PHILIP II AUGUSTUS
(1165–1223)
King of France, 1180–1223. Philip II was the fi rst great
architect of the medieval French monarchy. Building
upon the accomplishments of Louis VI and Louis VII,
he began the process of converting feudal into national
monarchy, expanding the crown’s political and geo-
graphical infl uence, by his death in 1223, far beyond
what they had been at his accession in 1180.
As was common in the case of kings ascending as
children to the throne, Philip was initially dominated by
powerful relatives, in his case the infl uential and wealthy
ruling family of Champagne. His early struggle to as-
sert royal infl uence was supported by his father’s rival,
Henry II of England, who denied himself the pleasure of
taking advantage of the fi fteen-year-old king’s apparent
weakness. A few years later, Henry probably wished that
he had not been so honorable, since Philip utilized the
traditional patricidal confl ict traditional in the Angevin
family against his former protector. This policy saw
the French king triumphant over his father’s ancient
adversary and his sons by 1204, when the luckless King
John saw the Angevin territories in France dissolve. By
the end of his reign, Philip II had increased his territory
nearly fourfold. The English loss of territory north of the
Loire augmented the French ruler’s lands, but he also
added to his acquisitions by the forfeitures of contuma-
cious vassals, by political duplicity, by cleverly arranged
marriages, and by manipulation of the confusion over
land possession arising from the Albigensian Crusade.
Philip Augustus was not a great military leader; he was
an astute politician.
Philip was the founder of the centralized bureaucratic
state. He chose bourgeois administrators, as well as men
from the lower nobility, to run his kingdom, men whose
primary loyalty was to their king rather than to their class
or to their families. Their offi ces were remunerated by
salary rather than farmed. Philip used feudal rights to
enhance his royal position; in his reign, the authority of
the king began shifting slowly from his rights exercised
as feudal suzerain to his rights exercised as sovereign;
he was becoming less a private, feudal lord than a public
fi gure of authority. This obviously contributed to a de-
cline in the functional importance of the feudal structure
(it was never a feudal system), as did the growing com-
mutation of lord-vassal relationships from mutually ex-
changed personal obligations into money payments. The
administrators of Philip’s domains, baillis and prévôts,
were essentially estate managers, men with wide-rang-
ing fi scal, judicial, military, and other responsibilities.
Philip’s fi nancial administration improved greatly, his
policies based upon the model of his newly conquered
province, Normandy. He also made Paris what we mod-
erns would call the capital of France.
Philip Augustus was, then, the monarch under whom
French monarchy became more a practical than a theo-
retical concept. His domain, larger than the fi ef of any
vassal, was to remain the dominant power base in France
in succeeding generations. As Luchaire wrote, at Philip’s
death “the [Capetian] dynasty was solidly established,
and France founded.”
See also Henry II; JohnFurther Reading
Baldwin, John W. The Government of Philip Augustus. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1986.
Bautier, Robert-Henri, ed. La France de Philippe Auguste:le
temps des mutations. Paris: CNRS, 1982.
Bordonove, Georges. Philippe Auguste. Paris; Pygmalion,
1983.
Fawtier, Robert. The Capetian Kings of France. London: St.
Martin, 1960.
Hallam, Elizabeth. Capetian France, 987–1328. London: Long-
man, 1980.
James W. AlexanderPHILIP III THE BOLD
(1245–1285)
King of France, 1270–85. As a boy, Philip appears to
have been easygoing and easily infl uenced, especially
by his mother, Marguerite of Provence. As a king, he
was dominated at the outset by the counsels of Pierre
de la Broce, a former adviser of his father, Louis IX.
Later, he came under the infl uence of his uncle Charles,
count of Anjou. Philip became king while on crusade
to Tunis with his father, who died of illness during the
siege of the city. Philip is the fi rst king whose regnal
years begin with the burial of his predecessor rather than
the coronation of the new king, which in his case was
delayed until 1271.
Although most scholars regard Philip’s reign as
a hiatus in the development of the monarchy, it was
marked by important events. The death, childless, of
his uncle and aunt, Alphonse of Poitiers and Jeanne
de Toulouse, in 1271 on the way back from crusade
brought their vast holdings in the south of France into
the royal domain despite the importunities of Charles
of Anjou, who coveted the fi efs. The acquisition of
these lands by the crown sealed the ascendancy of the
French in Languedoc. Philip carried on an active foreign
policy. With the support of Charles of Anjou, he briefl y
put forward his candidacy to the imperial throne. He
made efforts to draw neighboring German principali-
ties under French infl uence. He aggressively defended
Capetian family interests in Castile and Aragon. And
he intervened with military success in Navarre when
a succession crisis there in the mid-1270s threatened
French interests.
Philip was drawn into war in Spain again towardPHILIP II AUGUSTUS