HISTORICAL WRITING
History was one of the growth subjects of the 12th century, and a fresh sense of critical inquiry is evident in the vogue for biographies and memoirs that supplemented the annals and chronicles of saints’ lives which were the traditional medieval way into the past.
The Ten Books of Histories, written by Gregory of Tours (c.538–94), were still being used to provide information concerning the Franks’ early traditions and the process of their Christianization as the Gaul of late antiquity mutated into early medieval France. But the hagiographical element in Gregory’s work sets it apart from those 12th-century historians and their immediate successors who, while no less devout than Gregory, could nonetheless distinguish between fables and reasonably ascertained fact. This was a great period for the compilation of encyclopedias. Speculum Maius (The Greater Mirror), written by the Dominican friar Vincent of Beauvais (c.1190–c.1264), is divided into three books that deal respectively with the natural sciences, contemporary forms of applied knowledge such as surgery, agriculture and political science, and world history.
The Englishman Orderic Vitalis (1075–c.1142) a monk of the rich and influential foundation at Saint Evroul in Normandy, wrote an Ecclesiastical History which, although starting with the birth of Christ, is chiefly remarkable as a work of contemporary history that describes Western European political developments in the late 11th and early 12th centuries. Orderic’s background led him to take a special interest in the workings of the Anglo-Norman state, and the frequent visitors to Saint Evroul from England, as well as from southern Italy where the monastery had established many daughter foundations, supplied him with the information that lends an international dimension to his work. The Cistercian monk Otto of Freising (c.1114–58) authored a Chronicle that offers a superb general history in a philosophic vein, and his Gesta Friderici imperatoris (Deeds of Emperor Frederick) describes the history of Germany during the investiture contest as the background to Frederick I Barbarossa’s election as King of Germany in 1152. Otto discusses the first years of Barbarossa’s reign in some detail, and although he was related through his mother to the emperor, who commissioned him to write the book and supplied a preface, the Gesta offers a strikingly objective historical narrative. William of Malmesbury (c.1080–1143) was a monk of the local Benedictine foundation in Wiltshire, and his Gesta Regum Anglorum (Deeds of the Kings of England) is a research-based and sophisticated account of the monarchy’s development from the mid-fifth century up to the author’s own time. A comparable sense of how institutions develop and change is present in the history of the abbey of Saint-Denis near Paris written by Abbé Suger (c.1081–1151), who shows great skill in relating the foundation’s past to the wider context of early French history.
A statue of Gregory of Tours, sculpted by Jean Marcellin in the early 1850s, stands in the Cour Napoléon of the Louvre Museum, Paris.
THE TRIUMPH OF THE CAPETIANS
1180–1328
The later period of Capetian rule, from the reign of Philip II Augustus (1180–1223) to the reign of Charles IV (1322–28), saw the French monarchy established as the greatest power in Europe. A regular sequence of male heirs to the throne guaranteed the dynastic succession, and no other family of French aristocrats challenged the Capetian right to rule. The vast territorial acquisitions of the 13th century meant that substantial fiefdoms could be granted to the king’s younger sons, and that system of “apanage” softened the blow of primogeniture while promoting the ruling family’s solidarity. A generally close relationship with the papacy was an important element in the Capetians’ international renown. But the kings were also sustained by their reputation for sacral power. The activity known as “touching for the king’s evil” was based on the belief that sufferers of the skin disease scrofula could be cured by a touch of the king’s hand. The healing ceremony was a mass phenomenon and testified to the intimate association between the king and his people.
From the late 12th century onward royal administration acquired some of its typical institutions such as the conseil du roi or curia regis, the council that advised the king on policy and administration. With the consolidation of a French state there came a new appetite for adventure. The later Capetians’ restoration and rearrangement of the tombs of the Merovingian and Carolingian kings at Saint-Denis in Paris showed more than just a respect for the past. This was also a symbolic gesture placing the Capetians in a tradition of monarchical ambition that wished to extend Francia’s boundaries.
The fact that Philip II Augustus broke with Capetian precedent by not having to designate his son, Louis VIII, as king during his own lifetime shows the degree of security he brought to the French Crown. Philip can be seen as the French national monarchy’s effective founder and his local architectural legacy can still be seen in Paris, a city he encircled in a massive defensive wall enclosing a new civic area of some 600 acres (250 hectares). In 1202 he ordered building to start on the major stronghold called the Louvre, and it was a royal initiative that ensured the paving of the major streets of Paris. Philip also ordered the construction of two large stone buildings at the market of Les Halles on the Right Bank. The city’s increasing levels of safety, hygiene and embellishment were paid for by taxes imposed on royal vassals. Philip proved to be adept at augmenting his revenue, and in the Order of Knights Templar—whom he used as his bankers—he had a reliable ally. Much of the money also came from Parisian Jews, who were abominably treated by the king. In 1180 Philip ordered that Jews who had previously enjoyed royal protection should be imprisoned and then forced to buy their freedom by surrendering all their gold and silver. A subsequent decree of 1182 that wiped out debts owed to the city’s Jews was unsurprisingly popular among debtors. Philip’s expulsion of the Jews from France in that same decree was only partially implemented, however, and those who did leave eventually returned and settled in the area of the Marais.
RIGHT The Grandes Chroniques de France (1274–1461) illustrate a scene in which Philip II Augustus is in conversation with a bishop.
* * *
THE TRIUMPH OF THE CAPETIANS
1204 Following English military defeats, Normandy, Anjou and most of Aquitaine are ruled by the French Crown.
1214 Battle of Bouvines: the French army defeats the allied forces of England, Flanders and the German empire.
1248 Consecration of the Saint-Chapelle, Louis IX’s private chapel.
1250 The Egyptian army captures Louis IX during the Seventh Crusade. Following his release he spends four years in diplomatic activity in the Middle East before returning (1254) to France.
1305 Lille and Douai, previously part of the county of Flanders, are ceded to France.
1307 Philip IV establishes a new court of law, the Parlement of Paris. He embarks on the persecution of members of the Order of Knights Templar.
1316 Philip V accedes to the throne rather than Joan, the daughter of Philip’s brother Louis X. Philip justifies his coronation by invoking the Salic law, which asserts that women cannot inherit the French Crown.
1324 The war of Saint-Sardos ends in French defeat.
* * *
RECOVERING ENGLISH TERRITORIES
Philip’s campaigning, both diplomatic and military, was dominated by one consistent goal: the removal from French soil of the English Crown’s territorial rights. He started a series of disputes against Henry II of England, who was also count of Anjou as well as duke both of Normandy and of Aquitaine, and in doing so he was able to exploit Henry’s fraught relations with his rebellious sons. Richard the Lionheart chose to pay homage to Philip in November 1188, and their joint military campaign in Anjou during the summer of the following year forced the English king to renew his homage to Philip just before his death. Relations between Richard, now king of England, and Philip became strained during the Third Crusade, however, and after his precipitate departure from the expedition Philip started to plot to ensure the return of the territory known as the Vexin to the French Crown. The Vexin a
djoined the duchy of Normandy and had been granted to Richard when he became engaged to Philip’s sister, Alice. Although Richard broke that engagement in 1191, Philip had initially allowed him to keep the territory in order to maintain the Third Crusade’s coalition. He now wanted it back and persuaded Prince John, Richard’s brother, to join him in waging war against the Lionheart.
In 1193 Philip invaded first the Vexin and then Normandy, where he made substantial territorial gains. Richard was at this time still a prisoner of the German emperor Henry VI, following his capture while traveling back from the crusade. But his release from captivity at the beginning of 1194 heralded the start of a major English campaign to regain control of all Normandy—which had been largely achieved by the end of 1198. However, Richard’s death the following year, and the accession of his brother John, led to a sharp reversal of English fortunes. Under the terms of the Treaty of Le Goulet (1200), the English ceded control of large parts of Normandy and John had to acknowledge that the counts of Boulogne and Flanders were vassals of the French, rather than the English, Crown. The treaty’s provisions emphasized that John only held his remaining French territories as Philip’s vassal, and his failure to obey a summons to attend the French king led to a further outbreak of war in 1202. By 1204 the French army had seized the last English territories in Normandy as well as most of Aquitaine and the countship of Anjou. As a disloyal vassal, John was then formally dispossessed by Philip of all the French lands he had held under the suzerainty of the French Crown.
ABOVE A dramatic reconstruction of Philip II Augustus’s victory at Bouvines (July 1214) by the French artist Horace Vernet (1789–1863).
Philip’s exploitation of a weakened England also played its part in his European continental policy. The German emperor Otto IV, of the Welf dynasty, was King John’s nephew and an English ally, but both monarchs had fallen foul of the papacy. John was refusing to accept a papal nomination to the see of Canterbury, and Otto was trying to dispossess Frederick II of his Sicilian kingdom. The papacy, however, regarded kings of Sicily as its vassals, and Otto’s campaign therefore impinged on papal rights. Philip’s intervention in German affairs saw him backing rebellious nobles who were supporting Frederick’s cause, while John inevitably supported Otto.
At first, Philip envisaged capitalizing on the Anglo-papal quarrel in order to justify a French invasion of England. John was portrayed in French propaganda as an enemy of the Church, and the invasion was therefore being canvassed as a principled campaign in support of papal authority. This plan came unstuck when John capitulated and accepted the right of papal investiture. An agreed formula declared that the kingdom of England was a papal fiefdom ruled by John as the pope’s vassal, and a French attack on it would therefore also have been an outrage committed against the papacy. However, the fact that Ferdinand, count of Flanders, was the only one of Philip’s feudal barons to oppose the invasion plan—and had done so moreover at a time when John was still an excommunicate—gave the French king the pretext for another war. The ruler of Flanders, having breached his feudal obligation of obedience, could be punished legitimately. The armies of John of England and the German emperor Otto supported Ferdinand in the ensuing conflict (1213–14).
The major victory won by Philip’s army at Bouvines on July 27, 1214 set the seal on Western Europe’s new power alignments. The humiliated English Crown seemed to have no prospect of ever regaining its French territories, and in this weakened condition the monarchy was forced to accept the demands for baronial representation as drawn up in the Magna Carta in 1215. The German nobility deposed the shamed Otto and replaced him with Frederick II. And French monarchy gained in authority as an institution strongly identified with the cause of the nation.
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THE LATER CAPETIAN DYNASTY
PHILIP II AUGUSTUS
(1165–1223)
r. 1180–1223
LOUIS VIII
(1187–1226)
r. 1223–26
LOUIS IX
[“St.Louis”]
(1214–70)
r. 1226–70
PHILIP III
[“the Bold”]
(1245–85)
r. 1270–85
PHILIP IV
[“the Fair”]
(1268–1314)
r. 1285–1314
LOUIS X
(1289–1316)
r. 1314–16
JOHN I
[“the Posthumous”]
(1316)
r. November 15–20, 1316
PHILIP V
(1292–1322)
r. 1316–22
CHARLES IV
(1294–1328)
r. 1322–28
* * *
LOUIS IX—CRUSADER AND PERSECUTOR
The crusading activities of Louis IX during his reign (r. 1226–70) showed the French monarchy’s international authority as well as the king’s intimate association with the Church. He was captured by the Egyptian army in 1250 during the Seventh Crusade, and the four years Louis spent in the Middle East following his release saw him rebuilding the crusader settlements’ defenses and engaging in diplomatic negotiations with the neighboring Islamic governments of Syria and Egypt. Fearful of the crusader states’ exposure to the military threat posed by Baybars, the Mamluk ruler of Egypt and Syria, Louis launched an Eighth Crusade. It was that expedition which claimed his life after he was taken ill at Tunis in 1270. The magnificence of the Sainte-Chapelle, commissioned by the king to be his private chapel and consecrated in 1248, makes St. Louis an important figure in the evolution of French aesthetic taste. And the building’s position within the royal palace that stood on the Île de la Cité was also designed to show how French monarchy was replacing the crisis-afflicted Holy Roman Empire as the institutional leader of Christian Europe.
REVENUE-RAISING SCHEMES
Louis’s own model of a Christian monarch embraced anti-Semitism as a matter of course, and some 12,000 manuscript copies of the Talmud were burned on royal command in 1243. Jews engaged in usury were expelled from France on the proclamation of the Seventh Crusade, with the sale of their confiscated properties being used to subsidize the expedition’s costs. Increasing revenue by turning against the Jews was something of a Capetian tradition; Philip IV (“Le Bel”), who reigned from 1285 to 1314, appropriated their outstanding loans after ordering the expulsion of all Jews from France in 1306. Philip’s determination to maximize royal revenue was partly a result of the costs of war. He went to war against Flanders, and although the peace of 1305 recognized Flemish independence, the prosperous cities of Lille and Douai, enriched by the cloth trade, had to be ceded to France. He also campaigned in Aquitaine where, in 1294–98 and 1300–03, Edward I of England was forced to defend the region of Guienne, which was the only part of their once expansive dukedom that the English still controlled.
LEFT A statue of Louis IX in Paris’s Sainte-Chapelle, a building commissioned by the King and which served as his private chapel.
Technological advances were certainly increasing the costs of war, but the drive to raise more money also reflected Philip’s conviction that the French national monarchy should be an efficient bureaucracy with an exclusive authority over its subjects. His establishment in 1307 of a new court of law, the Parlement of Paris, was part of that program since its jurisdiction covered the whole kingdom. Philip’s subjects could use the Parlement to appeal against the lower courts’ decisions, a right which diminished the nobility’s rights of jurisdiction locally.
Philip’s drive for uniformity resulted in his imposition of taxation on the French clergy. That measure, while showing the increasingly important role of civil lawyers in the governmental machine, also led to a quarrel with Pope Boniface VIII (1294–1303). The wealth and independence of the Knights Templar made them Philip’s next victims. Heavily indebted to the knights, Philip took advantage of their unpopularity and in 1307 ordered the arrest of those members of the Order who were operating in France. The papacy had
now reverted to its usual pro-French position, and later that same year Clement V obliged Philip by issuing a papal bull instructing European monarchs to arrest all Templars and confiscate their assets. Following a series of trials on trumped-up charges, dozens of the knights arrested on Philip’s command were burned at the stake in Paris in 1310, and the papacy officially dissolved the Order in 1312.
The Age of Chivalry Page 12
