importance under the Romans, this possibility was not open to its rival. Is it possible, then, that the emphasis on city origins stretching back to antiquity was so predominant in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century France that the inhabitants of Riom judged that their townâs history was not worth the telling if this particular story could not be told?
Jean Savaron, Les origines de Clairmont, ville capitale dâAuuergne ⦠a Monseignevr le Davlphin (Clermont: Bertrand Durand, [1607]), 86.
In the early seventeenth century, Clermont and the neighboring community of Montferrand had not yet been united to form the town of Clermont-Ferrand. Louis xiii first prescribed this union by edict of April 1630; reported in Jean Savaron and Pierre Durand, Les origines de la ville de Clairmont par feu Monsieur le President Savaron: Avgmentees des remarqves, nottes & recherches curieuses aduenuës auant & aprés la premiere edition ⦠(Paris: François Muguet, 1662), 532â35.
For Caesarâs account of the failed siege of Gergovia, see The Gallic War, trans. H. J. [Henry John] Edwards (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), book 7, 34â36, 44â53.
For accounts of Jean Savaronâs life and scholarship, see A. [Antoine] Vernière, Le Président Jean Savaron, érudit, curieux, collectionneur, et ses rapports avec les savants de son temps (Clermont-Ferrand: Louis Bellet, 1892), and Jospeh Meyniel, Le President Jean Savaron, ses théories, ses ouvrages (Paris: Bonvalot-Jouve 1906).
Meyniel, Le President Jean Savaron, 259.
âInventaire des pieces que mettent & produisent pardeuant vous nosseigneurs dela court de Parlement Mre Henry de Beaufort ⦠sen[ech]al dâAuuergne a Clairmont ⦠et les lieuten[ant] con[seill]ers & officiers du Roy en lad sen[echauss]ee,â ac Riom, ff 6; Lalourcé, Recueil de pièces originales, 7:30â31.
âSommaire de la contestation qui doit estre jugée par sa majesté: Entre les officiers de la sénéchaussée & siege presidial de Clermont, et les eschevins de ladite ville capitale de la province dâAuvergne, deffendeurs; Et les officiers de la sénéchaussée & siege presidial de Riom; Et les consuls de ladite ville, demandeurs,â BnF ms fr. 16662, 782v.
Pierre Bonin, âDe lâhistoire au droit, les fondements dâun privilège municipal à la fin du XVIIe siècle: Le Traité de la noblesse des capitouls de Toulouse,â Revue historique du droit français et étranger 79, no. 4 (OctoberâDecember 2001): 463â84.
Ibid., 483.
Savaron, Les origines de Clairmont, 14â25.
Ibid., 60â61.
Ibid., 31â47.
As just one example, see Savaronâs criticism of Fauchet for interpreting the word âArverniâ as referring to the whole of Auvergne, ibid., 23â24. Here, Savaron was ignoring the best historical opinion on the evolution of Roman political vocabulary, explained in chapter 4.
Ibid., 76; Savaron and Durand, Les origines de la ville de Clairmont, 134. Savaron clearly indicated that his source was Caesarâs Gallic War, book 7, where Caesar narrated: âThe Arverni sent deputies to him there who promised to carry out his commands: he required of them a great number of hostages. He sent the legions into cantonments.â Caesar, Gallic War, trans. Edwards, 510â11. This passage did not have anything specifically to do with the siege of Gergovia, which Caesar had narrated earlier in book 7.
Gabriel Siméoni, Description de la Limagne dâAvvergne en forme de dialogve, auec plusieurs medailles, statues, oracles, epitaphes, sentences, & autres choses memorables, & non moins plaisantes que proufitables aux amateurs de lâantiquité ⦠, trans. Antione Chappuis (Lyon: Guillaume Rouillé, 1561), 85.
Ibid., 85â87 and map at the beginning of the text.
Abbé Lancelot, who strongly doubted that the ancient Gergovia was located on the site of this mountain, was the first historian of the debate to identify this proposed location with Siméoni. See Lancelot, âRecherches sur Gergovia, et quelques autres villes de lâancienne Gaule,â Mémoires de littérature tirés des registres de lâAcadémie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres: Depuis lâannée M. DCCXVIII; Jusques & compris lâannée M. DCCXXV; Tome sixiéme (Paris: LâImprimerie Royale, 1729), 635â69, at 659.
Yves Texier, La question de Gergovie: Essai sur un problème de localisation (Brussels: Latomus, Revue dâÃtudes Latines, 1999), 11. Guillaume du Bellay argued in 1556 that Gergovia was in fact on the location of modern-day Jargeau, on the Loire River, but this claim does not seem to have led to any substantial debate. Siméoni himself explained that some thought that Saint-Flour was the descendant of the ancient Gergovia, and his assertion seems to be the only source for all future mentions of this view. See Siméoni, Description de la Limagne dâAvvergne, 88.
For a series of Siméoniâs letters, see BnF ms fr. 4052, 15r, 17râv, 27r, 28r, 38r, 44r, 47râ48v, 51râ53r, 55r, 114r. For a short biography, see Gabriel Siméoni, Description de la Limagne dâAuvergne, traduction française par Antoine Chappuys du âDialogo pio e speculativoâ de Gabriel Syméoni, ed. Toussaint Renucci (Paris: Didier, [1943]), vâix.
Gabriel Fournier, âLa création de la grange de Gergovie par les Prémontrés de Saint-André et sa transformation en seigneurie, XIIeâXVIe siècle: Contribution à lâétude de la seigneurie,â Le Moyen Ãge: Revue dâhistoire et de philologie 56 (1950): 307â55, at 337â39; Texier, La question de Gergovie, 36â38, 44, 322â23. Renucci places Siméoni at Clermont in 1555 (x).
This terminology is made clear by Belleforestâs account of the debate, part of which, I argue below, was copied directly from memoranda sent to him from Clermont. See Belleforest, Cosmographie universelle, second pagination, 224â26.
Abraham Ortelius, Théâtre de lâunivers, contenant les cartes de tout le monde (Antwerp: Plantin, 1581), 22; Lancelot, âRecherches sur Gergovia,â 660. According to Texier, this comment appeared in the first French edition of Orteliusâs Theatrum orbis terrarum of 1572. Texier, La question de Gergovie, 32n45.
Belleforest, Cosmographie universelle, second pagination, 225â26.
The aldermen whom Belleforest names as his source for information on Clermont held office in 1573 and 1574. See ibid., second pagination, 234; Savaron and Durand, Les origines de la ville de Clairmont, 416.
Belleforest, Cosmographie universelle, second pagination, 224.
Ibid., second pagination, 225â26.
Contrast his early mention of âGergovieâ with a later identification of the ancient city as âGergoye,â ibid., second pagination, 221 vs. 225.
Texier, La question de Gergovie, 326â27.
Belleforest, Cosmographie universelle, second pagination, 225 (my emphasis).
Ibid., second pagination, 230â31.
Savaron and Durand, Les origines de la ville de Clairmont, 523.
Jean Villevault, Discovrs memorable dv siege mis par Caesar devant Gergovie, ancienne & iadis principalle ville dâAuuvergne, & de la mort de Vercingentorix roy des Auuergnats, & general sur toutes les armees gauloises ⦠(Paris: Pierre Ramier, 1589), [14].
André Duchesne, Les antiqvitez et recherches des villes, chasteavx, et places plvs remarquables de toute la France â¦, 2 vols. (Paris: Jean Petit-Pas, 1609), 1:685. Duchesne and Savaron were corresponding with each other by 1617. See the letter of Savaron to Duchesne, dated October 28, 1617 in Vernière, Le Président Jean Savaron, 53â54.
Sanson, Remarqves svr la carte de lâancienne Gavle, 37â39.
Jean Munier, Recherches et memoires servans a lâhistoire de lâancienne ville et cité dâAvtvn ⦠(Dijon: Philibert Chavance, 1660), 11; Thomas, Histoire de lâantique cité dâAutun, 225.
Jacques-Auguste de Thou, âMémoires de Jacques-Auguste de Thou depuis 1553 jusquâen 1601,â cited in Vernière, Le Président Jean Savaron, 20n1.
Texier, La question de Gergovie, 159â60.
Scévole de Saint-Marthe and Louis de Sainte-Marthe, Gallia christiana, qva series omnivm espiscoporvm et abbatvm Franciae, vicinarvmqve ditionvm, ab origne ecclesiarum, ad nostra tempora â¦, 4 vols. (Paris: Edmond Pepingué, 1656), 4:46; Fournier, âLa création de la grange de Gergovie,â 352â54; Texier, La question de Gergovie, 42.
Lancelot speculated that the charter was forged in the early seventeenth century, but Fournier holds that monetary evidence dates it to the late sixteenth century. See Lancelot, âRecherches sur Gergovia,â 658; Fournier, âLa création de la grange de Gergovie,â 353.
Jean Savaron, Caii Sollii Apollinaris Sidonii Arvernorvm espiscopi opera ⦠(Paris: Adrien Perrier, 1609), carmen 7, 83 (second pagination); Texier, La question de Gergovie, 43.
Sainte-Marthes, Gallia christiana, 4:45.
For Sainte-Martheâs visit to Clermont and his subsequent epistolary exchange with Savaron, see Vernière, Le Président Jean Savaron, 23, 44â50.
Christofle Justel, Histoire genealogiqve de la maison dâAvvergne: Ivstifiee par chartres, titres, et histoires anciennes, et avtres prevves avtentiqves ⦠(Paris: La Veuve Mathurin du Puy, 1645), 37. Although Texier (La question de Gergovie, 42) holds that Justel was the first to publish the forged charter, at least in part, this assertion is questionable. The text that Justel provides is so drastically abbreviated that it does not give the tell-tale description of the ancient Gergovia, nor does it mention the gift of high and low justice to the monks. Also, Justel dates the text he does provide to 1169, whereas the Sainte-Marthesâ copy dates from 1149. Futhermore, Justel asserts that the foundation of the monastery of Saint-André-lès-Clermont took place in 1150, indicating that he did not view this text as the founding charter. See his Histoire genealogiqve de la maison dâAvvergne, 37 for mentions of the foundation and the charter of 1169, and the proofs section of his work, 29, for the text of the 1169 charter.
Ãtienne Baluze, Histoire genealogique de la maison dâAuvergne: Justifiée par chartes, titres, histoires anciennes, & autres preuves authentiques ⦠Tome premier (Paris: Antoine Dezallier, 1708), 62â63.
Lancelot, âRecherches sur Gergoviaâ; Michael Dietler, âA Tale of Three Sites: The Monumentalization of Celtic Oppida and the Politics of Collective Memory and Identity,â World Archeology 30, no. 1 (June 1998): 72â89, at 73â74, 78â79; Paul Eychart, La destruction dâun site majeur, Gergovie (Brioude: Watel, 1994); Bertrand Dousteyssier, La cité des Arvernes Ier-IIe siècles apr. J.C. (Clermont-Ferrand: lemme, 2011), 3â5.
Savaron and Durand, Les origines de la ville de Clairmont, 290.
Ibid., 134â37, quotation at 137.
Pierre Audigier, âHistoire de la ville de Clermont,â BnF ms fr. 11485, 27r. A portion of Audigierâs historical work has been published as Pierre Audigier, Histoire dâAuvergne par le chanoine Pierre Audigier, tome I (Clermont-Ferrand: Louis Bellet, 1899).
Audigier, âHistoire de la ville de Clermont,â 61râ62r.
Ibid., 8râ10r.
Dousteyssier, La cité des Arvernes, 9â10.
Remonstrance faicte av roy et à nosseigneurs de son conseil, par la ville de Clermont (n.p., n.d.), 3. The author of this printed pamphlet is not indicated, but Savaronâs name is added by hand after the title and the work is unanimously attributed to him. See Meyniel, Le President Jean Savaron, 277â78. Although Meyniel holds that the disturbances in Clermont were related to the creation of the paulette, Savaronâs mention of the other cities that had witnessed disturbances (Remonstrance, 13) makes it much more likely that the unrest was related to the pancarte.
Florimond Rapine, Recveil tres-exact et cvrievx de tovt ce qui sâest fait & passé de singulier & memorable en lâassemblée generale des Estats tenus à Paris en lâannée 1614. & particulierement en chacune seance du tiers ordre: Auec le cahier dudit ordre, & autres pieces concernans le mesme sujet ⦠(Paris: Au Palais, 1651), 74.
Savaron and Durand, Les origines de la ville de Clairmont, 524.
BnF ms fr. 16662, memorandum of the échevins and inhabitants of Clermont for a legal suit of 1675, 817v.
âInventaire des pieces ⦠[du] sen[ech]al dâAuuergne a Clairmont,â ac Riom ff 6, 5r.
ac Riom bb 14, 82r, copy of the memorandum and instructions for the suit before the Grands Jours of Lyon, 1596. This is a final, recopied version of the memorandum read out at the meeting of the consuls of October 22, 1596 and signed by them, which survives in ac Riom ff 33, âInstructions données par les consuls et habitans de la ville de Riom pour repondre sur le contenu en la commission obtenue par ceux de Clermont en la chancellerie de la cour des Grands jours [de Lyon], 1596.â For the deliberations of the meeting, see ac Riom bb 14, 71v.
âInstructions données par les consuls et habitans de la ville de Riom,â ac Riom ff 33, 1v.
ac Riom bb 14, 76râ77r.
Ibid., 78r, 81v.
BnF ms fr. 16662, 771râ776r. Their titles were respectively to be âChef du duché dâauuergneâ and âChef et Ville Capitale du Pais dauuergneâ (771râv). See also ac Riom aa 8. This agreement is generally identified as the agreement of 1556 in contemporary documents, since it was signed on January 1, 1556 (o.s.).
Béatrice Fourniel, Du bailliage des Montagnes dâAuvergne au siège présidial dâAurillac: Institution, société et droit (1366â1790) (Toulouse: Presses de lâUniversité des Sciences Sociales de Toulouse, 2010), 304. For an early summary of the rulings of 1551 and 1557, see Jean du Luc, Placitorum summae apud Gallos curiae libri XII ⦠(Paris: C. Estienne, 1559), 196â210. For Riomâs views on these events, see ac Riom bb 14, 77v.
âInventaire de production pour mrs les consuls, bourgeois et habitans de la ville de Riom contre les eschevins de la ville de Clermont au sujet de lâinstance intentée par les echevins de Clermont en la cour des Grands Jours seante a Lyon, par commission du 20 septembre 1596,â ac Riom ff 33, 1v.
Letters patent of Catherine deâ Medici, countess of Clermont, dated October 18, 1556, and letters patent of Charles ix dated June 1566 from St. Maur des Fossés, in Savaron and Durand, Les origines de la ville de Clairmont, 394, 428â30.
Edicts of Henri ii dated June 1551 from Châteaubriand and October 1556 from Villers-Cotterêts, in ibid., 502â6.
Arrêt of the Cour des Aides dated December 3, 1574, cited in ac Riom bb 14, 82v; letters patent of Henri iii dated May 1576 from Paris, and edict of Henri iii dated May 1582 from Fontainebleau, in Savaron and Durand, Les origines de la ville de Clairmont, 443â45, 515â17.
âSommaire de la contestation qui doit estre jugée par sa majesté: Entre les officiers de la sénéchaussée & siege presidial de Clermont, et les eschevins de ladite ville capitale de la province dâAuvergne, deffendeurs; Et les officiers de la sénéchaussée & siege presidial de Riom; Et les consuls de ladite ville, demandeurs,â BnF ms fr. 16662, 780vâ782r; Response a lâimprimé de Rion, tiré des memoires de feu Maistre Iean Sauaron sieur de Villars conseiller du roy president & lieutenant general en la seneschaussee dâAuuergne & siege presidial de Clermont (n.p., n.d. [after 1622]), 7â11.
Savaron and Durand, Les origines de la ville de Clairmont, 509â14.
âInventaire de production pour mrs les consuls, bourgeois et habitans de la ville de Riom,â ac Riom ff 33, 2r.
For the clearest accounts of these events in early modern sources, see Justel, Histoire genealogiqve de la maison dâAvvergne, 44â46 and the summary that Jean de Vernyes provided to Henri iv in 1589 in Bertrand Gonod, ed., âMémoires de Jehan de Vernyes (1589),â Annales scientifiques, littéraires et industrielles de lâAuvergne 11 (1838): 19â127, at 19â21. See also H.-F. [Hipployte Ferréol] Rivière, Histoire des institutions de lâAuvergne, contenant un essai historique sur le droit public et privé dans cette province, 2 vols. (Paris: A. Marescq Ainé, 1874), 1:25â30 for a good account of feudal politics in Auvergne in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Justel, Histoire genealogiqve de la maison dâAvvergne, 52â53.
Ibid., 37â38, 103â4.
Ibid., 46â47. Justelâs insistence that a separate county of Clermont never existed was likely aimed principally at Savaron, whose Les origines de Clairmont claimed that it had (40, 42).
Justel, Histoire genealogiqve de la maison dâAvvergne, 105.
Baluze, Histoire genealogique de la maison dâAuvergne, 76â77. Baluze, who supported the authenticity of the document, also argued that the document was reported in Du Lucâs Placitorum summae apud Gallos curiae libri xii, but since the first edition of this work dates to 1553, while the case was still being adjudicated, the documentâs mention there cannot be taken as evidence of its authenticity.
[Jean Dufraisse], Lâorigine des eglises de France, prouvée par la succession de ses evêques: Avec la vie de Saint Austremoine, premier apôtre & primat des Aquitaines (Paris: Estienne Michallet, 1688), 482â84, 494â96.
Ibid., 491â92. In 1786, Guillaume-Michel Chabrol added numerous other proofs to argue that the bishops of Clermont had held lordship over the city well before the supposed 1202 deposit. See his Coutumes locales de la Haute et Basse Auvergne, leur explication, lâindication de la loi qui régit les différens lieux, & du tribunal où ils ressortissent; Accompagnées de notes historiques & dâun supplément de la plupart des lieux & seigneuries omis par les rédacteurs ⦠Tome IV (Riom: Martin Dégoutte, 1786), xviii, 176â78. For Chabrol, a significant proof of the bishopâs temporal authority over the city resided in the fact that while the rest of Lower Auvergne was governed by customary law, Clermont had always adhered to written (Roman) law (178).
Savaron, Les origines de Clairmont, 183ff.
Ibid., 87â102.
Ibid., 92, 181.
Durand had access to the copy of Les origines de Clairmont on which Savaron had been making his corrections and additions and reported all of them pertaining to the counts and bishops of Clermont in the 1662 edition of this work. Because of Savaronâs confused genealogy, it is not clear whether this âRobert de la Tourâ was supposed to be the bishop of Clermont or yet another âDe la Tourâ erroneously assigned to the line of the dauphins of Auvergne. See Savaron and Durand, Les origines de la ville de Clairmont, 140.
On this major controversy and the role that Baluze played in it, see A. [Arthur] de Boislisle, âLe cardinal de Bouillon, Baluze et le procès des faussaires,â in Mémoires de Saint Simon, vol. 14 (Paris: Hachette, 1899), 533â58. For the way that this controversy related to other aspects of Baluzeâs career, see Patricia Gillet, Ãtienne Baluze & lâhistoire du Limousin: Desseins et pratiques dâun érudit du XVIIe siècle (Geneva: Droz, 2008), 8â9.
Letter of Jean Savaron to [Pierre] Dupuy, dated July 13, 1622 [n.p.], BnF Dupuy 712, 104râ105r; Vernière, Le Président Jean Savaron, 34n2.
Letter of André Duchesne to Jean Besly, dated June 9, 1619 from Paris, BnF Dupuy 820, 168r.
Justel, Histoire genealogiqve de la maison dâAvvergne, 54, 107. Duchesne identified the La Tour family as originating with Aubert de la Tour in the early thirteenth century, while Boislisle held that it is only possible to trace the La Tour family back to the second half of the thirteenth century with any certainty. See BnF Duchesne 68, 219v; Boislisle, âLe cardinal de Bouillon,â 556.
In 1589, Vernyes attributed Riomâs adherence to the Catholic League directly to the townâs rivalry with Clermont and its bitterness against Henri iii for favoring Clermontâs interests over theirs. See Gonod, âMémoires de Jehan de Vernyes,â 40â41.
Savaron and Durand, Les origines de la ville de Clairmont, 527.
Meyniel, Le Président Jean Savaron, 39.
âMemoires pour monstrer que le comté de la ville et cité de Clairmont en Auuergne, appartient au roy, & est du domaine & couronne de France,â BnF Dupuy 527, 281râ285v.
Savaron, Les origines de Clairmont, (:)25â(:)5v. There are signs of a speedy publication such as the lack of any preliminary dedicatory verse. It is possible, however, that Savaron had begun to collect materials for this work at least a decade before, since Pierre Pithou mentioned in a letter to Jacques Sirmond dated March 8 [1596 at the latest] that a man named Savaron had written several books on Gergovia (Vernière, Le Président Jean Savaron, 21n2). However, Pithouâs information was too vague to be sure that this was the work he meant.
Savaron, Les origines de Clairmont, 101â2.
BnF ms fr. 16662, 807r.
ac Riom bb 14, 72v.
ac Riom, bb 14, 73râ76v. For Montferrandâs competing judicial aspirations, see André Bossuat, Le bailliage royal de Montferrand (1425â1556) (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1957), especially 95â101.
Savaron, Les origines de Clairmont, 192.
âSommaire de la contestation qui doit estre jugée par sa majesté,â BnF ms fr. 16662, 779v.
ac Riom bb 14, 80r; Savaron and Durand, Les origines de la ville de Clairmont, 443â45.
ac Riom, bb 14, 84r.
Ãtienne Pasquier, Les lettres dâEstienne Pasqvier conseiller et avocat general dv roy en la Chambre des Comptes de Paris (Paris: Abel LâAngelier, 1586), book 7, letter 9, 209vâ211r. See also Ãdouard Ãverat, La sénéchaussée dâAuvergne et siège présidial de Riom au XVIIIe siècle, étude historique ⦠(Paris: Ernest Thorn, 1886), 86â87.
ac Riom bb 10 quater, 61râ62v, deliberations of July 1 and 8, 1588; 85v, deliberations of September 8, 1588; 91r, deliberations of October 8, 1588.
For Riomâs planned arguments in the case, see ac Riom bb 14, 72râ84v and ff 33, âInstructions données par les consuls et habitans de la ville de Riom,â and âInventaire de production pour mrs les consuls, bourgeois et habitans de la ville de Riom.â There seems to have been no definitive ruling. It may be in regard to this suit of 1596 or the one from 1608 discussed below that the Riomois put out their Notes svr et contre devx recueils imprimez & donnez de la part des officiers & habitans de Clermont en Auuergne: Ov sont remarqvés les artifices & suppositions par lesquelles ils entreprennent dâvsurper pour leur siège & pour le seneschal de Clermont les tiltre, prerogatiues, & droicts du seneschal dâAuuergne, qui nâa & nâeust jamais autre siege de celuy de Riom (n.p., n.d.), published after the Estates General of 1588 but before the Estates General of 1614. This text rehearses many of the same arguments as described above.
âInuentaire des pieces que mettent & produisent pardeuers vous nosseigneurs dela court de Parlement Messire Just baron de Tournon comte de Roussilhon sen[esch]al dâAuuergne et les lieutenant con[seill]ers & officiers du roy en ladite sen[eschauss]ee dâAuuergne & siege presidial estably en la ville de Riom demandeurs sellon le contenu dune commission dela court du premier jour de feburier 1608,â ac Riom ff 6, 8vâ9r.
Ibid., 1v.
Ibid., 2r, 5r.
âInventaire des pieces ⦠[du] sen[ech]al dâAuuergne a Clairmont,â ac Riom ff 6, 2râ4v.
Ibid., 4vâ5v.
Ibid., 6râv, 9r.
[Pierre-Valentin] Faydit, La vie de St. Amable, prestre et curé de la ville de Riom en Auvergne: Sous lâepiscopat de S. Sidoine Apollinaire; Ecrite en Latin, sur des memoires tres-authentiques, par un ancien auteur nommé Juste, archiprêtre ⦠(Paris: Jean Moreau, 1702), 336. Faydit pointed out that the word âcivitasâ did not mean a city at this time, and that for Gregory of Tours, the word âvicusâ did not mean a village, but a town of the second order (337â48). Chabrol identifies the full name of the author in Coutumes locales de la Haute et Basse Auvergne, 4:487. The 1595 edition of the Histoire de Saint-Amable is no longer extant.
âInventaire des piecesâ¦[du] sen[ech]al dâAuuergne a Clairmont,â ac Riom ff 6, 6r, 10r.
Jean Savaron, De sanctis, ecclesiis, et monasteriis Claromentii, libellos duos auctoris anonymi qui vixit circa annum DCCCCL nunc primum editos ⦠(Paris: Ambrose Drouart, 1609), 8, 32.
Jacques Branche, La vie des saincts et sainctes dâAvvergne, et de Velay ⦠(Le Puy: Philippe Guynand, 1652); Faydit, La vie de St. Amable (1702); [Antoine] Chevalier, Lâoffice de Saint Amable, prestre, confesseur et patron de la ville de Riom en Auvergne, en Latin et en François, avec des explications sur le propre de la messe du saint: Et lâhistoire de sa vie, contenant ses miracles, et quelques faits principaux, touchant lâetat de son eglise; Avec deux dissertations sur le tems, & sur le lieu de sa mort ⦠(Lyon: François Barbier, 1701), written after Fayditâs work, despite the dates of publication; [Pierre-Valentin Faydit], Remarques sur Virgile et sur Homere, et sur le stile poetique de lâecriture sainte; Où lâon réfute les inductions pernicieuses que Spinosa, Grotius & Mr Le Clerc en ont tirées, et quelques opinions particulières du Pere Mallebranche, du sieur lâElevel, & de Monsieur Simon (Paris: Jean & Pierre Cot, 1705), 298â309, 517â21. See also Edmond Morand, Lâabbaye de Saint-Amable de Riom, Mémoires de lâAcadémie des Sciences, Belles-Lettres et Arts de Clermont-Ferrand, 2nd series, vol. 29 (Clermont-Ferrand: Imprimerie Générale, 1930), a hardly less partisan account of the controversy, taking the side of Riom.
Savaron, Les origines de Clairmont, 142.
Ibid., 173.
Chevalier, an advocate of Riom, particularly points out Savaronâs inconsistent use of these manuscripts in Lâoffice de Saint Amable, 194â200.
Adrien Baillet, Les vies des saints, composées sur ce qui nous est resté de plus authentique et de plus assuré dans leur histoire ⦠Tome septiéme, contenant les mois dâoctobre et novembre jusquâau XV; Nouvelle edition (Paris: Estienne-François Savoye, 1739 [1701]), 446â47, 475â77.
Rapine, Recveil tres-exact, 72, 75â76.
[Antoine de Murat], Opposition du lieutenant general de Riom contre la proposition des president & escheuin de Clermont en Auuergne: Du mardy seziesme decembre, mil six cens quatorze, en lâassemblée du gouuernement de Lyon (n.p., [1614]), 6â7.
âProcès-verbal du tiers-état, pour les memes états, par le sieur Clapisson, conseiller au châtellet, et évangéliste en la chambre du tiers-état; Octobre 1614 et jours suivans,â in [Lalourcé], Recueil de pièces, 7:30â31.
Arrêt of the Conseil dâÃtat, dated February 20, 1675 from St. Germain-en-Laye, BnF ms fr. 16662, 793râ794r.
âInuentaire des pieces ⦠[du] sen[esch]al dâAuuergne et les lieutenant con[seill]ers & officiers du roy en ladite sen[eschauss]ee dâAuuergne & siege presidial estably en la ville de Riom â¦,â ac Riom ff 6, 1v; Chevalier, Lâoffice de Saint Amable, 189â90.
Jean de Basmaison Pougnet was a well-regarded legal scholar, known for his work on fiefs and customary law and for his participation in the Estates General of 1576. See his Sommaire, discovrs des fiefs et rierfiefs ⦠(Paris: Guillaume Chaudiere, 1579); Agénor Bardoux, Les légistes au seizième siècle: Jean de Basmaison (Paris: Auguste Durand, 1856). Louis Chaduc, conseiller in the sénéchaussée at Riom, was an important antiquarian who amassed a significant collection of antique medals. See Pierre Audigier, âRecueil des illustres seculiers dâAuvergne: Seconde partie,â BnF ms fr. 32812, 196â97.
For Binetâs most significant poetic work, in which he marks his connections with important judicial officials and members of the Pléïade, see his Les plaisirs de la vie rvstiqve et solitaire ⦠(Paris: Vefve Lucas Breyer, 1583). On Binetâs role in editing Ronsardâs works and his attempts to aggrandize himself through claiming to know Ronsard much better than he in fact did, see Helene M. Evers, Critical Edition of the âDiscours de la vie de Pierre de Ronsardâ par Claude Binet: A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of Bryn Mawr College ⦠(Philadelphia: John C. Winston Co., 1905); Paul Laumonier, ed., La vie de P. de Ronsard de Claude Binet (1586) (Paris: Hachette, 1909); and Katherine MacDonald, Biography in Early Modern France, 1540â1630: Forms and Functions (London: legenda, 2007), chapter 3.