Message about Philip 4. Cursed Kings

24.02.2022

All contemporaries agree in describing Philip as a man with a beautiful and noble appearance and graceful manners, but when characterizing his style of government, assessments diverge. Some testify that the king was a purposeful man of iron will and rare energy. Others characterize him as a meek and pious, kind, condescending and trusting person, often falling under the influence of others. The political line under him was carried out by noble upstarts: Chancellor Pierre Flott, keeper of the royal seal Guillaume Nogaret and coadjutor Anguerrand Marigny, to whom all the troubles and abuses that were in the reign of Philip are attributed.

Having become king, Philip immediately stopped the Aragonese war and recognized the Aragonese dynasty. In 1295, Philip called for trial as his vassal, and when he refused, he started a war against him. On the side were the German king, counts, and, the king. Philip was supported by the counts and, the duke, the king. While he was at war with the Scots, Philip attacked. Almost without resistance, Lille, Douai, Bruges and Ghent were captured. However, the strict rules introduced by the French ruler Jacques of Châtillon did not please the Flemings. In 1301 and 1302 uprisings broke out in Bruges. The second of them soon spread to the entire province. In one day in Bruges, more than 3 thousand French knights and soldiers were killed. An army led by Robert II of Artois was thrown against the rebels, but it was defeated at the Battle of Courtrai. Thousands of spurs taken from the slain knights were piled up in the Maastricht church as trophies. In 1304, the king himself led an army of 60,000. The Flemish army was besieged in Lille, and after several unsuccessful assaults, peace was concluded. was returned to the count, who was in French captivity. For his release, he had to pay a substantial indemnity. As a pledge, Philip kept the land on the right bank of the Lys, but, having received the money, he violated the agreement and did not return the land.

At the same time, Philip's relations with Rome began to deteriorate sharply. Pope, while still a cardinal, was on friendly terms with Philip. However, in 1296 the pope issued a bull forbidding laymen to demand and receive subsidies from the clergy. Philip responded by banning the export of gold and silver from France. The Pope stopped receiving his income from France. The position of the pope on the throne was rather precarious, and he backed down, but relations between the king and the pope began to deteriorate sharply. Soon the Archbishop of Narbonne wrote to the Pope to complain about the arbitrariness of royal dignitaries in his dominions. To resolve the issue, he sent to Paris the Bishop of Pameres, Bernard Sesse, an arrogant and quick-tempered man. Bernard began to threaten the king with an interdict. Angry, Philip took him into custody and demanded that the pope depose the recalcitrant bishop. The Pope sent a bull in which he demanded the release of Bernard. Philip burned it on the porch of Notre Dame Cathedral. In 1302, he convened the first Estates General in French history. The king read a specially made forged bull to the deputies and enlisted their support in the matter of protecting the French state and church from violation of their rights.

In April 1303 he excommunicated Philip from the church. In response, the king declared him an antipope, a heretic and a warlock, and demanded that an ecumenical council be convened to hear accusations against him. In the summer, the faithful Guillaume Nogaret was sent to Rome with a large sum of money. Allied with the pope's enemies, he formed a vast conspiracy. The rebels broke into the palace in Anagni, began to shower insults on the pope, threatened with arrest and demanded abdication. Unable to withstand these attacks, he lost his mind and died in October of the same year. The new pope excommunicated Nogaret, but did not touch Philip. A year later, he also died. The new pope under the name was the Archbishop of Bordeaux Bertrand de Go. He did not go to Rome, but was ordained in Lyon. In 1309 he settled in Aviyon, making this city the papal residence instead of Rome, and until his death he was an obedient executor of the royal will. In particular, in 1307, Clement agreed with the accusations against the Knights Templar, to whom Philip owed a huge amount. 140 knights were arrested and the property of the order was confiscated. In March 1314, the head of the order, Jacques de Molay, was burned, but before his death, he cursed Philip and his entire family, predicting the imminent end of the Capetian dynasty. Philip himself was not yet old and in good health, besides, he had three adult sons, and therefore did not take the prophecy seriously. However, shortly after that, he fell ill from a strange debilitating disease that no doctor could recognize, and died on November 29, 1314.

The era of Philip the Handsome was a turning point in the history of France. Philip further expanded the royal possessions, subjugated the church and feudal lords, introduced royal courts and Roman law. Public life took on a completely different character than under his predecessors. However, the curse of Jacques de Molay hung over the Capetians ...

Philip IV (1268-1314) - King of France since 1285. Continuing the work of his ancestors, especially his grandfather, King Louis IX of the Saint, but in new conditions and by other means, he sought to strengthen royal power by weakening the political power of large feudal lords and eliminating the control of the papacy over the Church in France. These new conditions were the growth of cities, the strengthening of the third estate, that is, formally the entire urban population of the country, but in fact - the urban elite; development of French national consciousness. The new means of achieving the goals of centralization of the monarchy were the administrative apparatus subordinate only to the monarch from the people of the ignoble and obligated to him and the legal strengthening of royal power under the noticeable influence of Roman law (for example, the following provision was often used: "Whatever the sovereign has the force of law") . It was under Philip that the central authorities - the Parlement of Paris (supreme court) and the Accounts Chamber (treasury) - from more or less regular meetings of the highest nobility gradually turned into permanent institutions, in which the legists served mainly - experts in law, people from the environment of small knights or townspeople.

Standing guard over the interests of his country, the king tried to expand it. So, in 1294-1299. he fought with King Edward I of England for the duchy of Aquitaine (Guienne) in southwestern France, which the English kings owned as vassals of the French kings. Due to clashes between English and French sailors in Aquitaine, Philip IV summoned Edward I to court, and he offered the French king the duchy of Aquitaine as a pledge for forty days, during which an investigation was to be carried out. However, having occupied Guyenne, Philip refused to return it. Then Edward resorted to the help of the Count of Flanders, a vassal of the French crown, but an ally of England.

The war between France and Flanders began as early as 1297, when Philip defeated the Count of Flanders at the Battle of Furne. In 1299, the French king occupied almost all of Flanders, relying on the townspeople who were dissatisfied with their count, and in 1301 captured him himself. But soon the Flemings, disappointed with the French administration, rebelled against Philip. May 18, 1302 went down in history under the name "Bruges Matins" - on this day there was an uprising of the inhabitants of the city of Bruges, accompanied by the extermination of the French garrison and the French who were in Bruges. In response, Philip moved his army to Flanders. On July 11, 1302, at the Battle of Courtrai, for the first time in history, the foot militia of the Flemish cities utterly defeated the cavalry knightly army. The spurs taken from the slain knights were dumped in the city square of Courtrai; This battle was called the "Battle of the Golden Spurs". As a result of this defeat, in 1303, a peace was signed in Paris with England: the Duchy of Aquitaine was returned to Edward. On August 18, 1304, in the battle of Mont-en-Pevel, the French army took revenge for the defeat at Courtrai. The following year, the Flemings officially submitted to the French king.

During the war with England and Flanders, the conflict between France and the papacy escalated. The contradictions between them were identified even under Saint Louis, who resolutely rejected any interference of Rome in the affairs of the French state and the French Church. However, the deep piety of Louis did not allow these contradictions to turn into a sharp conflict. Relations between Philip and Pope Boniface VIII were initially friendly. But in 1296, the Pope issued a bull categorically forbidding the clergy to pay taxes to the secular authorities, and for those to demand such without special permission from the Roman Curia. This resolution was only one of a number of similar ones adopted by the Popes during the 11th-13th centuries. and aimed at freeing the Church from state power, giving it a special supranational and supranational status. Philip, firstly, who needed money to wage war with England and Flanders, and, secondly, who believed that all classes, including the clergy, should help their country, banned in 1297 the export of gold and silver from the country , which deprived the Pope of all church fees and taxes coming from France. Then Boniface immediately canceled the bull and even, as a sign of special disposition towards France, canonized Louis IX. However, the peace did not last long. Philip IV demanded that all subjects of France be subject to a single royal court. Pope Boniface insisted on the special jurisdiction of the Church and was preparing to excommunicate the French king from her.

Philip, in the fight against such a powerful force as the papacy, decided to rely on the estates of France and in April 1302 convened the first General States in French history - a legislative assembly of representatives of the three estates of the country: the clergy, the nobility and representatives of the cities. At this meeting, Pierre Flott, the first lay keeper of the seal in the history of France, read out a sharply drafted reply to the Pope. The question of condemning the Pope as a heretic was put before the Estates General. Only a part of the nobles and townspeople expressed their full support for King Philip. The clergy, nobles and townspeople of the southern regions of France behaved more cautiously. The clergy only sent a petition to Boniface VIII to allow the French clergy not to participate in the council convened by the Pope to condemn Philip. Boniface did not agree, but the French clergy were still not represented at the cathedral that opened in the fall of 1302 in Rome. There, the Pope read out the bull "One Holy" (papal bulls were named after the first words), in which he declared that complete submission to the Pope in all matters, both spiritual and secular, is a condition for the salvation of the soul. In 1303, Boniface VIII excommunicated Philip from the Church and freed his subjects from their oath to the king. In response, Philip convened a meeting of the highest nobility and clergy, at which the new chancellor and keeper of the seal of the French kingdom, Guillaume de Nogaret, accused Pope Boniface of heresy and all sorts of atrocities. Philip, with the consent of this assembly, sent a small military detachment to Italy, led by Nogare and the enemy of the Pope, Chiara Colonna. The pope, having learned about this, fled from Rome to the city of Anagni. On September 7, 1303, Nogaret and Colonna entered Anagni under the French royal banner and, with the support of the inhabitants of the city, arrested the Pope. Boniface showed considerable courage in refusing to abdicate despite all the threats. Some chroniclers claimed that Ciara Colonna hit the Pope in the face with a hand wearing an iron plate glove. A few days later, the townspeople expelled the Nogare detachment and freed the Pope. However, upon returning to Rome, Boniface died from the shocks he had suffered, according to some versions, from hunger, as he refused to eat, fearing poisoning. Ten months later died after eating fresh figs, and his successor Benedict XI. Philip was accused of this death, allegedly ordering the poisoning of the new Pope.

In 1305, after several months of struggle, the Frenchman Bertrand de Gault was elevated to the papal throne, taking the name of Clement V. This Pope was obedient to Philip in everything. He fully justified his position in the conflict with Boniface and canceled the bull "The One Saint", but refused to fulfill Philip's demand to condemn the deceased for heresy and unnatural vices, and then execute him posthumously - to dig up the corpse and burn it. In 1309, Clement V moved his residence from Rome, which was not subject to the new Pope, to Avignon, which was then in the territory not directly subject to the French king, but which was in his sphere of influence. Thus began the "Avignon captivity of the Popes" (see Art. "Papacy"), when the Roman pontiffs were at the mercy of the French kings. With the help of the Pope, the king organized a trial of the Knights Templar (see Art. "Knightly orders"). They were accused of heresy, unnatural vices, acquisitiveness and alliance with Muslims, moreover, testimony was obtained through cruel torture, and evidence obtained by the same investigator from different and unfamiliar persons sometimes coincided verbatim.

In 1308, Philip again convened the States General, which approved the actions of the king against the Templars. A wave of trials swept through France. Pope Clement V timidly tried to protest, but in the end approved all the charges against the Templars, recognized their executions as legal, and in 1312 abolished the order.

Having dealt with the Templars, Philip again turned his gaze towards Flanders, where anti-French forces again became more active. The king decided on a new campaign and, due to lack of funds, convened for the third time on August 1, 1314, the Estates General, this time to approve an emergency tax that would provide funds for waging war with Flanders. It was from this time that the States General began to influence the financial affairs of the country. However, the campaign did not take place - on November 29, 1314, Philip died, most likely from a stroke. But, since Pope Clement V and Chancellor Nogaret died shortly before the king, condemning the Templars to martyrdom, rumor explained the death of Philip by their curse or poisoning committed by the Templars, who were avenging their brothers.

Contemporaries did not like King Philip the Handsome, and the violence against Pope Boniface caused outrage throughout the Christian world. People close to the king were afraid of the cold, rational cruelty of this unusually beautiful and surprisingly impassive person. Large feudal lords could not forgive the king for strengthening the central administration, limiting their rights, including the right to mint their own coin, the preference given by the king to rootless officials. The taxable class resented the financial policy of the king. In an effort to fill the treasury, Philip sold and rented various positions, made violent loans from cities, reduced the amount of gold in the coin while maintaining its face value, which led to inflation and an increase in high cost; and coinage became the exclusive privilege of the sovereign. The population responded to the policy of the king with uprisings.

The family life of Philip the Handsome was happy. In 1284, he married Joan of Navarre (1270-1305), who brought her husband the kingdom of Navarre and the county of Champagne as a dowry. They had four children: Louis, King of Navarre (1289-1316), aka Louis X the Quarrelsome, King of France from 1314; Philip, Count of Poitiers (1291-1322), also known as Philip V the Long, King of France from 1317; Isabella (1292-1358), married in 1308 to Edward II (1281-1327), King of England from 1307; Charles, Comte de la Marche (1294-1328), aka Charles IV, King of France from 1322. After the death of Jeanne, Philip did not remarry, despite the most lucrative offers. Rumor claimed that he loved the queen so much that after her death he did not know women at all.

The married life of the children of Philip and Jeanne was not so happy. Isabella, who hated her husband, who paid much less attention to his wife than to his favorites, took part in the rebellion that broke out in 1327 and cost Edward II the crown and life. Shortly before the death of Philip, in 1314, a scandal broke out in which the wives of his sons were involved. Two of them were convicted of adultery, and the third - in complicity with them. The former were sentenced to life imprisonment, the latter to penance in a monastery. The pronouncement of the verdict on the adulterous princesses and the execution of their lovers were carried out in public. Contemporaries and descendants wondered: why did the king not try to hide the shame of his family? There is no answer to this day, because the thoughts and feelings of Philip the Handsome, this extremely closed and always imperturbable person, were not known even to his closest associates. Perhaps, being a devoted husband, he hated adultery; perhaps, possessing an extremely developed sense of royal dignity, he believed that princesses had no right to human weaknesses; perhaps, considering the royal power responsible for the inviolability of the rule of law in the country, he strictly demanded compliance with the laws (and adultery was considered a crime in the Middle Ages) from everyone without exception, regardless of position. In any case, it is highly likely that this event hastened the death of Philip IV.

Philip IV the Handsome, King of France

(1268–1314)

King of France Philip IV the Handsome from the Capetian dynasty remained in the memory of posterity primarily as a monarch who destroyed the Knights Templar. He was born in 1268 at Fontainebleau and succeeded to the throne in 1285 on the death of his father, Philip III the Bold. His mother, Queen Isabella of Aragon, was the first wife of Philip III, who by his second marriage was married to the Countess of Flanders, Mary of Brabant, who also bore the high-profile title of Queen of Sicily and Jerusalem. With the help of his marriage to Queen Joan of Navarre, concluded in 1284, he greatly expanded his possessions. He also continued to attempt to annex Aragon and Sicily, which his father had claimed as dynastic. However, here, unlike his father, who died during the campaign against Aragon, Philip relied more on diplomacy than on force of arms. He did not support the claims of his brother Charles of Valois to the Aragonese and Sicilian thrones. In 1291, on the initiative of Philip, an international congress was convened in Tarascon to resolve the Aragonese question. It was attended by representatives of the kings of England, France, Naples and the Pope. A peaceful settlement was reached. In 1294, Philip began a war with England for the rich province of Guyenne (Duchy of Aquitaine), which lasted 10 years and greatly depleted the French treasury. Philip took advantage of the conflict between British and French merchants in Aquitaine as a pretext and summoned the English king Edward I, who was formally considered his vassal, to the court of the Paris Parliament. Edward offered Guienne as a pledge for 40 days, during which an investigation was to be carried out, but, of course, he did not appear in court. But Philip, having occupied Guyenne, refused to return it and declared war on Edward. He responded by setting his ally, the Count of Flanders, against France. Peace with England was concluded in 1304 on the basis of the status quo, that is, the return of Guyenne to the English, due to the fact that Philip's daughter married the new English king Edward II. In 1302, Philip's army invaded Flanders, but was defeated by the local militia at the Battle of Courtrai. Nevertheless, in 1304, Philip, at the head of a large army, invaded Flanders, and according to the peace concluded in 1304, the Flanders cities of Douai, Lille and Bethune retreated to France.

In 1296, Pope Boniface VIII forbade taxing clerics without papal permission. However, the joint performance of Philip and the English King Edward I forced the pope to back down. The kings simply began to take the estates from those clerics who, guided by the papal bull, refused to pay. Philip also by a special edict in 1297 forbade the export of gold and silver from France, which blocked the receipts to the papal treasury from the French clergy. The pope was forced to back down and cancel the bull.

In general, throughout the entire period of his reign, Philip was constantly in need of money, so he was forced to introduce more and more taxes and reduce the gold content in the coin. He had a large staff of lawyers, called "legists", "royal notaries", "king's knights" and "king's people", who won all the cases in favor of the king in the French courts, deftly manipulating the law, and sometimes simply flouting the law. These people acted on the principle: "What pleases the king has the force of law."

In 1306, Philip expelled the Jews from France, and then the Knights Templar. From both of them he had previously made large compulsory loans and, instead of returning them, he preferred to remove his creditors from the country. Also, in order to obtain new funds and support in the confrontation with the pope, Philip in April 1302 convened the first French parliament - the Estates General, which was supposed to vote new taxes. The parliament was composed of barons, clergy and lawyers. The deputies were read a false papal bull, after which they promised the king support in any action to protect the state and the rights of the church in France from the encroachments of the pope. This support was unconditional from the townspeople and the nobility of the northern provinces, who expressed their readiness to condemn Pope Boniface as a heretic. The nobles and townspeople of the southern provinces, as well as all the clergy, were much more moderate. The bishops only asked the pope to allow the French clergy not to participate in the church council, at which it was proposed to excommunicate King Philip. The Pope responded to the decision of the General States with the bull “The One Holy One”, where he stated: “The spiritual authority must put the earthly authority, and judge it if it deviated from the true path ...” Here Boniface formulated the theory of two swords - spiritual and secular. The spiritual sword is in the hands of the pope, the secular sword is in the hands of sovereigns, but they can draw it only with the sanction of the pope and to protect the interests of the church. The subordination of the pope was erected into an article of faith. The pope threatened to excommunicate not only King Philip, but the entire French people if he supported the king in the fight against the church. In April 1303, the pope excommunicated the king and released the seven ecclesiastical provinces in the Rhone Valley from the royal oath. However, the French clergy, contrary to the demand of the pope, did not appear at the cathedral. Meanwhile, the counter-propaganda campaign organized by Philip was a success. In response, Philip convened a meeting of the higher clergy and nobility, at which the chancellor and keeper of the royal seal, Guillaume de Nogaret, accused Boniface of heresy and villainous crimes. At this meeting, Philip declared Boniface a false pope and promised to convene a council to elect a true pope. One of the king's closest advisers, the legalist and chancellor Guillaume Nogaret, was sent to the pope with a summons to a church council, accompanied by an armed detachment. The pope fled from Rome to the city of Ananin, but on September 7, 1303, the Nogare detachment reached there as well. Boniface was put under arrest, but categorically refused to abdicate. A few days later, the townspeople rebelled, expelled the French and released the pope. After meeting with Nogaret, the pope fell ill, and a month later, on October 11, 1303, the 85-year-old Boniface died.

Boniface's successor, Benedict XI, reigned for only a few months and died suddenly, having outlived Boniface by only ten months. Then, in June 1305, after months of struggle, under Philip's pressure, the Archbishop of Bordeaux Bertrand de Gau, who took the name of Clement V, was elected pope. Clement introduced several French cardinals into the conclave, guaranteeing in the future the election of popes pleasing to the French kings. In a special bull, Clement fully supported Philip's position in the dispute with Boniface, calling him "a good and just king", and canceled the "One Saint" bull. However, he refused to support the accusations against Boniface of heresy and unnatural vices, as well as to perform a posthumous execution on him - to dig and burn the corpse.

Philip was able to increase French territory at the expense of several principalities bordering on the German Empire. The power of the king was also recognized by the cities of Lyon and Valenciennes.

In 1308, Philip attempted to make Charles of Valois the German emperor when the throne was vacant after the assassination of Emperor Albrecht of Austria. Some close associates recommended that Philip himself try his luck in the struggle for the imperial crown. However, the creation of such a powerful state - in the case of the union of France and Germany - frightened all the neighbors of France, especially since Philip clearly indicated his intention to annex the left bank of the Rhine to his kingdom. The German princes opposed Charles of Valois, who was not supported even by Pope Clement V. Henry of Luxembourg was elected emperor.

In 1307, on the orders of Philip, members of the Knights Templar were secretly arrested all over France on the same day. They were accused of heresy, allegedly expressed in desecration of the cross, idolatry and sodomy. Before that, Philip asked to be accepted into the order, hoping to become its grandmaster and legally seize all the wealth of the Templars. However, the Grand Master of the Order, Jacques de Molay, figured out the game and politely but firmly refused him. But Philip received a pretext for reprisal, claiming that the Templars were engaged in secret affairs in which they were afraid to dedicate the French king. Under torture, the Templars confessed everything, and seven years later, in an open trial, they denied everything. The true reason for the massacre was that the king owed the order a large amount. In 1308, to approve the repression against the Templars, the king convened the Estates General for the second time in history. Trials of the Templars took place throughout France. Their leaders were executed with the blessing of the Pope, who first tried to protest against the massacre of the Templars, and later, in 1311, under pressure from Philip, who convened a church council in Vienne that abolished the Knights Templar. The property of the order in 1312 was written off to the royal treasury.

In 1311, Philip banned the activities of Italian bankers in France. The property of the exiled replenished the treasury. The king also imposed high taxes, which did not delight the subjects. At the same time, he included Champagne (in 1308) and Lyon with its environs (in 1312) into the royal domain. By the end of his reign, France had become the strongest power in Europe.

On August 1, 1314, Philip convened the States General for the third time in order to obtain funds for a new campaign in Flanders. For this purpose, the deputies voted an emergency tax. However, the Flanders campaign did not take place, since Philip died of a stroke at Fontainebleau on November 29, 1314. Since Pope Clement and Chancellor Nogaret had died a few months earlier, rumors attributed the deaths of all three to the curse placed on them before his death by the Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay, who, when he was fried on a slow fire on March 18, 1314, shouted: “Pope Clement! King Philip! In less than a year, I will call you to the judgment of God!” Philip's three sons, Louis X, Philip V and Charles IV, did not much survive their father, although they managed to reign.

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PHILIP IV THE BEAUTIFUL, King of France

King of France from the Capetian family, who ruled from 1285-1314. Son of Philip III and Isabella of Aragon. Woman: Juanna I, Queen of Navarre, daughter of King Enrique I of Navarre (b. 1271, d. 1304). Genus. 1268, d. 29 November 29, 1314

Philip IV remains somewhat of an enigmatic figure for historians. On the one hand, all the policies pursued by him make us think that he was a man of iron will and rare energy, accustomed to go towards his goal with unshakable perseverance. Meanwhile, the testimonies of people who personally knew the king are in a strange contradiction with this opinion. The chronicler William the Scot wrote of Philip that the king had a handsome and noble appearance, graceful manners, and behaved very impressively. With all this, he was distinguished by unusual meekness and modesty, with disgust he avoided obscene conversations, carefully attended the service, performed the fasts with accuracy and wore a hair shirt. He was kind, condescending, and willingly placed his full trust in people who did not deserve it. It was they, according to Wilhelm, who were responsible for all the troubles and abuses that marked his reign: the introduction of oppressive taxes, extraordinary exactions and systematic damage to the coin. Another chronicler, Giovanni Vilani, wrote that Philip was very handsome, gifted with a serious mind, but he did a lot of hunting and liked to entrust others with the care of government affairs. Geoffroy also reports that the king was easily subject to bad advice. Thus, we have to admit that his close associates played a big role in Philip's politics: Chancellor Pierre Flotte, Guillaume Nogaret, the keeper of the seal, and Enguerrand Marigny, the coadjutor of the kingdom. All these were people of no nobility, raised to the heights of power by the king himself.

Philip came to the throne at the age of seventeen and, first of all, took up the resolution of the Sicilian and Aragonese issues, which he had inherited from his father. He immediately stopped hostilities and did nothing to support the claims of his brother Charles of Valois, who dreamed of becoming the Aragonese (or, in the worst case, Sicilian) king. The negotiations, however, dragged on for another ten years and ended with the fact that Sicily remained with the Aragonese dynasty. In relations with the English king Edward I, Philip's policy was more energetic. There were frequent clashes between subjects of the two states. Taking advantage of one of them, Philip in 1295 called the English king, as his vassal, to the court of the Parisian parliament. Edward refused to submit, and war was declared on him. Both opponents were looking for allies. Edward's supporters were Emperor Adolf, the counts of Holland, Guelders, Brabant and Savoy, as well as the king of Castile. Philip's allies were the Count of Burgundy, the Duke of Lorraine, the Count of Luxembourg and the Scots. However, of these, only the Scots and the Count of Flanders, Guy Dampierre, had a real impact on events. Edward himself, busy with a difficult war in Scotland, concluded a truce with Philip in 1297, and in 1303 a peace, according to which Guyenne was left to the English king. The entire burden of the war fell on the shoulders of the Flemings. In 1297 the French army invaded Flanders. Philip himself laid siege to Lille, and Count Robert of Artois won a victory at Fournes (largely due to the betrayal of the nobility, among which there were many adherents of the French party). After that, Lille surrendered. In 1299, Charles of Valois captured Douai, passed through Bruges, and in May 1300 entered Ghent. He met no resistance anywhere. Count Guy surrendered, along with his two sons and 51 knights. The king dispossessed him as a rebel and annexed Flanders to his kingdom. In 1301, Philip traveled around his new possessions and everywhere was met with expressions of humility. But he immediately tried to extract the maximum benefit from his new acquisition and imposed heavy taxes on the country. This caused discontent, and the harsh administration of Jacques of Châtillon further increased the hatred of the French. When riots broke out in Bruges in 1301, Jacques sentenced those responsible to huge fines, ordered the city wall to be broken down and a citadel built in the city. Then, in May 1302, a second, much more powerful uprising broke out. Within one day, the people killed 1,200 French knights and 2,000 soldiers in the city. After that, all of Flanders took up arms. In June, a French army led by Robert Artois approached. But in a stubborn battle at Courtrai, she was utterly defeated. Together with their commander, up to 6,000 French knights fell. Thousands of spurs taken from the dead were piled in the Mastricht church as trophies of victory. Philip could not leave such a disgrace unavenged. In 1304, at the head of an army of 60,000, the king approached the borders of Flanders. In August, in a stubborn battle at Montsant-Nullet, the Flemings were defeated, but retreated in good order to Lille. After several attacks, Philip made peace with the son of Guy Dampierre, Robert of Bethune, who was in his captivity. Philip agreed to return the country to him, while the Flemings retained all their rights and privileges. However, for the release of their count and other prisoners, the cities had to pay a large indemnity. As a pledge to pay the ransom, the king took for himself lands on the right bank of the Lys with the cities of Lille, Douai, Bethune and Orsha. He was supposed to return them after receiving the money, but treacherously violated the contract and left them forever with France.

These events unfolded against the backdrop of growing contradictions with the pope every year. At first, nothing seemed to foreshadow this conflict. None of the European kings was so loved by Pope Boniface VIII as Philip the Handsome. As early as 1290, when the pope was only Cardinal Benedetto Gaetani and came to France as a papal legate, he admired the piety of the young king. Having ascended the throne in 1294, Boniface zealously supported the policy of the French king in Spain and Italy. The first signs of mutual distrust appeared in 1296. In August, the pope published a bull in which he forbade the laity to demand and receive subsidies from the clergy. By a strange coincidence, and perhaps in response to the bull, Philip at the same time forbade the export of gold and silver from France: in this way he destroyed one of the main sources of papal income, because the French church could no longer send any money to Rome. Even then a quarrel could have arisen, but Boniface's position on the papal throne was still fragile, the cardinals begged him to stop the scandals caused by the bull, and he yielded to them. In 1297, a bull was promulgated, which actually canceled the previous one. Apparently, the pope expected the king to make concessions too. Philip allowed the income of the pope, which he received from the French clergy, to be exported to Rome, but continued to oppress the church, and soon there were new clashes with the pope. The archbishop of Narbonne complained to Boniface that the royal dignitaries had taken away from him his fief power over some of the vassals of his see and in general caused him various insults. The Pope sent Bishop Bernard Sesse as legate to Paris on this matter. At the same time, he was instructed to demand the release from captivity of the Count of Flanders and the fulfillment of the previously given promise to participate in the crusade. Bernard, known for his arrogance and irascibility, was absolutely not the kind of person who could be entrusted with such a delicate assignment. Unable to achieve concessions, he began to threaten Philip with an interdict and generally spoke so harshly that he brought the usually cold-blooded Philip out of himself. The king sent two members of his council to Pamiers and to the county of Toulouse to collect evidence to accuse Bernard of insubordination. During the investigation, it turned out that the bishop often used inappropriate expressions during his sermons and set his flock against royal power. Philip ordered the legate to be arrested and taken into custody at Sanli. He also demanded from the pope that he deposed Bernard and allowed him to be brought to a secular court. The pope responded to the king with an angry letter, demanded the immediate release of his legate, threatened Philip with excommunication and ordered him to appear at his court in order to justify himself from accusations of tyranny, bad government and the minting of damaged coins. Philip ordered to solemnly burn this bull on the porch of Notre Dame Cathedral. In April 1302, he convened in Paris the first Estates-General in history. They were attended by representatives of the clergy, barons and prosecutors of the main northern and southern cities. In order to arouse the indignation of the deputies, a forged papal bull was read to them, in which the claims of the pope were strengthened and sharpened. After that, Chancellor Flott turned to them with the question: can the king count on the support of the estates if he takes measures to protect the honor and independence of the state, as well as to save the French church from violating its rights? The nobles and deputies of the cities answered that they were ready to support the king. The clergy, after a brief hesitation, also joined the opinion of the other two classes.

After that, during the year, the opponents hesitated to take decisive measures, but the hostility between them grew. Finally, in April 1303, Boniface excommunicated the king and released the seven ecclesiastical provinces in the Rhone basin from vassalage and from the oath of allegiance to the king. This measure, however, had no effect. Philip declared Boniface a false pope (indeed, there were some doubts about the legality of his election), a heretic and even a warlock. He demanded that an ecumenical council be convened to hear these accusations, but at the same time he said that the pope should be at this council as a prisoner and accused. He moved from words to deeds. In the summer, Nogare, loyal to him, went to Italy with a large sum of money. Soon he entered into relations with the enemies of Boniface and made an extensive conspiracy against him. The Pope at that time was in Anagni, where on September 8 he wanted to betray Philip to a public curse. On the eve of this day, the conspirators broke into the papal palace, surrounded Boniface, showered him with all sorts of insults and demanded his resignation. Nogaret threatened that he would put him in chains and, as a criminal, he would take him to the cathedral in Lyon to be sentenced. The Pope withstood these attacks with dignity. For three days he was in the hands of his enemies. Finally, the people of Anagni freed him. But from the humiliation endured, Boniface fell into such a disorder that he went mad and died on October 11. His humiliation and death had grave consequences for the papacy. The new pope Benedict XI excommunicated Nogaret, but stopped the persecution of Philip himself. In the summer of 1304 he died. In his place was elected the Archbishop of Bordeaux Bertrand du Gotha, who took the name of Clement V. He did not go to Italy, but was ordained in Lyon. In 1309 he settled in Avignon and turned this city into a papal residence. Until his death, he remained an obedient executor of the will of the French king. In addition to many other concessions to Philip, Clement agreed in 1307 with the accusations against the Knights Templar. In October, 140 French knights of this order were arrested and put on trial for heresy. In 1312, the pope declared the order destroyed. Philip, who owed the Templars huge sums, took possession of all their wealth. In March 1313, the grand master of the order, Jacques Molay, was burned. Before his death, he cursed the entire family of Capetians and predicted his imminent degeneration. And indeed, shortly after the execution, Philip began to suffer from a debilitating disease that the doctors could not recognize in any way, and died from it at Fontainebleau on November 29, 1314. at the age of 46. His reign was a turning point in the history of medieval France: he expanded the kingdom by annexing new lands (shortly before his death, he annexed Lyon and its district to France), forced the church and feudal lords to obey the orders of the king, and suppressed any independent power in his state. The royal administration under him covered all aspects of society: cities, the feudal nobility, the clergy - all fell under her control. His reign seemed to his contemporaries a time of cruel oppression and despotism. But behind all this, a new era was already visible. With the help of a numerous corporation of lawyers, the king took advantage of every opportunity to establish royal courts everywhere and introduce Roman law. By the end of his life, all judicial power in the country passed exclusively to the crown, and public life took on a completely different character than under his predecessors.

All the monarchs of the world. - Academician. 2009 .

See what "PHILIP IV THE BEAUTIFUL, King of France" is in other dictionaries:

Philip IV the Handsome Philippe IV le Bel Philip IV the Handsome (portrait of the New Age) ... Wikipedia

Wikipedia has articles about other people named Philip I. Philip I Handsome Felipe el Hermoso ... Wikipedia

Philippe IV le Bel Philip IV the Handsome (portrait of the New Age) ... Wikipedia

Philip III the Bold Philippe III le Hardi Philip III the Bold (portrait of the New Age) ... Wikipedia

Philip IV the Handsome- (Philip IV, the Fair) (1268 1314), King of France (1285 1314). He inherited his father's throne, strengthened queens, power, reformed legislation. Pope Boniface VIII challenged his right to tax the clergy, but was imprisoned and... ... The World History

Philip IV (Philippe IV le Bel) remains somewhat of an enigmatic figure for historians. On the one hand, all the policies pursued by him make us think that he was a man of iron will and rare energy, accustomed to go towards his goal with unshakable perseverance. Meanwhile, the testimonies of people who personally knew the king are in a strange contradiction with this opinion. The chronicler William the Scot wrote about Philip that the king had a handsome and noble appearance, graceful manners and behaved very impressively. With all this, he was distinguished by unusual meekness and modesty, with disgust he avoided obscene conversations, carefully attended the service, performed the fasts with accuracy and wore a hair shirt. He was kind, condescending, and willingly placed his full trust in people who did not deserve it. They, according to Wilhelm, were the culprits of all those troubles and abuses that marked his reign, the introduction of oppressive taxes, extraordinary exactions and systematic damage to the coin. Another chronicler, Giovanni Vilani, wrote that Philip was very handsome, gifted with a serious mind, but he did a lot of hunting and liked to entrust others with the care of government affairs. Geoffroy also reports that the king was easily subject to bad advice. Thus, we have to admit that his close associates played a big role in Philip's politics: Chancellor Pierre Flotte, Guillaume Nogaret, the keeper of the seal, and Enguerrand Marigny, the coadjutor of the kingdom. All these were people of no nobility, raised to the heights of power by the king himself.

Philip IV the Handsome was born at Fontainebleau in 1268 to Philip III and Isabella of Aragon. Philip came to the throne at the age of seventeen and, first of all, took up the resolution of the Sicilian and Aragonese issues, which he had inherited from his father.

He immediately stopped hostilities and did nothing to support the claims of his brother Charles of Valois, who dreamed of becoming the Aragonese (or, in the worst case, Sicilian) king. The negotiations, however, dragged on for another ten years and ended with the fact that Sicily remained with the Aragonese dynasty. In relations with the English king Edward I, Philip's policy was more energetic. There were frequent clashes between subjects of the two states. Taking advantage of one of them, Philip in 1295 called the English king, as his vassal, to the court of the Parisian parliament. Edward refused to submit, and war was declared on him. Both opponents were looking for allies. Edward's supporters were Emperor Adolf, the counts of Holland, Guelders, Brabant and Savoy, as well as the king of Castile. Philip's allies were the Count of Burgundy, the Duke of Lorraine, the Count of Luxembourg and the Scots. However, of these, only the Scots and the Count of Flanders, Guy Dampierre, had a real impact on events. Edward himself, busy with a difficult war in Scotland, concluded a truce with Philip in 1297, and in 1303 a peace, according to which Guyenne was left to the English king. The entire burden of the war fell on the shoulders of the Flemings. In 1297 the French army invaded Flanders. Philip himself laid siege to Lille, and Count Robert of Artois won a victory at Fournes (largely due to the betrayal of the nobility, among which there were many adherents of the French party). After that, Lille surrendered. In 1299, Charles of Valois captured Douai, passed through Bruges, and in May 1300 entered Ghent.

He met no resistance anywhere. Count Guy surrendered, along with his two sons and 51 knights. The king deprived him of his possessions as a rebel and annexed Flanders to his kingdom. In 1301, Philip traveled around his new possessions and everywhere was met with expressions of humility. But he immediately tried to extract the maximum benefit from his new acquisition and imposed heavy taxes on the country. This caused discontent, and the harsh administration of Jacques of Châtillon further increased the hatred of the French. When riots broke out in Bruges in 1301, Jacques sentenced those responsible to huge fines, ordered the city wall to be broken down and a citadel built in the city. Then, in May 1302, a second, much more powerful uprising broke out. Within one day, the people killed 1,200 French knights and 2,000 soldiers in the city. After that, all of Flanders took up arms. In June, a French army led by Robert Artois approached. But in a stubborn battle at Courtrai, she was utterly defeated. Together with their commander, up to 6,000 French knights fell. Thousands of spurs taken from the dead were piled in the Mastricht church as trophies of victory. Philip could not leave such a disgrace unavenged. In 1304, at the head of an army of 60,000, the king approached the borders of Flanders. In August, in a stubborn battle at Mons-en-Nullet, the Flemings were defeated, but retreated in good order to Lille. After several attacks, Philip made peace with the son of Guy Dampierre, Robert of Bethune, who was in his captivity. Philip agreed to return the country to him, while the Flemings retained all their rights and privileges.

However, for the release of their count and other prisoners, the cities had to pay a large indemnity. As a pledge to pay the ransom, the king took for himself lands on the right bank of the Lys with the cities of Lille, Douai, Bethune and Orsha. He was supposed to return them after receiving the money, but treacherously violated the contract and left them forever with France.

In 1297, a bull was promulgated, which actually canceled the previous one. Apparently, the pope expected the king to make concessions too. Philip allowed the income of the pope, which he received from the French clergy, to be exported to Rome, but continued to oppress the church, and soon there were new clashes with the pope. The archbishop of Narbonne complained to Boniface that the royal dignitaries had taken away from him his fief power over some of the vassals of his see and in general caused him various insults. The Pope sent the Bishop of Pamières, Bernard Sesse, as a legate to Paris on this matter. At the same time, he was instructed to demand the release from captivity of the Count of Flanders and the fulfillment of the previously given promise to participate in the crusade. Bernard, known for his arrogance and irascibility, was absolutely not the kind of person who could be entrusted with such a delicate assignment. Unable to achieve concessions, he began to threaten Philip with an interdict and generally spoke so harshly that he brought the usually cold-blooded Philip out of himself. The king sent two members of his council to Pamiers and to the county of Toulouse to collect evidence to accuse Bernard of insubordination. During the investigation, it turned out that the bishop often used inappropriate expressions during his sermons and set his flock against royal power. Philip ordered the legate to be arrested and taken into custody at Sanli. He also demanded from the pope that he deposed Bernard and allowed him to be brought to a secular court. The pope responded to the king with an angry letter, demanded the immediate release of his legate, threatened Philip with excommunication and ordered him to appear at his court in order to justify himself from accusations of tyranny, bad governance, Philip ordered this bull to be solemnly burned on the porch of Notre Dame Cathedral.

In April 1302, he convened in Paris the first Estates-General in history. They were attended by representatives of the clergy, barons and prosecutors of the main northern and southern cities. In order to arouse the indignation of the deputies, a forged papal bull was read to them, in which the claims of the pope were strengthened and sharpened. After that, Chancellor Flott turned to them with the question: can the king count on the support of the estates if he takes measures to protect the honor and independence of the state, as well as to save the French church from violating its rights? The nobles and deputies of the cities answered that they were ready to support the king. The clergy, after a brief hesitation, also joined the opinion of the other two classes. After that, during the year, the opponents hesitated to take decisive measures, but the hostility between them grew. Finally, in April 1303, Boniface excommunicated the king and released the seven ecclesiastical provinces in the Rhone basin from vassalage and from the oath of allegiance to the king. This measure, however, had no effect. Philip declared Boniface a false pope (indeed, there were some doubts about the legality of his election), a heretic and even a warlock. He demanded that an ecumenical council be convened to hear these accusations, but at the same time he said that the pope should be at this council as a prisoner and accused. He moved from words to deeds. In the summer, Nogare, loyal to him, went to Italy with a large sum of money. Soon he entered into relations with the enemies of Boniface and made an extensive conspiracy against him. The Pope at that time was in Anagni, where on September 8 he wanted to betray Philip to a public curse.

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On the eve of this day, the conspirators broke into the papal palace, surrounded Boniface, showered him with all sorts of insults and demanded his resignation. Nogaret threatened that he would put him in chains and, as a criminal, he would take him to the cathedral in Lyon to be sentenced. The Pope withstood these attacks with dignity. For three days he was in the hands of his enemies. Finally, the people of Anagni freed him. But from the humiliation endured, Boniface fell into such a disorder that he went mad and died on October 11. His humiliation and death had grave consequences for the papacy. The new pope Benedict XI excommunicated Nogaret, but stopped the persecution of Philip himself. In the summer of 1304 he died. In his place was elected the Archbishop of Bordeaux Bertrand du Gotha, who took the name of Clement V. He did not go to Italy, but was ordained in Lyon. In 1309 he settled in Avignon and turned this city into a papal residence. Until his death, he remained an obedient executor of the will of the French king. In addition to many other concessions to Philip, Clement agreed in 1307 with the accusations against the Knights Templar. In October, 140 French knights of this order were arrested and put on trial for heresy. In 1312, the pope declared the order destroyed. Philip, who owed the Templars huge sums, took possession of all their wealth. In March 1313, the grand master of the order, Jacques Molay, was burned. Before his death, he cursed the entire family of Capetians and predicted his imminent degeneration.

In 1314, Philip conceived a new campaign against Flanders, where anti-French forces became more active. On August 1, he convened the Estates General, which agreed to the introduction of an emergency tax on war, the first act of taxation in history with the sanction of a popular representation. Soon after the execution, Philip began to suffer from a debilitating disease that the doctors could not recognize.

And the campaign did not take place, because on November 29, 1314, at the 46th year of his life in Fontainebleau, the king died, apparently from a stroke, although rumor attributed his death to the curse of Jacques de Molay or poisoning by the Templars.

Contemporaries did not like Philip the Handsome, people close to him were afraid of the rational cruelty of this unusually beautiful and surprisingly impassive person. Violence against the pope caused outrage throughout the Christian world. Large feudal lords were dissatisfied with the infringement of their rights and the strengthening of the central administration, which consisted of people without roots. The tax-paying class was outraged by the increase in taxes, the so-called "spoilage" of the coin, i.e., the reduction of its gold content while forcibly maintaining its face value, which led to inflation. Philip's heirs were forced to soften their policy of centralization.

The reign of Philip IV the Handsome, who ascended the French throne at the age of seventeen after the death of his father Philip III on October 5, 1285, is regarded by historians not only as one of the most important periods in the history of France, but also as one of the most controversial.

This reign is important because the French kingdom reaches the pinnacle of its power: the largest state in terms of population in the Christian Western world (13-15 million or a third of the entire Catholic world), real economic prosperity (it is enough to cite as an example the increase in arable land or the heyday of the fair in Champagne). In addition, the power of the monarch is so strengthened that Philip is seen as the first ruler of a new type in Europe: the state is more powerful and centralized than ever, the king's entourage - legalists - educated and educated people, real experts in the field of jurisprudence.

However, this rosy picture is not consistent with other facts. Thus, the seeming economic prosperity only masks the slow-moving crisis, as evidenced by numerous shocks in the financial market (under Philip, monetary policy was extremely, as they say now, voluntaristic). And at the end of his reign, the fairs in Champagne could not compete with the sea trade of the Italians at all, and in addition, literally the next day after the death of the king, a devastating famine of 1315-1317 broke out. Moreover, if you look closely, you can see that the king did not know his kingdom well: he did not even know how far his borders stretched, he could not establish direct taxes, and effective and accurate government of the state remained elusive. It is unlikely that the king was added to popularity by a chain of dubious, semi-political, semi-secular scandals, in particular, the trial of the bishop of Troyes, Guichard, who was accused of killing the queen through witchcraft, or the trial of the bishop of Pamières, Bernard Sesse, a trial that complicated the already difficult relationship between the king and dad. What about the Templar trial? What about the imprisonment of the king's daughters-in-law and the execution of their lovers? In general, the identity of King Philip the Handsome remains mysterious. Who was he? The core of French politics or a mere tool in the hands of their advisers? The authors of the chronicles - contemporaries of the king - tend mainly to the second option - they, in particular, reproach the king for inept monetary and tax policies, explaining this by the fact that the king was given worthless advice by mediocre advisers. But, despite such uncertainty in assessments, the king is still seen as a "non-classical" monarch of the Middle Ages. Although chroniclers insist that France treated him with respect, to which, however, he allegedly owes the authority of his grandfather, Philip Augustus, who undertook economic and political reforms aimed at strengthening the central power.

The leitmotif of historians contemporary with Philip the Handsome is the regret of the era of "His Majesty Saint Louis", which is considered almost like a golden age, while Philip IV is characterized only as "the antipode of Saint Louis". But, despite all this, historians agree on one thing: with this king, a new era began. However, it is hardly worth exaggerating the "modernity" of Philip the Handsome and France of his time.

Nevertheless, the reign of Philip IV the Handsome was a turning point in the history of medieval France: he expanded the kingdom by annexing new lands (shortly before his death, he annexed Lyon with its district to France), forced the church and feudal lords to obey the orders of the king, and suppressed any independent power. The royal administration under him covered all aspects of society: cities, the feudal nobility, the clergy - all fell under her control. His reign seemed to his contemporaries a time of cruel oppression and despotism. But behind all this, a new era was already visible. With the help of a numerous corporation of lawyers, the king took advantage of every opportunity to establish royal courts everywhere and introduce Roman law. By the end of his life, all judicial power in the country passed exclusively to the crown, and public life took on a completely different character than under his predecessors.

***
ranto 13.06.2006 06:53:22

There are LITTLE articles of this quality on the Internet - thank you!

Extraordinary personality, no matter what.
Jeanne 17.07.2008 01:23:03

For the first time I learned about the personality of Philip the Handsome from the series of books by Maurice Druon "Cursed Kings", read by Anna when I was 15 years old. Contradictory, extraordinary personality and something immensely attractive. Now I'm re-reading books and I wanted to find information on the net.