generalità

Generalité is a French noun with two main senses. In everyday language, it denotes the quality or state of being general, applicable to many cases rather than to a single instance. In scholarly or historical writing, the term often refers to a specific kind of administrative division used in France during the Ancien Régime. The word itself comes from the Latin generalitas, through French, and is related to the idea of general or overarching scope.

As an administrative unit, a généralité was created in France in the 16th century as part of centralizing measures to improve royal governance and revenue collection. Each généralité grouped several local jurisdictions and was intended to standardize taxation, justice, and fiscal administration across its territory. The governance of a généralité was formalized by appointing royal officials, notably an intendant responsible for finances, policing, and administration, under the broader authority of the crown. Over time, the boundaries and the internal organization of generalités evolved, and they operated alongside provinces and parlements as part of the centralized state machinery.

The généralité system remained in use until the French Revolution. In 1790, the revolutionary government reorganized territorial administration and replaced the generalités with departments, aligning administrative units with a more uniform national framework. Today, généralité is primarily encountered in historical contexts, where it denotes this bygone form of French territorial administration, or, more broadly, used to discuss general or generalizing concepts in language and philosophy.