What is an Angevin officer?
Angers cathedral,
paintings of the tomb of
Louis II of Anjou, about 1440
(Bruno Rousseau
©Conservation du patrimoine,
Département de Maine-et-Loire).
We call an Angevin officer, any individual actually or nominally carrying on an activity of government (decision) or administration (execution) and occupying a determined function, characterized by a title and usually remunerated by wages or emoluments, or even leasing an office or a right, in the service or on behalf of a prince belonging to the Angevin dynasties who reigned on the following territories and during the following periods (dates in brackets indicate a nominal reign):
- Counties of Provence and Forcalquier (1246-1481)
- County, then duchy, of Anjou and county of Maine (1246-1290 and 1380-1481)
- Communal Italy (1259-1275 and 1303-1380)
- Papal territories (1263-
- Kingdom of Sicily (1266-1442)
- Kingdom of Hungary ([1292] 1301-1395)
- Kingdom of Poland (1370-1385)
- Kingdom of Albania (1266-1285)
- Principality of Morea (1267-1383)
- Duchies of Bar and Lorraine (1431-1508)
A great officer carries out his activity next to the sovereign of his lieutenant, in his court, his hôtel, his chapel. A local or peripheral officer is related to a district or a locality. A sedentary officer holds a stable office within an administrative structure, and has often a place of residence and an area of competence; his function is defined by statutes, customs or local agreements. An itinerant officer works on the basis of a letter of special commission stating his movement and the duration of his activity, which may or may not include a territorial competence and an area of jurisdiction.
