Charles’s death in 741 temporarily broke the unity of the Frankish kingdom. His elder
son, Carloman, was made mayor over Austrasia, Alemannia, and Thuringia, while the
younger, Pepin the Short, received Neustria, Burgundy, and Provence. Charles was
buried in Merovingian royal style at Saint-Denis.
Steven Fanning
[See also: CAROLINGIAN DYNASTY; MAYOR OF THE PALACE]
Wallace-Hadrill, J.M., ed. and trans. The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar with Its
Continuations. London: Nelson, 1960.
Gerberding, Richard A. The Rise of the Carolingians and the “Liber Historiae Francorum.”
Oxford: Clarendon, 1987.
McKitterick, Rosamond. The Frankish Kingdoms Under the Carolingians, 751–987. London:
Longman, 1983.
Riché, Pierre. The Carolingians: A Family Who Forged Europe, trans. Michael I.Allen.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993.
Roi, Jean-Henri, and Jean Devoisse. La bataille de Poitiers. Paris: Gallimard, 1966.
CHARLES OF VALOIS
(1270–1325). Father of King Philip VI. The third son of Philip III, Charles became
associated with the county of Valois in northern France, which he received as an apanage
in 1285. His territorial interests and ambitions, however, extended over a much larger
area. In 1282, Peter III of Aragon had invaded Sicily, which was ruled by Charles’s
granduncle, Charles I of Anjou. The ensuing diplomatic crisis pitted the papacy and the
French crown against Aragon in a war (1285) that has been called a crusade. To cement
the papal-French alliance, Charles of Valois was to receive the crown of Aragon. French
defeat in the war rendered his claim to the title empty, but his renunciation of it in 1295
required considerable diplomatic maneuvering, including the release of Charles II of
Anjou, then a hostage in Aragon (1288). In 1290, Charles of Valois married his first wife,
Marguerite, the daughter of Charles II, through whom he received the counties of Anjou
and Maine.
In the course of his career, Charles also laid claim to the Byzantine empire (since 1261
again in the hands of the Greeks) and put himself forward for the imperial title in
Germany. Active militarily on behalf of Pope Boniface VIII in northern Italy, he
managed to overcome Florentine resistance to the pope, but his Italian expedition was cut
short in 1301, when his brother, Philip IV of France, came into conflict with Boniface.
He served Philip in his wars, commanding forces in Guyenne in 1295 and in Flanders in
the 1290s and the first two decades of the 14th century.
After the death of Philip IV in 1314, Charles of Valois became a principal counselor to
the new king, Louis X (r. 1314–16), and was instrumental in the execution of Enguerran
de Marigny, his late brother’s financial adviser. Less intimate with Louis X’s brother and
successor, Philip V (r. 1316–22), he reemerged as a close adviser to the youngest of his
nephews, Charles IV (r. 1322–28). In his later years, Charles of Valois seems to have
been deeply drawn to the idea of mounting a crusade and pledged in 1323, at age fifty-
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