The phrase "Great Ordinance" was also an early term for artillery

Artillery

Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...

, more usually spelt "Great Ordnance".

In French political history, a great ordinance or grand ordinance (French – Grande ordonnance) was an important royal ordinance

Ordonnance (French constitutional law)

In the Government of France, an ordonnance is a statute passed by the Council of Ministers in an area of law normally reserved for statute law passed by the Parliament of France....

 or decree

Decree

A decree is a rule of law issued by a head of state , according to certain procedures . It has the force of law...

. The French Estates-General might also adopt one to, for example, grant the king the exclusive right to raise troops, and establish the taxation measure known as the taille in support of a standing army.

Examples included:

• the Grande ordonnance pour la réforme du royaume (the Great Ordinance for the reform of the kingdom): Louis IX
  Louis IX of France
  Louis IX , commonly Saint Louis, was King of France from 1226 until his death. He was also styled Louis II, Count of Artois from 1226 to 1237. Born at Poissy, near Paris, he was an eighth-generation descendant of Hugh Capet, and thus a member of the House of Capet, and the son of Louis VIII and...
  
   forbade blasphemy
  Blasphemy
  Blasphemy is irreverence towards religious or holy persons or things. Some countries have laws to punish blasphemy, while others have laws to give recourse to those who are offended by blasphemy...
  
  , gaming, prostitution, tourneys, and trial by ordeal
  Trial by ordeal
  Trial by ordeal is a judicial practice by which the guilt or innocence of the accused is determined by subjecting them to an unpleasant, usually dangerous experience...
  
  , made the circulation of the royal coin compulsory, and delegated the administration of royal justice to jurists (the origin of the French parliament).
• the Great Ordinance of 1357
  Great Ordinance of 1357
  The Great Ordinance of 1357 was an edict through which Étienne Marcel attempted to impose limits on the French monarchy, in particular in fiscal and monetary matters.-Historical context:...
  
  , intended to curb royal power, but in the end never applied
• the Grande ordonnance which put in place the compagnies d'ordonnance
  Compagnies d'ordonnance
  The compagnie d'ordonnance was a military unit, the late medieval forefather of the modern Company and consisted of 100 Lances fournies, which was built around a centre of knights, with assisting pages or squires, archers and men-at-arms, for a total of 700 men.-History:Raised by the King, the...
  
  , the first permanent units of the French army
  French Army
  The French Army, officially the Armée de Terre , is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces.As of 2010, the army employs 123,100 regulars, 18,350 part-time reservists and 7,700 Legionnaires. All soldiers are professionals, following the suspension of conscription, voted in...
  
   ;
• the Grande ordonnance des Eaux et Forêts (Grand Ordinance of the Waters and Forests) of 1516, by which Francis I
  Francis I of France
  Francis I was King of France from 1515 until his death. During his reign, huge cultural changes took place in France and he has been called France's original Renaissance monarch...
  
   regulated the management of his domain and of the hunt – this ordinance was revived in in 1669.

Colbert

Jean-Baptiste Colbert

Jean-Baptiste Colbert was a French politician who served as the Minister of Finances of France from 1665 to 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His relentless hard work and thrift made him an esteemed minister. He achieved a reputation for his work of improving the state of French manufacturing...

 also took several other ordinances to be Great Ordinances :

• the Grande ordonnance de procédure civile (Grand Ordinance on civil procedure) signed at Saint-Germain-en-Laye
  Saint-Germain-en-Laye
  Saint-Germain-en-Laye is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris from the centre.Inhabitants are called Saint-Germanois...
  
  , called the Code Louis, making it compulsory to record baptisms, marriages and burials in the registers of the civil state (as opposed to the registers of the church);
• the Grande ordonnance criminelle (Grand Ordinance on criminal law) in 1670 ;
• the Grande ordonnance de la marine (Grand Ordinance on the fleet) in 1681 :
• the Grande ordonnance sur les colonies (Grand Ordinance on the colonies), also known as the Code noir
  Code Noir
  The Code noir was a decree originally passed by France's King Louis XIV in 1685. The Code Noir defined the conditions of slavery in the French colonial empire, restricted the activities of free Negroes, forbade the exercise of any religion other than Roman Catholicism , and ordered...
  
  (1685).