(Leipzig, 1899), Bd. II. Der Kreuzzug (1906); and W. H. Hutton, Philip Augustus (in the Foreign Statesmen series, London, 1896).
A. Molinier, Les Sources de l'histoire de France (tome in. pp. 1-38),
gives a complete bibliography of the sources for Philip's reign,
including the history of the Third Crusade
PHILIP III. (1245–1285), surnamed “the Bold” (le Hardi), king of France, son of Louis IX. and Margaret, daughter of Raymond-Bérenger IV., count of Provence, was born on the 3rd of April 1245. His funeral monument at St Denis depicts a man with beardless, square-cut features, but lacking character and animation. The authenticity of this efhgy is fairly well
borne out by what is known of him from other sources. He had
many of the virtues of St Louis, but neither decision of character
nor devotion to duty. He was pious, charitable, of unimpeachable
morality, quick-tempered but placable, no great scholar,
and only energetic as a hunter. The absence in him of the qualities
that fit a man to rule made his court the arena of intriguing
factions, which in reality ruled France during his reign of fifteen
years Matthew of Vendome, abbot of St Denis, an old servant
of Louis IX, acted as Philip's counsellor, so the chroniclers state,
throughout the reign, but he is only a shadowy figure, and it is
difficult to reconcile the statement that “ everything was done
according to his will ” with the known facts. It was probably
with administration, and not policy, that Matthew was chiefly
concerned In one instance at least his advice was openly
flouted Coming to the throne by the death of his father on the
25th of August 1270, Philip began his reign by falling entirely
under the influence of Pierre de la Brosse, wl1o had been surgeon
and valet-de-chambre to his father, upon whom he lavished
lands and honours, making him lord (sieur) of Langeais, Chatillonsur-Indre
and Damville. Even Edward I. of England and William
Dampierre, count of Flanders, strove to win his favour by gifts.
But his fall was assured when Philip, who in 1271 lost his first
wife. Isabella, daughter of James I., king of Aragon, married
in 1274 Marie, daughter of Henry III., duke of Brabant. She
was young and beautiful, and supplied a centre round which
those who wished the downfall of the favourite grouped themselves
In June 1278 he was charged with various crimes,
including one of poisoning the king's eldest son, and hanged at
Montfaucon. His death left the parties of Marie, the queen, and
Margaret, the queen-mother, to struggle for the mastery. The
first subject of dispute was the inheritance of the count of
Provence, Raymond-Bérenger IV., father of Margaret and of
Eleanor, wife of Henry III of England. Upon his death, in 1245,
his youngest daughter, Beatrice, wife of Charles of Anjou, the
king's uncle, succeeded to his lands, to the exclusion of her elder
sisters, who claimed some portion of them for themselves. In
1281 war nearly broke out on this question. Margaret and her
friends formed the league of Macon against Charles of Anjou,
but the king managed to keep them at peace. The settlement of
the claims of the king of England in Aquitaine by the treaty of
Amiens in 1279 was a victory for the party of Margaret.
Agenais and southern Saintonge, which fell to the Crown by the death of Alfonse of Poitiers in 1276, as part of his vast possessions in Aquitaine and Languedoc, were ceded to Edward I. of England in accordance with the treaty of Paris 12 59. Another portion of the heritage of Alfonse, the Venaissin, was ceded to the papacy to redeem an old promise. In general the strong will of Charles of Anjou directed Philip's policy. He secretly urged his nephew's candidature for the imperial crown, left vacant by the death of Richard of Cornwall, king of the Romans, in 1272, but without success. In May 1275 the party of Marie secured for Philip, the king's second son, the hand of Jeanne, the heiress of Navarre and Champagne, along with the guardianship of the kingdom of Navarre during the minority of Jeanne. But early in 1276 Jeanne's mother, Blanche, the widow of Henry III. of Navarre and Champagne, married Edmund, first earl of Lancaster, brother of Edward I.; and she and her English husband kept Champagne until, in 1284, Jeanne came of age
An expedition of Philip against Castile in aid of the children of his sister, Blanche, proved abortive Regardless of this warning, he was induced in 1284 to take up the quarrel of his uncle Charles in Sicily, after the Sicilian Vespers in 1282. Two assemblies of barons and prelates were held at Bourges in November 1283 and February 1284 to deliberate on the question. This was a mere matter of form; Marie of Brabant and her party had decided the matter beforehand, and the crown of Aragon, which the French pope Martin IV. had declared forfeited by Peter, was accepted for Charles of Valois, Philip's third son. The project was strongly opposed by Matthew of Vendome, who was in correspondence with the king of England on the subject. It was the first warlike expedition undertaken by the house of Capet outside France. It proved a disastrous failure. The French army laid siege to Gerona on the 26th of June 1285. The town surrendered on the 7th of September, but disease and the defeat of the fleet by the Aragonese navy at Las Farmiguas Islands led to a retreat, during which, on the 5th of October, the king died. In the same month the garrison placed at Gerona surrendered. It is typical of Philip's character and career that he should die thus, in an expedition undertaken against the interests of his kingdom, at the instigation of his ambitious uncle.
Philip was twice married. On the 28th of May 1262 he married Isabella, daughter of James I., king of Aragon, who died in 1271. By her he had four children: Louis, who died in 1276; Philip, born in 1268; Charles of Valois, born on the 12th of March 1270; and Robert, who died young. By his second wife, Marie (d. 1322), daughter of Henry III. of Brabant, whom he married in 1274, he had three children: Louis, count of Evreux; Margaret, who married in 1299 Edward I., king of England; and Blanche, who married Rudolph III., duke of Austria.
See Ch. V. Langlois, Le Règne de Philippe le Hardi (Paris, 1887); and in E. Lav1sse's Histoire de France, tome iii, ii 113–117 (Paris, I9o1); Fr. Walter, Die Politik der Kurie unter Gregor X. (Berlin, 1894); Registers of Gregory X. and Nicholas III., published by the French school at Rome; R. Sternfeld, Ludwigs des Heiligen Kreuzzug nach Tunis und die Politik Karls I. von Sizilien (1896); P. Fournier, Le Royaume d'Arles (Paris, 1891). For complete bibliography of sources see A. Molinier, Les Sources de l’histoire de France, tome iii. 171–187 (Paris, 1903).
PHILIP IV. (1268–1314), called “le Bel” or “the Fair,” king of France, was the son of Philip III. and his wife, Isabella of Aragon. His reign, which began in October 1285, is one of the most momentous in the history of medieval Europe, yet it belongs rather to the history of France and to that of the papacy than to the biography of the king. Little is known of the personal part played by Philip in the events associated with his name, and later historians have been divided between the view
which regards him as a handsome, lethargic nonentity and that which paints him as a master of statecraft who, under a veil of phlegmatic indifference and pious sentiment, masked an inflexible purpose, of which his ministers were but the spokesmen and executors. The first view seems to be borne out by the language
of contemporary chroniclers. To his enemy, Bernard Saisset, he
was neither man nor beast, but a statue, “the handsomest man
in the world, but unable to do anything but stare fixedly at people
without saying a word.” Guillaume de Nogaret, his minister,
draws a far more flattering picture, enlarging on his charm, his amiability, his modesty, his charity to all men, and his piety; and the traits of this over-coloured portrait are more or less repeated by Yves, a monk of St Denis. There is, however, no word of any qualities of will or initiative. All of which suggests a personality mentally and physically phlegmatic, a suggestion strengthened by the fact that Bartholomaeus de Neocastro (quoted by Wenck) describes him as corpulent in 1290.
Yet this was the king who with equal implacability brought the papacy under his yoke, carried out the destruction of the powerful order of the Temple, and laid the foundations of the national monarchy of France. In this last achievement Professor Finke finds the solution of a problem which Langlois had declared to be insoluble. In 1302, in the midst of a hostile assembly, Philip cursed his sons should they consent to hold the Crown of any one but God[1]; and in this isolated outburst he sees the key to his character. “Philip was not a man of violent initiative, the planner of daring and fateful operations, otherwise there
- ↑ Wenck, p. 49
