proceeded smoothly even under the difficult circumstances of the crusade against
Aragon.
William Chester Jordan
[See also: CHARLES I; MARGUERITE OF PROVENCE; PHILIP IV THE FAIR;
SICILIAN VESPERS]
Langlois, Charles-Victor. Le règne de Philippe III le Hardi. Paris: Hachette, 1887.
PHILIP IV THE FAIR
(1268–1314). King of France, 1285–1314. Philip expanded royal power within the
kingdom and dominated the ecclesiastical and secular affairs of western Europe. The
grandson of St. Louis, whose canonization he achieved in 1297, he imitated and
attempted to surpass Louis’s achievements. Served devotedly by a series of powerful
ministers, he imposed his own stamp on governmental policies, instituting widespread
consultation of his subjects, issuing a host of reform charters, canceling and returning
taxes when the causes that prompted them ceased, and subordinating to his authority the
dukes of Aquitaine/Guyenne (also kings of England) and the counts of Flanders.
Attentive to matters of conscience and believing in his role as God’s minister, he upheld
Christian orthodoxy against Pope Boniface VIII and the Knights Templar, appealing to a
general council against the pope and destroying the Templars; he obtained papal bulls
forgiving him for sins he feared he might commit; he magnified the importance of the
royal power to cure; in 1306, he expelled the Jews from France. Anxious to establish the
full legitimacy and the glory of the Capetian house, he encouraged the reinterpretation of
the Capetians’ history. Upholding the highest standards of morality and publicizing his
own scrupulosity, in 1314 he presided over the trial and execution of two knights charged
with adultery with his own daughters-in-law, thus casting doubt on the legitimacy of his
grandchildren.
Born between April and June 1268, while Louis IX was still ruling, Philip, second son
of Philip III the Bold and Isabella of Aragon (d. 1271), had a troubled childhood,
dominated by the scandals that erupted at court after his father’s marriage in 1274 to
Marie de Brabant, suspected of poisoning Philip’s elder brother, who died in 1276,
shortly before the death of his third brother. In 1284, Philip was knighted and married to
Jeanne, heiress of Champagne and Navarre; he became king in 1285 after his father’s
death on a crusade against Aragon. Having extricated himself from the ill-fated venture,
Philip avoided conflict for nine years, but in 1294 he precipitated war against the mighty
Edward I of England, duke of Aquitaine/ Guyenne. Settled in 1303, the fruitless episode
strained the kingdom’s finances and led to manipulation of the currency. It resulted in the
marriages of Philip’s sister Marguerite to Edward in 1299 and of his daughter Isabella to
Edward II in 1308; the latter union would give Edward III grounds for claiming the
throne of France. The war also initiated a conflict with the Flemings, Edward I’s allies
and Philip’s subjects, which, settled in 1305, broke out again in 1312 because of the harsh
peace terms Philip imposed. Clerical taxation imposed for the war occasioned Boniface
VIII’s controversial bull Clericis laicos in 1296. From then until Boniface’s death in
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