Philip IV of France

Homage of Edward I (kneeling) to Philip IV (seated). As Duke of Aquitaine, Edward was a vassal to the French king. Painting made in 15th century.

As the Duke of Aquitaine, English King Edward I was a vassal to Philip, and had to pay him homage. Following the Fall of Acre in 1291, however, the former allies started to show dissent.[14]

In 1293, following a naval incident between the English and the Normans, Philip summoned Edward to the French court. The English king sought to negotiate the matter via ambassadors sent to Paris, but they were turned away with a blunt refusal. Philip addressed Edward as a duke, a vassal and nothing more, despite the international implications of the relationship between England and France, and not an internal matter involving Philip's French vassals.

Edward next attempted to use family connections to achieve what open politics had not. He sent his brother Edmund Crouchback, who was Philip's cousin as well as his step-father-in-law, in attempts to negotiate with the French royal family and avert war. Additionally, Edward had by that time become betrothed by proxy to Philip's sister Margaret, and, in the event of the negotiations being successful, Edmund was to escort Margaret back to England for her wedding to Edward.

An agreement was indeed reached; it stated that Edward would voluntarily relinquish Gascony to Philip as a sign of submission in his capacity as the duke of Aquitaine. In return, Philip would forgive Edward and restore Gascony after a grace period. In the matter of the marriage, Philip drove a hard bargain based partially on the difference in age between Edward and Margaret; it was agreed that the province of Gascony would be retained by Philip in return for agreeing to the marriage. The date of the wedding was also put off until the formality of sequestering and re-granting the French lands back to Edward was completed.

But Edward, Edmund and the English had been deceived. The French had no intention of returning the land to the English monarch. Edward kept up his part of the deal and turned over his continental estates to the French. However, Philip used the pretext that the English king had refused his summons in order to strip Edward of all his possessions in France, thereby initiating hostilities with England.[14]

The outbreak of hostilities with England in 1294 was the inevitable result of the competitive expansionist monarchies, triggered by a secret Franco-Scottish pact of mutual assistance against Edward I; inconclusive campaigns for the control of Gascony, southwest of France were fought 1294–1298 and 1300–1303. Philip gained Guienne but due to subsequent revolts was later forced to return it to Edward.[15] The search for income to cover military expenditures set its stamp on Philip's reign and his reputation at the time.

Pursuant to the terms of the Treaty of Paris in 1303, the marriage of Philip's daughter Isabella to the Prince of Wales, Edward I's heir, celebrated at Boulogne, 25 January 1308, was meant to seal a peace; instead it would produce an eventual English claimant to the French throne itself, and the Hundred Years' War.

Philip suffered a major embarrassment when an army of 2,500 noble men-at-arms (knights and squires) and 4,000 infantry he sent to suppress an uprising in Flanders was defeated in the Battle of the Golden Spurs near Kortrijk on 11 July 1302. Philip reacted with energy to the humiliation and the Battle of Mons-en-Pévèle followed two years later, which ended in a decisive French victory.[16] Consequently, in 1305, Philip forced the Flemish to accept a harsh peace treaty; the peace exacted heavy reparations and humiliating penalties, and added to the royal territory the rich cloth cities of Lille, Douai, and Bethune, sites of major cloth fairs.[17] Béthune, first of the Flemish cities to yield, was granted to Mahaut, Countess of Artois, whose two daughters, to secure her fidelity, were married to Philip's two sons.

Philip had various contacts with the Mongol power in the Middle East, including reception at the embassy of the Uyghur monk Rabban Bar Sauma, originally from the Yuan dynasty of China.[18] Bar Sauma presented an offer of a Franco-Mongol alliance with Arghun of the Mongol Ilkhanate in Baghdad. Arghun was seeking to join forces between the Mongols and the Europeans, against their common enemy the Muslim Mamluks. In return, Arghun offered to return Jerusalem to the Christians, once it was re-captured from the Muslims. Philip seemingly responded positively to the request of the embassy by sending one of his noblemen, Gobert de Helleville, to accompany Bar Sauma back to Mongol lands.[19] There was further correspondence between Arghun and Philip in 1288 and 1289,[20] outlining potential military cooperation. However, Philip never actually pursued such military plans.

In April 1305, the new Mongol ruler Öljaitü sent letters to Philip,[21] the Pope, and Edward I of England. He again offered a military collaboration between the Christian nations of Europe and the Mongols against the Mamluks. European nations attempted another Crusade but were delayed, and it never took place. On 4 April 1312, another Crusade was promulgated at the Council of Vienne. In 1313, Philip "took the cross", making the vow to go on a Crusade in the Levant, thus responding to Pope Clement V's call. He was, however, warned against leaving by Enguerrand de Marigny[22] and died soon after in a hunting accident.

Under Philip IV, the annual ordinary revenues of the French royal government totaled approximately 860,000 livres tournois, equivalent to 46 tonnes of silver.[23] Overall revenues were about twice the ordinary revenues.[24] Some 30% of the revenues were collected from the royal demesne.[23] The royal financial administration employed perhaps 3,000 people, of which about 1,000 were officials in the proper sense.[25] After assuming the throne, Philip inherited a sizable debt from his father's war against Aragon.[26] By November 1286 it reached 8 tonnes of silver to his primary financiers, the Templars, equivalent to 17% of government revenue.[27] This debt was quickly paid off, and, in 1287 and 1288, Philip's kingdom ran a budget surplus.[27]

After 1289, a decline in Saxony's silver production, combined with Philip's wars against Aragon, England and Flanders, drove the French government to fiscal deficits.[27] The war against Aragon, inherited from Philip's father, required the expenditure of 1.5 million LT (livres tournois) and the 1294–99 war against England over Gascony another 1.73 million LT.[27][26] Loans from the Aragonese War were still being paid back in 1306.[26]

To cover the deficit, Pope Nicholas IV in 1289 granted Philip permission to collect a tithe of 152,000 LP (livres parisis) from the Church lands in France.[24] With revenues of 1.52 million LP, the church in France had greater fiscal resources than the royal government, whose ordinary revenues in 1289 amounted to 595,318 LP and overall revenues to 1.2 million LP.[24] By November 1290, the deficit stood at 6% of revenues.[24] In 1291 the budget swung back into surplus only to fall into deficit again in 1292.[24]

The constant deficits led Philip to order the arrest of the Lombard merchants, who had earlier made him extensive loans on the pledge of repayment from future taxation.[24] The Lombards' assets were seized by government agents and the crown extracted 250,000 LT by forcing the Lombards to purchase French nationality.[24] Despite this draconian measure, the deficits continued to stack up in 1293.[24] By 1295, Philip had replaced the Templars with the Florentine Franzesi bankers as his main source of finance.[28] The Italians could raise huge loans far beyond the capacities of the Templars, and Philip came to rely on them more and more.[28] The royal treasure was transferred from the Paris Temple to the Louvre around this time.[28]

Donation made by the King of France, Philip IV the Fair, to the chaplains and wardens of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. February 1286

In 1294, France went to war against England and in 1297, Flanders declared its independence from France.[29] By 1295, to pay for his constant wars, Philip had no choice but to borrow more and debase the currency by reducing its silver content.[30] This led to the virtual disappearance of silver from France by 1301.[28] Currency depreciation provided the crown with 1.419 million LP from November 1296 to Christmas 1299, more than enough to cover war costs of 1.066 million LP in the same period.[29]

The devaluation was socially devastating.[28] It was accompanied by dramatic inflation that damaged the real incomes of the creditors such as the aristocracy and the Church, who received a weaker currency in return for the loans they had issued in a stronger currency.[28] The indebted lower classes did not benefit from the devaluation, as the high inflation ate into the purchasing power of their money.[28] The result was social unrest.[29] By 22 August 1303 this practice led to a two-thirds loss in the value of the livres, sous and deniers in circulation.[31]

The defeat at the battle of Golden Spurs in 1302 was a crushing blow to French finance, reducing the value of the French currency by 37% in the 15 months that followed.[31] The royal government had to order officials and subjects to provide all or half, respectively, of their silver vessels for minting into coins.[31] New taxes were levied to pay for the deficit.[31][32] As people attempted to move their wealth out of the country in non-monetary form, Philip banned merchandise exports without royal approval.[31] The king obtained another crusade tithe from the pope and returned the royal treasure to the Temple to gain the Templars as his creditors again.[31]

After bringing the Flemish War to a victorious conclusion in 1305, Philip on 8 June 1306 ordered the silver content of new coinage to be raised back to its 1285 level of 3.96 grams of silver per livre.[33] To harmonize the strength of the old and new currencies, the debased coinage of 1303 was devalued accordingly by two-thirds.[33] The debtors were driven to penury by the need to repay their loans in the new, strong currency.[33] This led to rioting in Paris on 30 December 1306, forcing Philip to briefly seek refuge in the Paris Temple, the headquarters of the Knights Templar.[34]

Perhaps seeking to control the silver of the Jewish mints to put the revaluation to effect, Philip ordered the expulsion of the Jews on 22 July 1306 and confiscated their property on 23 August, collecting at least 140,000 LP with this measure.[33] With the Jews gone, Philip appointed royal guardians to collect the loans made by the Jews, and the money was passed to the Crown. After Philip, in 1315, the Jews were invited back with an offer of 12 years of guaranteed residence, free from government interference. In 1322, the Jews were expelled again by the King's successor.[35]

When Philip levied taxes on the French clergy of one half their annual income, he caused an uproar within the Catholic Church and the papacy, prompting Pope Boniface VIII to issue the bull Clericis Laicos (1296), forbidding the transference of any church property to the French Crown.[36] Philip retaliated by forbidding the removal of bullion from France.[36] By 1297, Boniface agreed to Philip's taxation of the clergy in emergencies.[36]

In 1301, Philip had the bishop of Pamier arrested for treason.[37] Boniface called French bishops to Rome to discuss Philip's actions.[37] In response, Philip convoked an assembly of bishops, nobles and grand bourgeois of Paris in order to condemn the Pope.[37] This precursor to the Estates General appeared for the first time during his reign, a measure of the professionalism and order that his ministers were introducing into government. This assembly, which was composed of clergy, nobles, and burghers, gave support to Philip.[37]

Boniface retaliated with the celebrated bull Unam Sanctam (1302), a declaration of papal supremacy.[37] Philip gained a victory, after having sent his agent Guillaume de Nogaret to arrest Boniface at Anagni.[38] The pope escaped but died soon afterward.[38] The French archbishop Bertrand de Goth was elected pope as Clement V and thus began the so-called Babylonian Captivity of the papacy (1309–76), during which the official seat of the papacy moved to Avignon, an enclave surrounded by French territories, and was subjected to French control.