Paréage

In Medieval France a paréage or pariage was a feudal treaty recognising joint sovereignty over a territory by two rulers, who were on an equal footing, pari passu; compare peer. On a familial scale, paréage could also refer to the equal division of lands and the titles they brought between sons of an inheritance.

Such a power-sharing contract could be signed between two secular rulers or, more often, by a secular and an ecclesiastic ruler, as happened in the most famous casethe Act of paréage of 1278, which served as the legal basis for the Principality of Andorra and was signed by the Count of Foix and Viscount of Castellbo and the Bishop of Urgell. According to the act, the Count and the Bishop were to receive taxes in alternating years, while jointly appointing local representatives to administer justice, and they were to refrain from making war within Andorra (where they were each nevertheless allowed to levy soldiers). The wording of a paréage, an exercise in defining reciprocity without sacrificing suzerainty, was the special domain of ministerial lawyers, who were produced in the universities from the late eleventh century.