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Bautier, Robert-Henri, ed. La France de Philippe Auguste: le temps des mutations. Paris: CNRS,
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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: Longman, 1980.
PHILIP III THE BOLD
(1245–1285). King of France, 1270–85. As a boy, Philip appears to have been easygoing
and easily influenced, 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 influence 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 first 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 fiefs. 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 briefly put forward his
candidacy to the imperial throne. He made efforts to draw neighboring German
principalities under French influence. 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 toward the end of his reign when the
Aragonese supported the rebellion of the Sicilians against Charles of Anjou (the Sicilian
Vespers, 1282). Charles’s pleas for support and the blessing of the pope led to the French
crusade against Aragon, an ill-fated expedition across the Pyrénées in 1285, in which the
French were routed. During the retreat, Philip III himself died.
Philip was married twice: first (1262) to Isabella of Aragon, who died in 1271 on the
return from the crusade to Tunis. She was the mother of Philip’s son and successor,
Philip IV the Fair. In 1274, Philip III married Marie de Brabant, whose party at court was
responsible for bringing an end to the influence of Pierre de la Broce; charged with
treason, he was executed in 1278. Philip the Fair seems always to have had a strong
dislike of Marie, about whom Pierre had spread ugly rumors. These included allegations
that she and her party wanted to displace the children of her husband’s first marriage by
her own in the line of succession and that she had even poisoned Philip IV’s older brother
as part of her plan. No such conspiracy was ever proved, however, and the succession
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