PHILIPPE IV, king of FRANCE, the Fair. — Born in 1268 at Fontainebleau, died there on 29 Nov. 1314. Son of Philippe III and Isabella of Aragon, he was instructed in the sciences by the cleric Guillaume d’Ercuis, to whom he always remained grateful. In 1284, at the age of 16, he married Jeanne of Navarre, who brought him the Kingdom of Navarre and the territories of Champagne and Brie. In 1305 he was widowed. At the age of 17, in Oct. 1285, he succeeded his father Philippe III.
In order to understand and judge his government, it is necessary to know his complex personality. F. has remained enigmatic to this day. The description left of him by G. Nogaret in the 6th and 7th apologia (G. Dupeyrat, Histoire occisianique..., Paris 1643, pp. 438, 518) is nothing but an ahistorical embellishment, an idyllic portrait of one of the cruelest tyrants (Renan). While for some he is one of the principal representatives of an absolutist national regime, a cold calculator who pursued the omnipotence of royal and state power without scruples, others condemn him for his hostile attitude toward the Church and the papacy, and for his exclusively French national policy, which broke the unity of Christian Europe. Joined to a rigid and zealous orthodoxy, there was in him a powerful drive for domination, manifested in his aspiration to independence from the Pope and the Emperor, in his tendencies toward conquest, in his aim of subjugating the French Church and the papacy, in founding France’s hegemony on solid foundations through meticulous finance, the army, and the fleet, as well as in unlimited avarice. Only in this dual attitude of rigid orthodoxy and a brutally tyrannical character do we have the whole F.
F.’s government appears almost modern. The part played by his advisers in F.’s decisions is debated. Certainly the lay jurists, such as Pietro Flotte, Guillaume de Nogaret, G. de Plaisan, Pietro Dubois, etc., dominated by the spirit of Roman law and of the centralization and nationalization of the State, confirmed and encouraged the king.
His policy of annexation and expansion brought new territories to France in the west and north. His financial policy provoked a grave conflict with Pope Boniface VIII, who, in the bull Cloris laicos (25 Feb. 1296), protested against the taxation of the clergy. Once the matter had been settled by the bull Esti de statu (31 July 1297), the conflict broke out again in 1301, when Boniface VIII, through his legate Bernardo di Saisse, claimed the Church’s violated rights. After Bernardo’s return to his diocese, F. responded by having him captured and summoned before the royal Assizes on a charge of high treason. The Pope demanded his release and summoned the French prelates to a Council in Rome for 1 Nov. 1302, also inviting F., by the bull Amcolta filii (5 Dec. 1301), to justify himself before the Council.
In response, as early as 3 Feb. 1302 F. convened the assembly of the Estates-General in Paris and aroused a storm of national indignation by reading a falsified bull, Deum time, and a reply to it (Sciat maxima tua fatuiata). Numerous writers took sides on both fronts, and a rich polemical literature emerged, comparable to that produced during the investiture controversy. The bull of decisive historical importance, Unam sanctam (18 Nov. 1302), in which F. was excommunicated, was answered by F. and the French Estates-General with a demand for the deposition of Boniface VIII. This was followed shortly afterward by the attack at Anagni, on 7 Sept. 1303, which hastened the Pope’s death (Oct. 1305). Benedict XI absolved F. from excommunication. His successor Clement V was so strongly influenced by F. that he withdrew Boniface VIII’s bulls and transferred the papal residence to Avignon. To avoid the trial against Pope Boniface VIII, Clement V sacrificed the Order of the Templars to the king’s fiscalism.