prelates arrived at the states-general timid, irresolute, neutralized by
the difficulties of their position between the King and the Pope; the
lords and the townsmen hastened thither irritated against the bull,
heated by the violence of the royal answer. The members of the assembly
were influenced each by the other according to their arrival; the
pungent and wily eloquence of Peter Flotte did the rest. The chancellor,
as the first of the great crown officers and the king's chief justice,
opened the states by a long harangue in which, speaking in the name of
Philip, he exposed with much force and ingenuity the enterprises of the
court of Rome and its wrongs toward the kingdom and the Church.
"The Pope confers the bishoprics and the rectories on strangers and
unknown individuals who never become residents. The prelates no longer
have benefices to give to nobles whose ancestors founded the churches,
and to other lettered persons; from which results also that gifts are no
longer given to the churches. The Pope imposes on the churches and
benefices pensions, subsidies, exactions of all kinds. The bishops are
kept from their ministry, being obliged to go to the holy see to carry
presents--always presents. All these abuses have done nothing but
increase under the actual pontificate, and increase every
day--conditions that can no longer be tolerated. That is why I command
you as your master and pray you as your friend to give me counsel and
help."
The Chancellor added that the King had resolved, on his own initiative,
to remedy the encroachments that his officers had made on the rights of
the Church, and would have done so sooner had he not feared the
appearance of submitting to the menaces and orders of the Pope, who
pretended to reduce to a condition of vassalage the most noble kingdom
of France, which had never been raised but from God. Peter Flotte dwelt
especially on this latter argument, and appealed in turn to the
interests of the nobility and of the clergy, and to national pride. The
fiery Count of Artois arose, and exclaimed that even if the King
submitted to the encroachments of the Pope, the nobility would not
suffer them, and that the gentry would never acknowledge any temporal
superior other than the King. The nobility and the Third Estate
confirmed these words by their acclamations, and swore to sacrifice
their properties and lives to defend the temporal independence of the
kingdom. A Norman advocate, named Dubosc, procurator of the commune of
Coutances, accused the Pope, in writing, of heresy for having wanted to
despoil the King of the independence of the crown which he held from
God. The embarrassment of the clergy was extreme; the members of the
Church, fearing to be crushed in the crash between King and Pope, asked
time for deliberation; their declaration in the assembly then being
held, was insisted upon; already cries arose around them that whoever
did not subscribe to the oath would be held as an enemy of the State;
they acquiesced, satisfied apparently by an appearance of violence which
would serve them for an excuse at Rome. They acknowledged themselves
obliged, in common with the other orders, to defend the rights of the
King and of the kingdom, whether they held estates from the King or not;
then they prayed the King to be allowed to go to the council convoked by
the Pope; the King and the barons declared themselves formally opposed.
The three orders then separated, so as to write to the court at Rome
each its own side of the affair; the letters of the nobility and of the
Third Estate--which as may be imagined were all prepared in advance by
the agents of the King, and were only subscribed to and sealed by the
assistants--were addressed, not to the Pope, but to the college of
cardinals. The despatch of the barons expresses rudely the tortuous and
unreasonable enterprises of him who, at present, is at the seat and
government of the Church, and declares that neither the nobility nor the
universities nor the people require correction or imposition of any
trouble, whether by the authority of the Pope or anyone else--unless it
be from their sire, the King. This letter is signed, not only by the
principal lords of the kingdom, but also by several great barons of the
empire.
The epistle of the mayors, aldermen, jurats, consuls, universities,
communes, and communities of the towns of the kingdom of France has not
been preserved. It is known only, by the answer that the cardinals made,
that it was conceived in the same spirit as the letter of the barons.
The letter of the clergy is quite in another style: the clerks address
their very holy father and very holy sire, the Pope; expose to him the
complaints of the King and of the nobility; the necessity in which they
find themselves engaged to defend the King's rights, and the anger of
the laity; the imminent rupture of France with the Roman Church--and
even of the people with the clergy in general--and conjure the highest
prudence of the Pope to conserve the ancient union by revoking the
convocation of the ecclesiastical council.
The states-general were dissolved immediately after the unique _séance_
which had so well responded to the desires of the King. The means
employed to attain this result were not entirely loyal, nor was public
opinion altogether free; it was but slightly enlightened on the grave
debates that the authorities affected to submit to it. Nevertheless it
was an important matter, this call to the French nation, and it must be
acknowledged that the genius of France responded in proclaiming national
independence, and in repelling the intervention of the court of Rome in
the internal politics of the country.
WAR OF THE FLEMINGS WITH PHILIP THE
FAIR OF FRANCE
A.D. 1302
EYRE EVANS CROWE
Toward the beginning of the thirteenth century the people of
Flanders, whose country had been for centuries a feudal
dependency of France, were considerably advanced in wealth
and importance. They had become restive under the French
rule, and their discontent ripened into settled hostility.
Common commercial interests drew them into friendship with
England, and in the quarrel between Philip the Fair and
Edward I, 1295, concerning Edward's rule in Guienne
(Aquitaine) the Flemings allied themselves with the English
King.
In 1297 Philip invaded Flanders and gained several successes
against the Flemings, who were feebly aided by King Edward.
In 1299 the two kings settled their quarrel, and the
Flemings were left to the vengeance of Philip, for in the
pacification the court of Flanders was not included. A
French army entered the Flemish territory, inflicted two
defeats upon the Count's troops, and received the submission
of the Count. Philip annexed Flanders to his crown and
appointed a governor over the Flemings. In less than two
years they rose in furious revolt. The insurrection began at
Bruges, May 18, 1302, when over three thousand Frenchmen in
that city were massacred by the insurgents. This massacre
was called the "Bruges Matins." Such an outrage upon the
French crown could not but bring upon the Flemings all the
forces that Philip was able to muster. The two leading
actions of the ensuing war--that at Courtrai, known as the
"Battle of the Spurs," on account of the number of gilt
spurs captured by the Flemings, and the engagement at
Mons-la-Puelle--are described in the course of the narrative
which follows. As a result of the battle of Courtrai the
French nobility were nearly destroyed, and Philip found it
necessary to recreate his titled bodies.
The Flemings prepared to resist the storm. They chose Guy of Juliers,
grandson of the Count of Flanders, to be their commander. Though a
cleric, he did not hesitate to obey the call, in order to avenge his
family, so cruelly betrayed by the French King. His brother, made
prisoner at Furnes by the Count d'Artois, had perished in that rude
Prince's keeping. His first attempt was to induce the people of Ghent to
join the insurrection, but its rich burgesses preferred French rule to
that of the Count of Flanders. Bruges, however, was supported by all
the lesser and maritime towns of Flanders. Guy of Namur, a son of the
Count, who had escaped to Germany, also returned with a body of soldiers
from that country, and reassured the Flemings. These surprised one of
the ducal manors, in which were five hundred French, and then took
Courtrai, occupying the town, but not the castle. It was immediately
besieged, as well as that of Cassel, the people of Ypres rallying to the
French cause. The French garrison of the town of Courtrai sent pressing
messengers for aid, and Robert of Artois marched with seven thousand
knights and forty thousand foot, of which one-fourth were archers. The
Flemish were but twenty thousand, of which none but the chiefs had
horses. Neither was their armor nor their weapons of a perfect kind, the
latter being a lance like a boar-spear, or a knotted stick pointed with
iron, and called in Flemish a "good day." The princes of Juliers and
Namur posted their combatants on the road which leads from Courtrai to
Ghent, behind a canal that communicated with the river Lys. A priest
came with the host, but, there being no time to receive the communion,
each man took some earth in his mouth. The counts then knighted Pierre
Konig and the chiefs of bands, and took their station on foot with the
rest.
The French had nine battalions or divisions, their archers or light
troops being Lombards or Navarrese and Provençals. These the constable
placed foremost, to commence the fight and harass the Flemings by their
missiles. But the Count d'Artois overruled this manoeuvre, and called
it a Lombard trick, reproaching the Constable de Nesle with appreciating
the Flemings too highly because of his connection with them. (He had
married a daughter of the Count of Flanders.) "If you advance as far as
I shall," replied the Count, "you will go far enough, I warrant." So
saying he put spurs to his horse and led on his knights; on which the
Count d'Artois and the French squadrons charged also. This formidable
cavalry could not reach the Flemings, but fell one over the other into
the canal, which they had not perceived, and which was five fathoms wide
and three deep. The Flemish counts, seeing the disorder, instantly
passed the canal on either side to take advantage of it, and fell on the
discomfited French. The battle was but a massacre. Numbers of the French
nobles perished--the Count d'Artois, Godfrey of Brabant and his son,
the counts of Eu and of Albemarle, the Constable and his brother, De
Tanquerville, Pierre Flotte, the Chancellor, and Jacques de St. Pol--in
all some six thousand knights. Louis of Clermont and one or two others
escaped, to the damage of their reputation. This battle of Courtrai was
fought on July 11, 1302.
Had the war not been one exclusively of defence on the part of the
Flemings, or had they had ambitious and adventurous chiefs, such a
disaster might have endangered the throne of France. It was the Flemish
democracy which had conquered, and its chiefs contented themselves with
reducing the remaining cities, and expelling the gentry and rich
citizens as of French inclinations. This reaction extended from Flanders
into Brabant and Hainault. Philip in the mean time exerted all his
activities and resources. Had he been an English king he would have
called his parliament together, and have found national support and
national supplies. The French King preferred having recourse to a
recoinage. In 1294 he had forbidden any persons to keep plate unless
they possessed an annual revenue of six thousand livres. He now ordered
his bailies to deliver up their plate, and all non-functionaries to send
half of theirs. Those who did so received payment in the new coin, and
lost one-half thereby. A tax of one-fifth, or 20 per cent., of the
annual revenue was levied on the land, and a twentieth was levied on the
movable property. In the following year the King found it more
advantageous to order that all prelates and barons should, for every
five hundred livres of yearly revenue in land, furnish an armed and
mounted gentleman for five months' service, while the non-noble was to
furnish and keep up six infantry soldiers (_sergens de pied_) for every
hundred hearths. This decree was a return to feudal military service,
occasioned, no doubt, by the general disaffection caused by the raising
of the war supplies in money. As if to recompense all classes for the
severity of the exaction, Philip published an _ordonnance_ of reform for
the protection of both laymen and ecclesiastics from the arbitrary
encroachments or interference of his officers.
Having thus set his realm in order, and collected an army of seventy
thousand men at Arras, the King marched to meet the Flemings, who in
equal force had mustered in the vicinity of Dovai. They kept, as at
Courtrai, on the defensive; and the King of France, too cautious to
attack them, allowed the whole autumn to pass, and returned to France
after a campaign as inefficient as inglorious.
Philip had been long involved in a controversy with Pope Boniface VIII,
and the quarrel still continued. It was not till some time after the
battle of Courtrai that the King at last, delivered from the menacing
hostility of Rome, had leisure to turn his mind and efforts again toward
Flanders. During the year 1303 he had sought to keep the Flemings at bay
by bodies of Lombard and Tuscan infantry, whom his Florentine banker
persuaded him to hire, and by Amadeus V, Duke of Savoy, who brought
soldiers of that country to his aid. Although the long lances and more
perfect armor of these troops gave them some advantage over the
Flemings, the latter took and burned Therouanne, overran Artois, and
laid siege to Tournai. Amadeus of Savoy, unable to overcome the Flemings
by arms, recommended Philip to do so by treaty, and the King accordingly
concluded a pacification, one condition of which was that the Count of
Flanders should be released from prison to negotiate terms of fresh
accommodation. The Flemings received the aged Count with respect; but he
brought no terms which they were willing to accept; and he returned, as
he had pledged his word, to captivity at Compiègne, where he soon after
died.
For the campaign of the following year Philip, in lieu of Italian
infantry, took sixteen Genoese galleys into his pay, commanded by
Rainier de Grimaldi. This admiral passed through the Straits of
Gibraltar and assailed the maritime towns and shipping of Flanders. Guy
of Namur mustered to oppose them a fleet of greater numbers; but the
Genoese, accustomed to naval warfare, defeated the Flemings and took Guy
of Namur prisoner. Philip, at the same time, assembled a large army at
Tournai, and marched to Mons-la-Puelle, near Lille, where the Flemings,
to the number of seventy thousand, were encamped within a
circumvallation of cars and chariots. There was no Robert of Artois on
this occasion to precipitate a rash onslaught, and by Philip's order the
southern light troops harassed the Flemings all day with arrows and
missiles, allowing them no repose. Toward the evening many of the
French withdrew to refresh themselves and take off their armor; the King
himself was of this number; the Flemings, perceiving this slackness, and
divining the cause, poured forth from their encampment in three
divisions, which at first drove all before them, and reached as far as
the King's tent, then in full preparation for supper. The monarch
himself, without armor or helmet, was fortunately not recognized; his
secretary, De Boville, and two Parisians of the name of Gentien, whom
Philip had always about his person, were slain before his eyes. The King
withdrew, but it was to arm, mount on horseback, and cry out to his
followers to stand their ground. He himself, says Villani, "one of the
strongest and best made men of his time," fought valiantly until his
brother Charles and most of the barons, recovering from the first panic,
came to his rescue, and the Flemings were finally repulsed and put to
the rout. William of Juliers fell on the side of the Flemings; the son
of the Duke of Burgundy and many others on that of the French. Philip
immediately laid siege to Lille, deeming the Flemings totally
discomfited. They had, however, rallied, obtained reënforcements at
Bruges and at Ghent, and in three weeks appeared to the number of fifty
thousand before the King's camp at Lille, crying for battle. Philip
called a council, and observed that "even a victory would be dearly
purchased over a party so desperate."
The Duke of Brabant and the Count of Savoy therefore undertook to
negotiate with the Flemings, and Philip consented to grant them fair
terms. He recognized their independent rights, agreed to liberate
Robert, eldest son of Guido, Count of Flanders, as well as all those in
captivity. He granted Robert and his son the fiefs which belonged to him
in France, especially that of Nevers, and promised to give him
investiture of the County of Flanders. The Flemings, on their side,
consented to pay two hundred thousand livres, and to leave the King of
France in possession of the three towns of Lille, Douai, and Béthune,
that part of Flanders in which French was spoken. It was thus, at least,
that the French interpreted the treaty, while the Flemings afterward
alleged that French Flanders was merely a pledge for the payment of the
money, not an alienation to the crown of France.
FIRST SWISS STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY
A.D. 1308
F. GRENFELL BAKER
Owing to the fact that the house of Hapsburg had its origin
in Switzerland, the accession of Rudolph I, founder of the
Hapsburg dynasty, to the throne of Germany (1273), with the
virtual headship of the Holy Roman Empire, was an event of
great importance in the history of the Swiss cantons. To
this day the paternal domains whence the Hapsburg family
takes its name are a part of Swiss territory. The local
administration, as well as such imperial offices as still
remained in the free communities of Switzerland, were
largely in the hands of this family long before it gave
sovereigns to the empire itself. Its chiefs were the chosen
champions or advocates of the district.
Of the Swiss communities Uri seems to have first established
its freedom within the empire, and in that canton liberty
was most completely preserved from the perils that always
threatened Switzerland in this period. Under Rudolph it was
at first the policy of the empire to secure the attachment
of the Swiss by making the two other cantons, Schwyz and
Unterwalden, similarly independent. But toward the end of
his reign the policy of Rudolph was so influenced by
ambition for territorial expansion that the Swiss began to
feel an encroachment upon their independence. In 1291, the
year of Rudolph's death, the three cantons, fearing danger
to their interests in the new settlement of the crown,
formed a league for mutual protection and coöperation. The
very parchment on which the terms of this union were written
"has been preserved as a testimony to the early independence
of the Forest Cantons, the Magna Charta of Switzerland." The
formation of this confederacy may be regarded as the first
combined preparation of the Swiss for that great struggle in
defence of their liberties, in the history of which fact and
legend, as shown in Baker's discriminating narrative, are
romantically blended.
The empire passed out of the Hapsburg control when Rudolph
died, but the family again got possession of it in 1298,
when Rudolph's son Albert was elected German king. In the
following account the relations of Switzerland and Austria,
under the renewed Hapsburg sovereignty, are circumstantially
set forth.
There can be little doubt that most of the many stories related by the
Swiss of the cruelty and extortion of the Austrian bailies are wholly or
in great part devoid of a historical basis of truth, as are the dates
given for their occurrence. They doubtless sprang from the very natural
feelings of hatred the mountaineers of the Forest State felt against a
foreign master, who was probably only too ready to punish them for the
part they took against him in the struggle for the imperial throne.
Indeed, it was not till about two centuries after this period that any
reference to the alleged cruelties of the Austrians can be found in the
local records, though legends about them have been plentiful.
Many and various are the stories that have come down to our times of the
oppression and licentiousness of the bailies, most of which have
probably gained much color by constant repetition, even if they were not
wholly created by imagination and hatred of the Austrian rule. According
to these accounts, the local despots imposed exorbitant fines for
trivial offences, and frequently sent prisoners to Zug and Lucerne to be
tried by Austrian judges. They levied enormously increased taxes and
imports on every commodity, and exacted payment in the most merciless
manner; they openly violated the liberties of the people, and chose
every occasion to insult and degrade them. An oft-quoted instance of
their cruelty is recorded of a bailie named Landenburg, who publicly
reproved a peasant for living in a house above his station. On another
occasion, having fined an old and much respected laborer, named Henry of
Melchi, a yoke of oxen for an imaginary offence, the Governor's
messenger jeeringly told the old man, who was lamenting that if he lost
his cattle he could no longer earn his bread, that if he wanted to use a
plough he had better draw it himself, being only a vile peasant. To this
insult Henry's son Arnold responded by attacking the messenger and
breaking his fingers, and then, fearing lest his act should bring down
some serious punishment, fled to the mountains, and left his aged father
to Landenburg's vengeance. The bailie confiscated his little property,
imposed a heavy fine, and finally burned out both his eyes.
The hot irons used in this barbarous punishment, the Swiss are fond of
saying, went deeper than the tyrant intended, and penetrated to the
hearts and aroused the sympathies of their ancestors to perform such
acts of heroism that tyranny fled in fear from the land. The conduct of
Arnold, however, can hardly at this period of his life warrant the
eulogies bestowed upon his memory, though he subsequently figures as one
of the "Men of Ruetli."
Landenburg lived in a castle near Sarnen, in Unterwalden, where his
imperious temper, his exactions, his cruelties, and his debaucheries
aroused a universal feeling of hatred among the peasants, that
culminated in his expulsion and the destruction of his stronghold. The
latter is popularly believed to have occurred on January 1, 1308. As the
bailie left his castle to attend mass, some forty determined peasants,
who had already bound themselves by oath to free their country at a
solemn meeting on the steep promontory over the Lake of Lucerne known as
the Ruetli, appeared before him carrying sheep, fowls, and other
customary presents, and thus gained admission to the castle. No sooner
were they past the gates than, drawing the weapons they had till then
concealed beneath their clothes, they disarmed the guard and took
possession of the fortress. Other conspirators were admitted, and the
people at once rose in revolt. Landenburg, hearing while still at church
of what had occurred, managed to effect his escape, and fled to Lucerne.
Of the other bailies, Gessler and Wolfenschiess are believed to have
excited even more hatred than their colleague Landenburg, and to have
exceeded him in acts of savage cruelty and vicious living.
One example out of many similar ones will show the spirit in which the
Swiss traditions have treated the memory of Wolfenschiess. On a certain
day, finding that a peasant named Conrad, of Baumgarten, whose wife he
had frequently tried in vain to seduce, was absent from home,
Wolfenschiess entered Conrad's house and ordered his wife to prepare him
a bath, at the same time renewing with ardor his former proposals. With
the cunning of her sex, the wife feigned to be willing to accede to his
wishes, and on the pretence of retiring to another room to undress sped
to her husband, who quickly returned and slew Wolfenschiess while he was
still in the bath. After this exploit an entrance was effected into the
bailies' castle of Rotzberg by one of the conspirators, who was in the
habit of paying nightly visits to a servant living in the castle, by
means of a rope attached to her window, and who then admitted his
companions, who were lying concealed in the moat.