the crown with its vassals which had been going on since the
time of his ancestor, Louis the Fat. But it was not by warfare
that he was to aid in breaking down the strongholds of
feudalism. The vassals might have been beaten time and again,
and yet the spirit of feudalism, still surviving, would have
raised up new champions to contend against the crown. St.
Louis struck at the spirit of the Middle Age, and therein
insured the downfall of its forms and whole embodiment. He
fought the last battles against feudalism, because, by a surer
means than battling, he took, and unconsciously, the
life-blood from the opposition to the royal authority.
Unconsciously, we say; he did not look on the old order of
things as evil, and try to introduce a better; he did not
selfishly contend for the extension of his own power; he was
neither a great reformer, nor a (so-called) wise king. He
undermined feudalism, because he hated injustice; he warred
with the Middle Age, because he could not tolerate its
disregard of human rights; and he paved the way for
Philip-le-bel's struggle with the papacy, because he looked
upon religion and the church as instruments for man's
salvation, not as tools for worldly aggrandizement.
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He is, perhaps, the only monarch on record who failed in most
of what he undertook of active enterprise, who was under the
control of the prejudices of his age, who was a true
conservative, who never dreamed of effecting great social
changes,--and who yet, by his mere virtues, his sense of duty,
his power of conscience, made the mightiest and most vital
reforms. One of these reforms was the abolition of the trial
by combat. ... It is not our purpose to follow Louis either in
his first or second crusade. If the great work of his life was
not to be done by fighting at home, still less was it to be
accomplished by battles in Egypt or Tunis. His mission was
other and greater than he dreamed of, and his service to
Christendom was wholly unlike that which he proposed to
himself. ... In November, 1244, he took the cross; but it was
June of 1248 before he was able to leave Paris to embark upon
his cherished undertaking. ...
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1248-1254.
On the fifth of June, 1249, he landed in Egypt, which was
to be conquered before Palestine could be safely attacked. On
the seventh of June, Damietta was entered, and there the
French slept and feasted, wasting time, strength, and money,
until the twentieth of the following November. Then came the
march southward; the encampment upon the Nile; the terrors of
the Greek fire; the skirmishes which covered the plain with
dead; the air heavy with putridity and pestilence; the putrid
water; the fish fat with the flesh of the dead; sickness,
weakness, retreat, defeat, captivity. On the sixth of April,
1250, Louis and his followers were prisoners to the
Mussulmans; Louis might have saved himself, but would not quit
his followers; he had been faithful thus far, and would be
till death. ... On the eighth of May, 1250, Louis was a
freeman, and it was not until the twenty-fifth of April, 1254,
that he set sail to return to his native shores, where
Blanche, who had been regent during his absence, had some
months since yielded up her breath. On the seventh of
September, he entered Paris, sad and worn. ... And scarce had
he landed, before he began that course of legislation which
continued until once more he embarked upon the crusade. ... In
his first legislative action, Louis proposed to himself these
objects,--to put an end to judicial partiality, to prevent
needless and oppressive imprisonment for debt, to stop
unfounded criminal prosecutions, and to mitigate the horrors
of legalized torture. In connection with these general topics,
he made laws to bear oppressively upon the Jews, to punish
prostitution and gambling, and to diminish intemperance. And
it is worthy of remark, that this last point was to be
attained by forbidding innkeepers to sell to any others than
travellers,--a measure now (six hundred years later) under
discussion in some parts of our Union, with a view to the same
end. But the wish which this rare monarch had to recompense
all who had been wronged by himself and forefathers was the
uppermost wish of his soul. He felt that to do justice himself
was the surest way to make others willing to do it. Commissioners
were sent into every province of the kingdom to examine each
alleged case of royal injustice, and with power in most
instances to make instant restitution. He himself went forth
to hear and judge in the neighborhood of his capital, and as
far north as Normandy. ... As he grew yet older, the spirit of
generosity grew stronger daily in his bosom. He would have no
hand in the affairs of Europe, save to act, wherever he could,
as peacemaker. Many occasions occurred where all urged him to
profit by power and a show of right, a naked legal title, to
possess himself of valuable fiefs; but Louis shook his head
sorrowfully and sternly, and did as his inmost soul told him
the law of God directed. ... There had been for some reigns
back a growing disposition to refer certain questions to the
king's tribunals, as being regal, not baronial, questions.
Louis the Ninth gave to this disposition distinct form and
value, and, under the influence of the baron-hating legists,
he so ordained, in conformity with the Roman law, that, under
given circumstances, almost any case might be referred to his
tribunal. This, of course, gave to the king's judgment-seat
and to him more of influence than any other step ever taken
had done. It was, in substance, an appeal of the people from
the nobles to the king, and it threw at once the balance of
power into the royal hands. ... It became necessary to make
the occasional sitting of the king's council or parliament,
which exercised certain judicial functions, permanent; and to
change its composition, by diminishing the feudal and
increasing the legal or legist element. Thus everywhere, in
the barons' courts, the king's court, and the central
parliament, the Roman, legal, organized element began to
predominate over the German, feudal, barbaric tendencies, and
the foundation-stones of modern society were laid. But the
just soul of Louis and the prejudices of his Romanized
counsellors were not arrayed against the old Teutonic
barbarism alone, with its endless private wars and judicial
duels; they stood equally opposed to the extravagant claims of
the Roman hierarchy. ... The first calm, deliberate,
consistent opposition to the centralizing power of the great
see was that offered by its truest friend and most honest
ally, Louis of France. From 1260 to 1268, step by step was
taken by the defender of the liberties of the Gallican church,
until, in the year last named, he published his 'Pragmatic
Sanction' [see below], his response, by advice of his wise
men, to the voice of the nation, the Magna Charta of the
freedom of the church of France, upon whose vague articles,
the champions of that freedom could write commentaries, and
found claims, innumerable. ... But the legislation of Louis
did not stop with antagonism to the feudal system and to the
unauthorized claims of the church; it provided for another
great grievance of the Middle Age, that lying and unequal
system of coinage which was a poison to honest industry and
commercial intercourse. ... And now the great work of Louis
was completed; the barons were conquered, the people
protected, quiet prevailed through the kingdom, the national
church was secured in her liberties. The invalid of Egypt, the
sojourner of Syria, had realized his dreams and purposes of
good to his own subjects, and once again the early vision of
his manhood, the recovery of Palestine, haunted his slumbering
and his waking hours. ... On the sixteenth of March, 1270, he
left Paris for the seashore; on the first of July, he sailed
from France. The sad, sad story of this his last earthly doing
need not be here repeated."
See CRUSADES: A.. D. 1270-1271.
_Saint Louis of France
(North American Review, April, 1846)._
On the part performed by Louis IX. in the founding of
absolutism in France,
See PARLIAMENT OF PARIS.
{1165}
FRANCE: A. D. 1252.
The Crusading movement of the Pastors.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1252.
FRANCE: A. D. 1266.
Acquisition of the kingdom of Naples or the Two Sicilies by
Charles of Anjou, the king's brother.
See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1250-1268.
FRANCE: A. D. 1268.
The Pragmatic Sanction of St. Louis.
Assertion of the rights of the Gallican Church.
"The continual usurpations of the popes produced the
celebrated Pragmatic Sanction of St. Louis [about A.. D.
1268]. This edict, the authority of which, though probably
without cause, has been sometimes disputed, contains three
important provisions; namely, that all prelates and other
patrons shall enjoy their full rights as to the collation of
benefices, according to the canons; that churches shall
possess freely their rights of election; and that no tax or
pecuniary exaction shall be levied by the pope, without
consent of the king and of the national church. We do not
find, however, that the French government acted up to the
spirit of this ordinance."
_H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 7, part 2._
"This Edict appeared either during the last year of Clement
IV., ... or during the vacancy in the Pontificate. ... It
became the barrier against which the encroachments of the
ecclesiastical power were destined to break; nor was it swept
away till a stronger barrier had arisen in the unlimited power
of the French crown." It "became a great Charter of
Independence to the Gallican Church."
_H. H. Milman,
History of Latin Christianity,
book 11, chapter 4 (volume 5)._
FRANCE: A. D. 1270-1285.
The sons of St. Louis.
Origin of the Houses of Valois and Bourbon.
St. Louis left several sons, the elder of whom succeeded him
as Philippe III., and his youngest son was Robert, Count of
Clermont and Lord of Bourbon, the ancestor of all the branches
of the House of Bourbon. Philippe III. died in 1285, when he
was succeeded by his son, Philippe IV. A younger son, Charles,
Count of Valois, was the ancestor of the Valois branch of the
royal family.
FRANCE: A. D. 1285-1314.
Reign of Philip IV.
His conflict with the Pope and his destruction of the
Templars.
Philippe IV., called "le Bel" (the Handsome), came to the
throne on the death of his father, Philippe "le Hardi," in
1285. He was presently involved in war with Edward I. of
England, who crossed to Flanders in 1297, intending to invade
France, but was recalled by the revolt in Scotland, under
Wallace, and peace was made in 1303. The Flemings, who had
provoked Philippe by their alliance with the English, were
thus left to suffer his resentment. They bore themselves
valiantly in a war which lasted several years, and inflicted
upon the knights of France a fearful defeat at Courtrai, in
1302. In the end, the French king substantially failed in his
designs upon Flanders.
See FLANDERS: A. D. 1299-1304.
"It is probable that this long struggle would have been still
protracted, but for a general quarrel which had sprung up some
time before its close, between the French king and Pope
Boniface VIII., concerning the [taxation of the clergy and
the] right of nomination to vacant bishoprics within the
dominions of Philippe. The latter, on seeing Bernard Saissetti
thrust into the Bishopric of Pamiers by the pontiff's sole
authority, caused the Bishop to be arrested by night, and,
after subjecting him to various indignities, consigned him to
prison on a charge of treason, heresy, and blasphemy. Boniface
remonstrated against this outrage and violence in a bull known
in history, by its opening words 'Ausculta, fili,' in which he
asserted his power 'over nations and kingdoms, to root out and
to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to
plant,' and concluded by informing Philippe that he had
summoned all the superior clergy of France to an assembly at
Rome on the 1st of the following November, in order to
deliberate on the remedies for such abuses as those of which
the king had been guilty. Philippe, by no means intimidated by
this measure, convoked a full and early assembly of the three
estates of his kingdom, to decide upon the conduct of him whom
the orthodox, up to that time, had been in the habit of deeming
infallible. This (10th April 1302) was the first meeting of a
Parliament, properly so called, in France. ... The chambers
unanimously approved and applauded the conduct of the king,
and resolved to maintain the honour of the crown and the
nation from foreign insult or domination; and to mark their
decision more conclusively, they concurred with the sovereign
in prohibiting the clergy from attending the Pope's summons to
Rome. The papal bull was burned as publicly as possible. ...
The Pope, alarmed at these novel and bold proceedings, sought
instantly to avert their consequences by soothing
explanations; but Philippe would not now be turned aside from
his course. He summoned a convocation of the Gallican
prelates, in which by the mouth of William de Nogaret, his
chancellor, he represented the occupier of St. Peter's chair
as the father of lies and an evil-doer; and he demanded the
seizure of this pseudo-pope, and his imprisonment until he
could be brought before a legitimate tribunal to receive the
punishment due to his numerous crimes. Boniface now declared
that the French king was excommunicated, and cited him by his
confessor to appear in the papal court at Rome within three
months, to make submission and atonement for his contumacy.
... While this unseemly quarrel ... seemed to be growing
interminable in its complexities, the daring of a few men
opened a shorter path to its end than could have been
anticipated. William of Nogaret associating to him Sciarra
Colonna, a noble Roman, who, having been driven from his
native city by Boniface and subjected to various hardships,
had found refuge in Paris, passed, with a train of three
hundred horsemen, and a much larger body of picked infantry,
secretly into Italy, with the intention of surprising the Pope
at his summer residence in his native town of Anagni. ... The
papal palace was captured after a feeble resistance, and the
cardinals and personal attendants of the Pontiff fled for
their lives. ... The Condottieri ... dragged the Pope from his
throne, and conveying him into the street, mounted him upon a
lean horse without saddle or bridle, with his head to the
animal's tail, and thus conducted him in a sort of pilgrimage
through the town. He was then consigned prisoner to one of the
chambers of his palace and placed under guard; while the body
of his captors dispersed themselves through the splendid
apartments in eager pursuit of plunder. Three days were thus
occupied; but at the end of that time the ... people of Anagni
... took arms in behalf of their fellow-townsman and spiritual
father, and falling upon the French while still indulging in
the licence of the sack, drove Nogaret and Colonna from their
quarters, and either expelled or massacred the whole of their
followers."
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The Pope returned to Rome in so great a rage that his reason
gave way, and soon afterwards he was found dead in his bed.
"The scandal of these proceedings throughout Christendom was
immense; and Philippe adopted every precaution to avert evil
consequences from himself by paying court to Benedict XI. who
succeeded to the tiara. This Pope, however, though he for some
time temporised, could not be long deaf to the loud voices of
the clergy which called for punishment upon the oppressors of
the church. Ere he had reigned nine months he found himself
compelled to excommunicate the plunderers of Anagni; and a few
days afterwards he perished, under circumstances which leave
little doubt of his having been poisoned. ... The king of
France profitted largely by the crime; since, besides gaining
time for the subsidence of excitement, he was subsequently
enabled, by his intrigues, to procure the election of a person
pledged not only to grant him absolution for all past
offences, but to stigmatise the memory of Boniface, to restore
the deposed Colonna to his honours and estates, to nominate
several French ecclesiastics to the college of cardinals, and
to grant to the king the tenths of the Gallican church for a
term of five years. The pontiff who thus seems to have been
the first of his race to lower the pretensions of his office,
was Bertrand de Goth, originally a private gentleman of
Bazadors, and subsequently promoted to the Archiepiscopal See
of Bordeaux. He assumed the title of Clement V., and after
receiving investiture at Lyons, fixed the apostolic residence
at Avignon, where it continued, under successive occupants,
for a period, the length of which caused it to be denominated
by the Italians the Babylonian captivity. This quarrel
settled, Philippe engaged in another undertaking, the
safe-conduct of which required all his skill and
unscrupulousness. This important enterprise was no less than
the destruction and plunder of the military order of Knights
Templars. ... Public discontent ... had, by a variety of
circumstances, been excited throughout the realm. Among the
number of exactions, the coin had been debased to meet the
exigencies of the state, and this obstructing the operations
of commerce, and inflicting wrongs to a greater or less extent
upon all classes, everyone loudly complained of injustice,
robbery and oppression, and in the end several tumults
occurred, in which the residence of the king himself was
attacked, and the whole population were with difficulty
restrained from insurrection. In Burgundy, Champagne, Artois
and Forez, indeed, the nobles, and burgess class having for
the first time made common cause of their grievances, spoke
openly of revolt against the royal authority, unless the
administration should be reformed, and equity be substituted
in the king's courts for the frauds, extortions and
malversations, which prevailed. The sudden death of
Philippe--owing to a fall from his horse while hunting the
wild boar in the forest of Fontainebleau--on the 29th of
November, 1314, delivered the people from their tyrant, and
the crown from the consequences of a general rebellion. Pope
Clement, the king's firm friend, had gone to his last account
on the 20th of the preceding April. Louis X., le Hutin (the
Quarrelsome), ascended the throne at the mature age of
twenty-five."
_G. M. Bussey and T. Gaspey,
Pictorial History of France,
volume 1, chapter 4._
See, also, PAPACY: A.D. 1294-1348,
and TEMPLARS: A.D. 1307-1314.
FRANCE: A. D. 1314-1328.
Louis X., Philip V., Charles IV.
Feudal reaction.