Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T12:11:00.414Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Philip the Fair and the cult of saint Louis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Elizabeth M. Hallam*
Affiliation:
Public Record Office, London

Extract

The bishop of Pamiers, Bernard Saisset, said that Philip IV of France was like ‘an owl, the most beautiful of birds, but worth absolutely nothing ... He is the most handsome of beings but he knows only how to stare fixedly at men’. Philip the Fair gave away little about himself to contemporaries, and he remains a controversial and enigmatic figure, whose personal involvement with the events of his reign remains a matter of dispute. For a long time, many scholars followed contemporary critics of the king like Geoffrey of Paris in blaming Philip for allowing himself to be duped and misled by evil councillors. More recently, however, analyses of the copious administrative records of the reign have suggested that Philip, while not often in the forefront of negotiations, retained control over his advisers, and that, while he delegated power, he was not dominated by his councillors. Philip has thus become the moving force behind the events of his reign, if not the director of all the details of policy; but this in its turn makes his character and convictions a matter of great importance.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Dupuy, [P.], [Histoire du differend d’entre le pape Boniface VII et Philippes le Bel] (Paris 1655) pp 643-4Google Scholar: ‘Aves antiquitus fecerunt regem, ut narratur in fabulis, et fecerunt regem de quadam ave vocata Duc, quae est magna et inter aves maior et pulchrior, et absolute nihil valet ... et talis erat Rex noster Franciae, quod erat pulchrior homo mundi, et quod nihil aliud seit facere nisi respicere homines’.

2 Bouquet, 21 p 205; 22 pp 97, 119; Boutaric, E., La France sous Philippe le Bel (Paris 1861)Google Scholar; compare more recently Favier, J., Philippe le Bel (Paris 1978)Google Scholar; Favier, J., ‘Les légistes et le gouvernement de Philippe le Bel’, Journal des Savants (Paris April/June 1969) pp 92108 Google Scholar; Strayer, J.R.], Medieval Statecraft; [and the Perspectives of History: Essays by J. R. Strayer], ed Post, G. (Princeton 1971) pp 195212 Google Scholar; Lyon, B., ‘What made a medieval king “constitutional”?Essays in Medieval History presented to Bertie Wilkinson, ed Sandquist, T.A and Powicke, M.R. (Toronto 1969) pp 157-75Google Scholar; Bautier, [R.H.], [‘Diplomatique et histoire politique: ce que la critique diplomatique nous apprend sur la personnalité de Philippe le Bel’], RH (259) (1978) pp 327 Google Scholar; Strayer, [J.R.], [The Reign of] Philip the Fair (Princeton 1980) pp 335 Google Scholar.

3 Hallam, [E.M.,] Capetien France, [987-1328 (London 1980) pp 278-83Google Scholar.

4 Strayer, Medieval Statecrafi pp 251-65, 300-14.

5 Brown, [E.A.R.], [‘Royal salvation and needs of state in late Capetian France’] Order and Innovation in the Middle Ages: Essays in honor of J. R. Strayer, ed Jordan, W.C., McNab, B. and Ruiz, T.F. (Princeton 1976) pp 365-83Google Scholar; Bautier; G. Spiegel, review of Barber, [M.], [The Trial of the] Templars (Cambridge 1978) Google Scholarin Speculum 55 (1980) pp 329-32; this builds on Fawtier, R., The Capetian kings of France, Monarchy and Nation (987-1328),trans Butler, L. and Adam, R.J. (London 1960) PP 35. 38-9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Bautier pp 20-2; Brown p 371.

7 For example, recently Bautier and Brown.

8 Capetian France pp 312-14.

9 Brown p 369 and n 28.

10 Ibid pp 372-3 and n 47; Capetian France pp 213-14; Strayer, Philip the Fair pp 296-7.

11 Dupuy p 94: ‘respondit rex quod nunquam fuit, nee est intentionis, vel voluntatis suae in huiusmodi perceptione Regalium praeiudicialem, vel noxiam facere novitatem, sed intendit eis uti quemadmodum S. Ludovicus, et alii praedecessores sui uti consueverunt . . . ‘

12 Capetian France pp 232-5 and notes for Louis’s religious patronage. Guillaume de Saint-Pathus, , La Vie et les miracles de Monseigneur Saint Louis, Roi de France, ed d’Espagne, M.C. (Paris 1971) pp 5770 Google Scholar; Jean, sire de Joinville, Vie de Saint Louis, ed N. de Wailly (Paris 1874); English translation by Shaw, [M.R.B.] [in Chronicles of the Crusades] (Penguin 1963) pp 342-4Google Scholar.

13 Brandenburg, [A.Erlande-], [‘La priorale Saint-Louis de Poissy’], Bulletin Monumental 129 (Paris 1971) pp 85112 Google Scholar.

14 Ibid p 81; Bouquet 20 p 409.

15 Brown p 370 and n 33.

16 Brandenburg p 91.

17 GalC 8 p 1339 and inst pp 373-4.

18 Brandenburg p 92.

19 Collectio 6 p 542.

20 [Ed Langlois, C.V.], [Registres perdus des archives de la chambre des comptes à Paris] (Paris 1916) nos 631-50Google Scholar.

21 In 1297 the Dominicans had modified their statutes to allow large, vaulted churches to be built. Brandenburg pp 95-112.

22 Branner, [R.], [Saint Louis and the Court Style in Gothic architecture] (London 1965) PP 135-7Google Scholar.

23 Brown pp 371-2 and n 46.

24 Bouquet 20 p II; Shaw p 343; [Hallam, E. M., ‘Aspects of the] monastic patronage [of the English and French royal houses, c 1130-1270]’, unpubl university of London PhD thesis (1976) pp 263-4Google Scholar (Rouen), pp 267-9 (Longchamp, actually founded by Louis’s sister, Isabella, but endowed by the king).

25 Quelques chartes rélatifs à l’acquisition du Moncel par Philippe le Bel (Beauvais 1900) pp 10-11 passim.

26 GalC 10 inst pp 270-3 (vidimus of Philip VI); [ed.Fawtier, R.,] Registres [du trésor des chartes, 1, règne de Philippe le Bel] (Paris 1958) no 562Google Scholar.

27 GalC 9 p 1013.

28 Archives nationales K 182 no 66; ‘Monastic patronage’ pp 230-1.

29 Registres no 1170.

30 It was probably founded by a group of royal sergeants who had fought at the battle of Bouvines; Archives nationales L 919; GalC 8 p 851; ‘Monastic patronage’ pp 231-2.

31 Guynemer, P., Cartulaire de Royallteu (Compiègne 1911) introduction and pp 1718 Google Scholar; Bautier p 20; Branner pp 135-7.

32 Shaw p 343. Royaumont was founded by Louis IX and his mother Blanche of Castile in 1228-9 in accordance with the provisions of Louis VIII’s testament, which asked for a house of Victorine canons to be created in his memory; but the order was changed to the Cistercians; ‘Monastic patronage’ pp 240-3.

33 Registres no 1118; ‘Monastic patronage’ p 270.

34 Langlois no 511; compare ‘Monastic patronage’ pp 279-82 on Louis IX’s chapels.

35 Registres no 672; compare Shaw pp 342-3.

36 Registres no 1134.

37 Bautier pp 19-20 n 70.

38 Registres no 654.

39 Registres no 285.

40 Capetian France pp 205, 232, 262; ‘Monastic patronage’ pp 307-8, 323-6.

41 [The History of the] King’s Works, 1 and 2, [the Middle Ages], ed Brown, R.A, Colvin, H.M., Taylor, A.J. (London 1963), 1 pp 248-57 (Vale Royal), pp 257-63 (King’s Langley)Google Scholar.

42 Fongoni, A., Celestiana (Rome 1954) pp 125-45Google Scholar; Pommier, A., ‘Essai sur le monastère d’Ambert’, Mémoires de la société archéologique et historique de l’Orléanais 34 (Orléans 1915) pp 565665 Google Scholar; Registres nos 417, 571, 660; DHGE 12 pp 102-3; Archives départementales, Loiret H 230.

43 Hallam, E.M., ‘Henry II as a founder of monasteries’, JEH 28 (1977) pp 113-32Google Scholar; ‘Monastic patronage’ pp 49-58.

44 Chrimes, S.B., Henry VII (London 1972) pp 298304 Google Scholar; Knowles RO 3 p 3; King’s Works 3 part 1 (1485-1660), ed Colvin, H.M, Ransome, D.R., Summerson, J. (London 1975) pp 187222 Google Scholar.

45 Hallam, E.M., ‘Henry VIIl’s monastic refoundations of 1536-7 and the course of the dissolution’, BIHR 51 (1978) pp 124-31Google Scholar.

46 King’s Works 1 pp 131-59; ‘Monastic patronage pp 154-5.

47 Capetian France pp 213-23, 268-9.

48 Ibid pp 263-4; Shaw p 343.

49 Capetian France pp 69-72.

50 Ibid p 308; Bordier, H., ‘Une satire contre Philippe le Bel (vers 1290)’, Bulletin de la société de l’histoire de France, 2 ser, 1 (Paris 1857-8) pp 198-9Google Scholar.

51 Henneman, J.B., Royal taxation in Fourteenth century France: the development of war financing, 1322-1356 (Princeton 1971) pp 2730 Google Scholar.

52 Prestwich, M., War, Politics and Finance under Edward I (London 1972)Google Scholar and Documents Illustrating the crisis of 120,7-8 in England, CSer, 4 series, 24 (London 1980).

53 Artonne, A, ‘Le mouvement de 1314 et les chartes provinciales de 1315,’ University of Paris, Bibliothèque de la Faculté des Lettres, 19 (1912) p 31 Google Scholar; and pp 198-204 for the roll of grievances of the people of the bailliages of Amiens and Vermandois (Archives départementales, Pas-de-Calais A 61): for example, ‘VI. Item. Comme selonc les anchienes coustumes du tans le saint roy Loys quant li subgit des seigneurs estoient trait en cause par devant les gens du roy d’aucun cas a la requeste d’autruy fust de trouble ou d’empeechement ou de novelete de quelconques cas que che fust . . .’ (etc.)

54 Capetian France pp 298-90.

55 Shaw p 351.

56 Capetian France pp 174-9, 260-3.

57 Russell, J.C., ‘The canonisation of opposition to the king in Angevin England’, Anniversary Essays in Medieval History by Students of Charles Homer Haskins, ed Taylor, C.H (Cambridge, Mass., 1929) pp 270-90Google Scholar; Vita Edwardi Regis, ed Barlow, F., NMT (London 1962) pp 112-33Google Scholar.

58 Barber, Templars pp 29-30 from Dupuy p 518.

59 Above n 4.

60 Bouquet 22 pp 152-3, esp lines 6577-80.