Louis X., so well surnamed Hutin (disorder, tumult), comes a
violent reaction of the feudal, local, provincial spirit,
which seeks to dash in pieces the still feeble fabric of
unity, demands dismemberment, and claims chaos. The Duke of
Brittany arrogates the right of judgment without appeal; so
does the exchequer of Rouen. Amiens will not have the king's
sergeants subpœna before the barons, or his provosts remove
any prisoner from the town's jurisdiction. Burgundy and Nevers
require the king to respect the privileges of feudal justice.
... The common demand of the barons is that the king shall
renounce all intermeddling with their men. ... The young
monarch grants and signs all; there are only three points to
which he demurs, and which he seeks to defer. The Burgundian
barons contest with him the jurisdiction over the rivers,
roads, and consecrated places. The nobles of Champagne doubt
the king's right to lead them to war out of their own
province. Those of Amiens, with true Picard impetuosity,
require without any circumlocution, that all gentlemen may war
upon each other, and not enter into securities, but ride, go,
come, and be armed for war, and pay forfeit to one another.
... The king's reply to these absurd and insolent demands is
merely: 'We will order examination of the registers of my lord
St. Louis, and give to the said nobles two trustworthy
persons, to be nominated by our council, to verify and inquire
diligently into the truth of the said article.' The reply was
adroit enough. The general cry was for a return to the good
customs of St. Louis: it being forgotten that St. Louis had
done his utmost to put a stop to private wars. But by thus
invoking the name of St. Louis, they meant to express their
wish for the old feudal independence--for the opposite of the
quasi-legal, the venal, and pettifogging government of
Philippe-le-Bel. The barons set about destroying, bit by bit,
all the changes introduced by the late king. But they could
not believe him dead so long as there survived his Alter Ego,
his mayor of the palace, Enguerrand de Marigny, who, in the
latter years of his reign, had been coadjutor and rector of
the kingdom, and who had allowed his statue to be raised in
the palace by the side of the king's. His real name was Le
Portier; but along with the estates he bought the name of
Marigny. ... It was in the Temple, in the very spot where
Marigny had installed his master for the spoliation of the
Templars, that the young king Louis repaired to hear the
solemn accusation brought against him. His accuser was
Philippe-le-Bel's brother, the violent Charles of Valois, a
busy man, of mediocre abilities, who put himself at the head
of the barons. ... To effect his destruction, Charles of
Valois had recourse to the grand accusation of the day, which
none could surmount.
{1167}
It was discovered, or presumed, that Marigny's wife or sister,
in order to effect his acquittal, or bewitch the king, had
caused one Jacques de Lor to make certain small figures: 'The
said Jacques, thrown into prison, hangs himself in despair,
and then his wife, and Enguerrand's sisters are thrown into
prison, and Enguerrand himself, condemned before the knights
... is hung at Paris on the thieves' gibbet.' ... Marigny's
best vengeance was that the crown, so strong in his care, sank
after him into the most deplorable weakness. Louis-le-Hutin,
needing money for the Flemish war, treated as equal with
equal, with the city of Paris. The nobles of Champagne and
Picardy hastened to take advantage of the right of private war
which they had just reacquired, and made war on the countess of
Artois, without troubling themselves about the judgment
rendered by the king, who had awarded this fief to her. All
the barons had resumed the privilege of coining; Charles of
Valois, the king's uncle, setting them the example. But
instead of coining for their own domains only, conformably to
the ordinances of Philippe-le-Hardi and Philippe-le-Bel, they
minted coin by wholesale, and gave it currency throughout the
kingdom. On this, the king had perforce to arouse himself, and
return to the administration of Marigny and of
Philippe-le-Bel. He denounced the coinage of the barons,
(November the 19th, 1315;) ordained that it should pass
current on their own lands only; and fixed the value of the
royal coin relatively to thirteen different coinages, which
thirty-one bishops or barons had the right of minting on their
own territories. In St. Louis's time, eighty nobles had enjoyed
this right. The young feudal king, humanized by the want of
money, did not disdain to treat with serfs and with Jews. ...
It is curious to see the son of Philippe-le-Bel admitting
serfs to liberty [see SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL: FRANCE]; but it is
trouble lost. The merchant vainly swells his voice and
enlarges on the worth of his merchandise; the poor serfs will
have none of it. Had they buried in the ground some bad piece
of money, they took care not to dig it up to buy a bit of
parchment. In vain does the king wax wroth at seeing them dull
to the value of the boon offered. At last, he directs the
commissioners deputed to superintend the enfranchisement, to
value the property of such serfs as preferred 'remaining in
the sorriness (chétiveté) of slavery,' and to tax them 'as
sufficiently and to such extent as the condition and wealth of
the individuals may conveniently allow, and as the necessity of
our war requires.' But with all this it is a grand spectacle
to see proclamation made from the throne itself of the
imprescriptible right of every man to liberty. The serfs do
not buy this right, but they will remember both the royal
lesson, and the dangerous appeal to which it instigates
against the barons. The short and obscure reign of
Philippe-le-Long [Philip V., 1316-1322] is scarcely less
important as regards the public law of France, than even that
of Philippe-le-Bel. In the first place, his accession to the
throne decides a great question. As Louis Hutin left his queen
pregnant, his brother Philippe is regent and guardian of the
future infant. This child dies soon after its birth, and
Philippe proclaims himself king to the prejudice of a daughter
of his brother's; a step which was the more surprising from
the fact that Philippe-le-Bel had maintained the right of
female succession in regard to Franche-Comté and Artois. The
barons were desirous that daughters should be excluded from
inheriting fiefs, but that they should succeed to the throne
of France; and their chief, Charles of Valois, favored his
grand-niece against his nephew Philippe. Philippe assembled
the States, and gained his cause, which, at bottom, was good,
by absurd reasons. He alleged in his favor the old German law
of the Franks, which excluded daughters from the Salic land;
and maintained that the crown of France was too noble a fief
to fall into hands used to the distaff ('pour tomber en
quenouille')--a feudal argument, the effect of which was to
ruin feudality. ... By thus rejecting the right of the
daughters at the very moment it was gradually triumphing over
the fiefs, the crown acquired its character of receiving
always without ever giving; and a bold revocation, at this
time, of an donations made since St. Louis's day, seems to
contain the principle of the inalienableness of the royal
domain. Unfortunately, the feudal spirit which resumed
strength under the Valois in favor of private wars, led to
fatal creations of appanages, and founded, to the advantage of
the different branches of the royal family, a princely
feudality as embarrassing to Charles VI. and Louis XI., as the
other had been to Philippe-le-Bel. This contested succession
and disaffection of the barons force Philippe-le-Long into the
paths of Philippe-le-Bel. He flatters the cities, Paris, and,
above all, the University,--the grand power of Paris. He
causes his barons to take the oath of fidelity to him, in
presence of the masters of the university, and with their
approval. He wishes his good cities to be provided with
armories; their citizens to keep their arms in a sure place;
and appoints them a captain in each bailiwick or district,
(March the 12th, 1316). ... Praiseworthy beginnings of order
and of government brought no relief to the sufferings of the
people. During the reign of Louis Hutin, a horrible mortality
had swept off, it was said, the third of the population of the
North. The Flemish war had exhausted the last resources of the
country. ... Men's imaginations becoming excited, a great
movement took place among the people. As in the days of St.
Louis, a multitude of poor people, of peasants, of shepherds
or pastoureaux, as they were called, flock together and say
that they seek to go beyond the sea, that they are destined to
recover the Holy Land. ... They wended their way towards the
South, everywhere massacring the Jews; whom the king's
officers vainly tried to protect. At last, troops were got
together at Toulouse, who fell upon the Pastoureaux, and
hanging them up by twenties and thirties the rest dispersed.
... Philippe-le-Long ... was seized with fever in the course
of the same year, (A. D. 1321,) in the month of August,
without his physicians being able to guess its cause. He
languished five months, and died. ... His brother Charles
[Charles IV., 1322-1328] succeeded him, without bestowing a
thought more on the rights of Philippe's daughter; than
Philippe had done to those of Louis's daughter. The period of
Charles's reign is as barren of facts with regard to France,
as it is rich in them respecting Germany, England, and
Flanders. The Flemings imprison their count. The Germans are
divided between Frederick of Austria and Lewis of Bavaria, who
takes his rival prisoner at Muhldorf. In the midst of the
universal divisions, France seems strong from the circumstance
of its being one. Charles-le-Bel interferes in favor of the
count of Flanders.
{1168}
He attempts, with the pope's aid, to make himself emperor; and
his sister, Isabella, makes herself actual queen of England by
the murder of Edward II. ... Charles-le-Bel ... died almost at
the same time as Edward, leaving only a daughter; so that he
was succeeded by a cousin of his. All that fine family of
princes who had sat near their father at the Council of Vienne
was extinct. In the popular belief, the curses of Boniface had
taken effect. ... This memorable epoch, which depresses
England so low, and in proportion, raises France so high,
presents, nevertheless, in the two countries two analogous
events: In England, the barons have overthrown Edward II. In
France, the feudal party places on the throne the feudal
branch of the Valois."
_J. Michelet,
History of France,
books 5-6 (volume l)._
See, also, VALOIS, THE HOUSE OF.
FRANCE: A. D. 1314-1347.
The king's control of the Papacy in its contest with the
emperor.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1314-1347.
FRANCE: A. D. 1328.
The extent of the royal domain.
The great vassals.
The possessions of foreign princes in France.
On the accession of the House of Valois to the French throne,
in the person of Philip VI. (A. D. 1328), the royal domain had
acquired a great increase of extent. In the two centuries
since Philip I. it had gained, "by conquest, by confiscation,
or by inheritance, Berry, or the Viscounty of Bourges,
Normandy, Maine, Anjou, Poitou, Valois, Vermandois, the
counties of Auvergne, and Boulogne, a part of Champagne and
Brie, Lyonnais, Angoumois, Marche, nearly the whole of
Languedoc, and, lastly, the kingdom of Navarre, which
belonging in her own right to queen Jeanne, mother of the last
three Capetians [Jeanne, heiress of the kingdom of Navarre and
of the counties of Champagne and Brie, was married to Philip
IV., and was the mother of Louis X., Philip V. and Charles
IV.], Charles IV. united with the crown. But the custom among
the kings of giving apanages or estates to the princes of
their house detached afresh from the domain a great part of
the reunited territories, and created powerful princely
houses, of which the chiefs often made themselves formidable
to the monarchs. Among these great houses of the Capetian
race, the most formidable were: the house of Burgundy, which
traced back to king Robert; the house of Dreux, issue of a son
of Louis the Big, and which added by a marriage the duchy of
Brittany to the county of that name; the house of Anjou, issue
of Charles, brother of Saint Louis, which was united in 1290
with that of Valois; the house of Bourbon, descending from
Robert, Count of Clermont, sixth son of Saint Louis; and the
house of Alençon, which traced back to Philip III., and
possessed the duchy of Alençon and Perche. Besides these great
princely houses of Capetian stock, which owed their grandeur
and their origin to their apanages, there were many others
which held considerable rank in France, and of which the
possessions were transmissible to women; while the apanages
were all masculine fiefs. The most powerful of these houses
were those of Flanders, Penthièvre, Châtillon, Montmorency,
Brienne, Coucy, Vendôme, Auvergne, Foix, and Armagnac. The
vast possessions of the two last houses were in the country of
the Langue d'Oc. The counts of Foix were also masters of
Bearn, and those of Armagnac possessed Fezensac, Rouergue, and
other large seigniories. Many foreign princes, besides, had
possessions in France at the accession of the Valois. The king
of England was lord of Ponthieu, of Aunis, of Saintonge, and
of the duchy of Aquitaine; the king of Navarre was count of
Evreux, and possessor of many other towns in Normandy; the
king of Majorca was proprietor of the seigniory of
Montpellier; the duke of Lorraine, vassal of the German
empire, paid homage to the king of France for many fiefs that
he held in Champagne; and, lastly, the Pope possessed the
county Venaissin, detached from Provence."
_E. de Bonnechose,
History of France,
volume 1, page 224._
FRANCE: A. D. 1328.
Accession of King Philip VI.
FRANCE: A. D. 1328.
The splendor of the Monarchy on the eve of the calamitous
wars.
"Indisputably, the king of France [Philip VI., or Philip de
Valois] was at this moment [A. D. 1328] a great king. He had
just reinstated Flanders in its state of dependence on him.
The king of England had done him homage for his French
provinces. His cousins reigned at Naples and in Hungary. He
was protector of the king of Scotland. He was surrounded by a
court of kings--by those of Navarre, Majorca, Bohemia; and
the Scottish monarch was often one of the circle. The famous
John of Bohemia, of the house of Luxembourg, and father to the
emperor Charles IV., declared that he could not live out of
Paris, 'the most chivalrous residence in the world.' He
fluttered over all Europe, but ever returned to the court of
the great king of France--where was kept up one constant
festival, where jousts and tournaments ever went on, and the
romances of chivalry, king Arthur and the round table, were
realized."
_J. Michelet,
History of France,
book 6, chapter 1._
FRANCE: A. D. 1328-1339.
The claim of Edward III. of England to the French crown.
"History tells us that Philip, king of France, surnamed the
Fair, had three sons, beside his beautiful daughter Isabella,
married to the king of England [Edward II.]. These three sons
were very handsome. The eldest, Lewis, king of Navarre during
the lifetime of his father, was called Lewis Hutin [Louis X.];
the second was named Philip the Great, or the Long [Philip
V.]; and the third, Charles [Charles IV.]. All these were
kings of France, after their father Philip, by legitimate
succession, one after the other, without having by marriage
any male heirs; yet, on the death of the last king, Charles,
the twelve peers and barons of France did not give the kingdom
to Isabella, the sister, who was queen of England, because
they said and maintained, and still do insist, that the
kingdom of France is so noble that it ought not to go to a
woman; consequently neither to Isabella, nor to her son, the
king of England [Edward III.]; for they hold that the son of a
woman cannot claim any right of succession, where that woman
has none herself. For these reasons the twelve peers and
barons of France unanimously gave the kingdom of France to the
lord Philip of Valois, nephew to king Philip, and thus put
aside the queen of England, who was sister to Charles, the
late king of France, and her son. Thus, as it seemed to many
people, the succession went out of the right line; which has
been the occasion of the most destructive wars and
devastations of countries, as well in France as elsewhere, as
you will learn hereafter; the real object of this history
being to relate the great enterprises and deeds of arms
achieved in these wars, for from the time of good Charlemagne,
king of France, never were such feats performed."
_J. Froissart, Chronicles (Johnes'),
book 1, chapter 4._
[Images: Maps of France]
France in 1154 At the Accession of Henry II. (Anjou)
Showing how he Acquired his fiefs in France.
Acquired By Henry From Matilda.
Acquired By Henry From His Father Goeffrey Of Anjou.
Acquired By Henry From His Wife Eleanor Of Aquitaine
French Crown Lands
Other Vassal Lands.
------------------
France in 1180
At The Accession Of Philip Augustus
Showing The Lands Acquired By The Crown During His Reign.
Crown Lands At Accession Of Philip
Acquired During His Reign Form Angevins
Acquired During His Reign From Other Vassals
Angevin Lands (1223)
Other Vassal Lands
------------------
France at the death of Philip IV (The Fair) 1314
------------------
France at the Peace of Bretigny
-------End: Maps of France----------------
{1169}
"From the moment of Charles IV.'s death [A. D. 1328], Edward
III. of England buoyed himself up with a notion of his title
to the crown of France, in right of his mother Isabel, sister
to the three last kings. We can have no hesitation in
condemning the injustice of this pretension. Whether the Salic
law were or were not valid, no advantage could be gained by
Edward. Even if he could forget the express or tacit decision
of all France, there stood in his way Jane, the daughter of
Louis X., three [daughters] of Philip the Long, and one of
Charles the Fair. Aware of this, Edward set up a distinction,
that, although females were excluded from succession, the same
rule did not apply to their male issue; and thus, though his
mother Isabel could not herself become queen of France, she
might transmit a title to him. But this was contrary to the
commonest rules of inheritance; and if it could have been
regarded at all, Jane had a son, afterwards the famous king of
Navarre [Charles the Bad], who stood one degree nearer to the
crown than Edward. It is asserted in some French authorities
that Edward preferred a claim to the regency immediately after
the decease of Charles the Fair, and that the States-General,
or at least the peers of France, adjudged that dignity to
Philip de Valois. Whether this be true or not, it is clear
that he entertained projects of recovering his right as early,
though his youth and the embarrassed circumstances of his
government threw insuperable obstacles in the way of their
execution. He did liege homage, therefore, to Philip for
Guienne, and for several years, while the affairs of Scotland
engrossed his attention, gave no signs of meditating a more
magnificent enterprise. As he advanced in manhood, and felt
the consciousness of his strength, his early designs grew
mature, and produced a series of the most important and
interesting revolutions in the fortunes of France."
_H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 1, part l._
See, also, SALIC LAW: APPLICATION TO THE
REGAL SUCCESSION IN FRANCE.
FRANCE: A. D. 1337-1360.
The beginning of the "Hundred Years War."
It was not until 1337 that Edward III. felt prepared to assert
formally his claim to the French crown and to assume the title
of King of France. In July of the following year he began
undertakings to enforce his pretended right, by crossing with
a considerable force to the continent. He wintered at Antwerp,
concerting measures with the Flemings, who had espoused his
cause, and arranging an alliance with the emperor-king of
Germany, whose name bore more weight than his arms. In 1339 a
formal declaration of hostilities was made and the long
war--the Hundred Years War, as it has been called--of English
kings for the sovereignty of France, began. "This great war
may well be divided into five periods. The first ends with the
Peace of Bretigny in 1360 (A. D. 1337-1360), and includes the
great days of Crécy [1346] and Poitiers [1356], as well as the
taking of Calais: the second runs to the death of Charles the
Wise in 1380; these are the days of Du Guesclin and the
English reverses: the third begins with the renewal of the war
under Henry V. of England, and ends with the Regency of the
Duke of Bedford at Paris, including the field of Azincourt
[1415] and the Treaty of Troyes (A. D. 1415-1422): the fourth
is the epoch of Jeanne Darc and ends with the second
establishment of the English at Paris (A. D. 1428-1431): and
the fifth and last runs on to the final expulsion of the
English after the Battle of Castillon in 1453. Thus, though it
is not uncommonly called the Hundred Years War, the struggle
really extended over a period of a hundred and sixteen years."
_G. W. Kitchin,
History of France,
book 4, chapters 1-7._
"No war had broken out in Europe, since the fall of the Roman
Empire, so memorable as that of Edward III. and his successors
against France, whether we consider its duration, its object,
or the magnitude and variety of its events. It was a struggle
of one hundred and twenty years, interrupted but once by a
regular pacification, where the most ancient and extensive
dominion in the civilised world was the prize, twice lost and
twice recovered in the conflict. ... There is, indeed, ample
room for national exultation at the names of Crecy, Poitiers
and Azincourt. So great was the disparity of numbers upon
those famous days, that we cannot, with the French historians,
attribute the discomfiture of their hosts merely to mistaken
tactics and too impetuous valour. ... These victories, and the
qualities that secured them, must chiefly be ascribed to the
freedom of our constitution, and to the superior condition of
the people. Not the nobility of England, not the feudal
tenants, won the battles of Crecy and Poitiers; for these were
fully matched in the ranks of France; but the yeomen who drew
the bow with strong and steady arms, accustomed to use it in
their native fields, and rendered fearless by personal
competence and civil freedom. ... Yet the glorious termination
to which Edward was enabled, at least for a time, to bring the
contest, was rather the work of fortune than of valour and
prudence. Until the battle of Poitiers [A. D. 1356] he had
made no progress towards the conquest of France. That country
was too vast, and his army too small, for such a revolution.
The victory of Crecy gave him nothing but Calais. ... But at
Poitiers he obtained the greatest of prizes, by taking
prisoner the king of France. Not only the love of freedom
tempted that prince to ransom himself by the utmost
sacrifices, but his captivity left France defenceless and
seemed to annihilate the monarchy itself. ... There is no
affliction which did not fall upon France during this
miserable period. ... Subdued by these misfortunes, though
Edward had made but slight progress towards the conquest of
the country, the regent of France, afterwards Charles V.,
submitted to the peace of Bretigni [A. D. 1360]. By this
treaty, not to mention less important articles, all Guienne,
Gascony, Poitou, Saintonge, the Limousin, and the Angoumois,
as well as Calais, and the county of Ponthieu, were ceded in
full sovereignty to Edward; a price abundantly compensating
his renunciation of the title of France, which was the sole
concession stipulated in return."
_H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 1, part 2._
ALSO IN:
_J. Froissart,
Chronicles (Johnes' translation),
book 1, chapters 1-212._
_W. Longman, History of Edward III.,
volume 1, chapters 6-22._
_F. P. Guizot, Popular History of France,
chapter 20._
_D. F. Jamison,
Life and Times of Bertrand du Guesclin,
volume 1, chapters 4-10._
See, also, POITIERS, BATTLE OF.
{1170}
FRANCE: A. D. 1347-1348.
The Black Plague.
"Epochs of moral depression are those, too, of great motality.
... In the last years of Philippe de Valois' reign, the
depopulation was rapid. The misery and physical suffering
which prevailed were insufficient to account for it; for they
had not reached the extreme at which they subsequently
arrived. Yet, to adduce but one instance, the population of a
single town, Narbonne, fell off in the space of four or five
years from the year 1399, by 500 families. Upon this too tardy
diminution of the human race followed extermination,--the great
black plague, or pestilence, which at once heaped up mountains
of dead throughout Christendom. It began in Provence, in the
year 1347, on All Saints' Day, continued sixteen months, and
carried off two-thirds of the inhabitants. The same wholesale
destruction befell Languedoc. At Montpellier, out of twelve
consuls, ten died. At Narbonne, 30,000 persons perished. In
several places, there remained only a tithe of the
inhabitants. All that the careless Froissart says of this
fearful visitation, and that only incidentally, is--'For at
this time there prevailed throughout the world generally a
disease called epidemy, which destroyed a third of its
inhabitants.' This pestilence did not break out in the north
of the kingdom until August, 1348, where it first showed
itself at Paris and St. Denys. So fearful were its ravages at
Paris, that, according to some, 800, according to others, 500,
daily sank under it. ... As there was neither famine at the time
nor want of food, but, on the contrary great abundance, this
plague was said to proceed from infection of the air and of
the springs. The Jews were again charged with this, and the
people cruelly fell upon them."
_J. Michelet,
History of France,
book 6, chapter 1._
See BLACK DEATH.
FRANCE: A. D. 1350.
Accession of King John II.
FRANCE: A. D. 1356-1358.
The States-General and Etienne Marcel.