Bed of Justice

In France under the Ancien Régime, the lit de justice (French pronunciation: ​[li də ʒystis], "bed of justice") was a particular formal session of the Parlement of Paris, under the presidency of the king, for the compulsory registration of the royal edicts. It was named thus because the king would sit on a throne, under a baldachin. In the Middle Ages, not every appearance of the King of France in parlement occasioned a formal lit de justice. It was the custom of Philip IV and his three sons, of Charles V, of Charles VI, and of Louis XII to attend sessions of various parlements regularly.

A lit de justice in Paris was normally held in the Grand Chambre du Parlement of the royal palace on the Île de la Cité, which remains the Palais de Justice even today. The king, fresh from his devotions in Sainte-Chapelle, would enter, accompanied by his chancellor, the princes du sang, dukes and peers, cardinals and marshals, and take his place upon the cushions on a dais under a canopy of estate (the lit) in a corner of the chamber.

The records of a lit de justice of Charles V, May 21, 1375, gives an impression of the panoply of personages: the Dauphin, the duc d'Anjou brother of the King, the Patriarch of Alexandria, 4 archbishops, 7 bishops, 6 abbots, the rector and several members of the University of Paris, the Chancellor of France, 4 princes of the blood, several comtes and seigneurs, the Provost of Merchants and the echevins of the city of Paris, "several other wise and notable folk and a great crowd of people".

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