ABSTRACT
The power of the monarchy in Renaissance France, however absolute in theory, could not operate in a vacuum. An administrative machinery was needed, not only at the centre of the kingdom but in the provinces as well. Its chief component was the king's council, which was still evolving. The body responsible for turning the council's decisions into laws was the chancery, headed by the chancellor of France. Its staff comprised 119 king's notaries and secretaries whose office carried noble status. They drew up royal enactments and had them sealed by the chancellor, but, as government business increased in the sixteenth century, many conciliar decisions took the form of briefs (brevets) requiring only the signature of a notary or secretary to be valid. An exalted figure in French local government of the early sixteenth century was the provincial governor. There were eleven governorships corresponding roughly to the kingdom's border provinces.
