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.The Count and the Bishop were to receive taxes in alternate years, to appoint local representatives to administer justice jointly, and should forbear to make war within Andorra, where each might levy soldiers, nevertheless.[2] The wording of a paréage, an exercise in defining reciprocity without sacrificing suzerainty, was the special domain of ministerial lawyers, being produced in the universities from the late eleventh century.Contracts of paréage were very numerous in the regions of intensely protected local rights, Languedoc and Catalonia, during the high and late Middle Ages, especially between lay and clerical interests.By the terms of several paréages agreed upon between the Cistercian abbey of Bonnefont-en-Comminges on the one hand and the local seigneur or the king on the other,[4] the Abbey granted the land from one of its outlying granges, the king granted certain liberties, such as market privileges, that made the new village attractive,[5] and the two agreed to split tax revenues.