BIBLIOGRAPHY

The provision made by French kings and barons for daughters and younger sons, as distinguished from the eldest son. The appanage of royal princes consisted in some cases of lands so extensive and wealthy (for example, Normandy or Burgundy) that the possessors were dangerous rivals to the monarch himself, especially as the Salic Law increased their prospects of ultimate succession to the throne.

Thus we see attempts to limit the appanage of sons -- Charles V in the 14th Century -- to a specified money revenue from land. From the 13th Century onward the kings tried to secure the reversion of the appanage to the crown on failure of mail heirs; and the crown lands ceased in point of fact to be redivided. Appanages were abolished by the constituent assembly in 1790, and the burden put on the civil list. Revived by Napoleon Bonaparte and the Bourbons, they disappeared finally in the July Revolution in 1830.

Copyright ©2025