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Birth:          1268 Fontainebleau, Ile de France, France
Death:          29 Nov 1314 Fontainebleau, Ile de France, France
Burial:         9 Dec 1314 St. Denis, Ile de France, France

Notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_IV_of_France
Philip IV (April–June 1268 – 29 November 1314), called the Fair (French: Philippe le 
Bel, Basque: Filipe Ederra) or the Iron King (French: le Roi de fer), was King of France 
from 1285 until his death. By virtue of his marriage with Joan I of Navarre, he was also 
Philip I, King of Navarre from 1284 to 1305. He also briefly ruled the County of 
Champagne in right of his wife, although after his accession as king in 1285 the 
county remained under the sole governance of his wife until 1305, and then his son, 
Louis until 1314.

Philip relied on skillful civil servants, such as Guillaume de Nogaret and Enguerrand 
de Marigny, to govern the kingdom rather than on his barons. Philip and his advisors 
were instrumental in the transformation of France from a feudal country to a 
centralized state. Philip, who sought an uncontested monarchy, compelled his vassals 
by wars and restricted feudal usages. His ambitions made him highly influential in 
European affairs. His goal was to place his relatives on foreign thrones. Princes from 
his house ruled in Naples and Hungary. He tried and failed to make another relative 
the Holy Roman Emperor. He began the long advance of France eastward by taking 
control of scattered fiefs.[1]

The most notable conflicts of Philip's reign include a dispute with Edward I of 
England, who was also his vassal as the Duke of Aquitaine, and a war with the County 
of Flanders, which gained temporary autonomy following Philip’s defeat at the Battle of 
the Golden Spurs (1302). To further strengthen the monarchy, he tried to control the 
French clergy and entered in conflict with Pope Boniface VIII. This conflict led to the 
transfer of the papal court to the enclave of Avignon in 1309.

In 1306, Philip the Fair expelled the Jews from France and, in 1307, Friday 13th, he 
annihilated the order of the Knights Templar. Philip was in debt to both groups and 
saw them as a "state within the state".

His final year saw a scandal amongst the royal family, known as the Tour de Nesle 
Affair, during which the three daughters-in-law of Philip were accused of adultery. His 
three sons were successively kings of France, Louis X, Philip V, and Charles IV.
Biography[edit]

Childhood[edit]

A member of the House of Capet, Philip was born in the medieval fortress of 
Fontainebleau (Seine-et-Marne) to the future Philip III, the Bold and his first wife, 
Isabella of Aragon. He was the second of four sons born to the couple. His father was 
the heir apparent of France at that time, being the eldest son of King Louis IX (better 
known as St. Louis).

In August 1270, when Philip was two years old, his grandfather died while on Crusade, 
his father became king, and his elder brother Louis became heir apparent. Only five 
months later, in January 1271, Philip's mother died after falling from a horse; she was 
pregnant with her fifth child at the time and had not yet been crowned queen beside 
her husband. A few months later, one of Philip's younger brothers, Robert, also died. 
Philip's father was finally crowned king at Rhiems on 15 August 1271. Six days later, 
he married again; Philip's step-mother was Marie, daughter of the duke of Brabant.

In May 1276, Philip's elder brother Louis died, and the eight year old Philip became 
crown prince. It was suspected that Louis had been poisoned, and that his 
stepmother, Marie of Brabant, had instigated the murder. One reason for these rumours 
was the fact that the queen gave birth to her own eldest son in the same month as the 
death of the crown prince.[2] However, both Philip and his surviving full brother 
Charles lived well into adulthood and raised large families of their own.

Youth[edit]

The prince was nicknamed the Fair (le Bel) because of his handsome appearance, but 
his inflexible personality gained him other epithets, from friend and foe alike. His fierce 
opponent Bernard Saisset, bishop of Pamiers, said of him, "He is neither man nor 
beast. He is a statue."[3]

The scholastic part of Philip's education was entrusted to Guillaume d'Ercuis, his 
father's almoner.[4]

After the unsuccessful Aragonese Crusade against Peter III of Aragon, which ended in 
October 1285, and just before his father's death, the 17-year old Philip negotiated the 
safe passage across the Pyrenees mountains: safe conduct was granted to members 
of the royal family, but not to the troops.[citation needed]

Consolidation of the royal demesne[edit]

Philip ascended to the throne and became King at the age of 17. As a king, Philip was 
determined to strengthen the monarchy at any cost. He relied, more than any of his 
predecessors, on a professional bureaucracy of legalists. Because to the public he 
kept aloof and left specific policies, especially unpopular ones, to his ministers, he 
was called a "useless owl" by his contemporaries, among them Bishop Saisset.[5] His 
reign marks the French transition from a charismatic monarchy – which could all but 
collapse in an incompetent reign – to a bureaucratic kingdom, a move, under a certain 
historical reading, towards modernity.

Marriage[edit]

Philip married Queen Joan I of Navarre (1271–1305) on 16 August 1284. The primary 
administrative benefit of this was the inheritance of Joan in Champagne and Brie, 
which were adjacent to the royal demesne in Ile-de-France and became thus 
effectively united to the king's own lands, forming an expansive area. Upon the 
accession to the throne of Louis X in 1314, Champagne became united to the royal 
domain. In 1328, Philip VI used this fact to permanently annex the lands, 
compensating the lawful claimant, Joan II of Navarre, senior heir of Philip IV, with 
lands elsewhere in France.

The Kingdom of Navarre in the Pyrenees was not so important to contemporary 
interests of the French crown. It remained in personal union 1284–1329, after which it 
went its separate way. Philip gained Lyon for France in 1312.

War with the English[edit]

As Duke of Aquitaine, the 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.[6]

In 1293 following a naval incident between the Normans and the English, Philip 
summoned Edward to the French court. The English King sought to negotiate the 
matter and sent ambassadors to Paris but they were turned away with a blunt refusal. 
Negotiation was for kings; Edward was addressed by Philip as a duke, a vassal and 
nothing more, despite the incident having been an international one between England 
and France and not an internal one involving Edward's possessions within the 
kingdom of France.

Attempting to use their family connections to achieve what open politics had not, 
Edward sent his brother Edmund Crouchback (who was both Philip's cousin and step-
father-in-law) to negotiate with the French Royal family and avert war. Also, Edward 
was at that time betrothed by proxy to Philip's sister Blanche, and Edmund was to 
escort her to England for the wedding in the event of the negotiations being 
successful.

An agreement was indeed reached; it stated that Edward would voluntarily relinquish 
his continental lands to Philip as a sign of submission in his capacity as Duke of 
Aquitaine and in return Philip would forgive him and restore his land 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 Blanche; 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 his 
French lands to Edward was completed.

But Edward, Edmund and the English were 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 but 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.[6]

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 to the southwest of France were fought in 1294–98 and 1300–03. Philip 
gained Guienne but was forced to return it. The search for income to cover military 
expenditures set its stamp on Philip's reign and his contemporary reputation. Pursuant 
to the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1303), the marriage of Philip's daughter Isabella to 
the Prince of Wales, heir of Philip's enemy, 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.[citation needed]

Drive for income[edit]

See also: Coinage of Philip IV of France and History of the Jews in France § The 
Great Exile of 1306

In the shorter term, Philip arrested Jews so that he could seize their assets to 
accommodate the inflated costs of modern warfare, expelling them from his French 
territories on 22 July 1306. At this point in his reign Philip was faced with extensive 
financial liabilities, partially inherited from his father's war against Aragon and partly 
incurred by the cost of his own campaigns against the English and their allies in 
Flanders. His financial victims also included rich abbots and the Lombard merchants 
who had earlier made him extensive loans on the pledge of repayment from future 
taxation. Like the Jews, the Lombard bankers were expelled from France and their 
property expropriated. In addition to these measures Philip debased the French 
coinage which by 1306 had led to a two-thirds loss in the value of the livres, sous and 
deniers in circulation. This financial crisis led to rioting in Paris which forced Philip to 
briefly seek refuge in the Paris Temple - headquarters of the Knights Templar.[7]

Relations with the Catholic Church[edit]

Philip was condemned by his enemy, Pope Boniface VIII in the Catholic Church[8] for 
his spendthrift lifestyle. When he also levied taxes on the French clergy of one half 
their annual income, he caused an uproar within the Roman 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. This 
prompted a drawn-out diplomatic battle between Church and King. Philip convoked an 
assembly of bishops, nobles and grand bourgeois of Paris in order to condemn the 
Pope. This precursor to the Etats Généraux 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. Boniface retaliated with the celebrated bull Unam Sanctam 
(1302), a declaration of papal supremacy. Philip emerged victorious, after having sent 
his agent William Nogaret to arrest Boniface at Anagni. The pope escaped but died 
soon afterward. The French archbishop Bertrand de Goth was elected pope as 
Clement V and thus began the so-called Babylonian Captivity of the papacy (1309–77), 
during which the official seat of the papacy moved to Avignon, an enclave surrounded 
by French territories, and was subjected to French control.[9]

In Flanders[edit]

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 a new battle followed at Mons-en-Pévèle 
two years later, which ended indecisively.[10] Still, in 1305, Philip forced the Flemish 
to accept a harsh peace treaty, playing out his superior diplomatic skills; the peace 
exacted heavy reparations and humiliating penalties, and added to the royal territory 
the rich cloth cities of Lille and Douai, sites of major cloth fairs. 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.

Suppression of the Knights Templar[edit]

Philip was substantially in debt to the Knights Templar, a monastic military order whose 
original role as protectors of Christian pilgrims in the Latin East had been largely 
replaced by banking and other commercial activities by the end of the 13th century.
[11] As the popularity of the Crusades had decreased, support for the military orders 
had waned, and Philip used a disgruntled complaint against the Knights Templar as an 
excuse to move against the entire organization as it existed in France, in part to free 
himself from his debts. Other motives appear to have included concern over perceived 
heresy, assertion of French control over a weakened Papacy and finally, the 
substitution of royal officials for officers of the Temple in the financial management of 
French government.[12] Recent studies emphasize the political and religious 
motivations of Philip the Fair and his ministers (especially Guillaume de Nogaret). It 
seems that, with the “discovery” and repression of the “Templars' heresy,” the Capetian 
monarchy claimed for itself the mystic foundations of the papal theocracy. The Temple 
case was the last step of a process of appropriating these foundations, which had 
begun with the Franco-papal rift at the time of Boniface VIII. Being the ultimate 
defender of the Catholic faith, the Capetian king was invested with a Christlike 
function that put him above the pope. What was at stake in the Templars' trial, then, 
was the establishment of a "royal theocracy".[13]

At daybreak on Friday, 13 October 1307, hundreds of Templars in France were 
simultaneously arrested by agents of Philip the Fair, to be later tortured into admitting 
heresy in the Order.[14] The Templars were supposedly answerable to only the Pope, 
but Philip used his influence over Clement V, who was largely his pawn, to disband the 
organization. Pope Clement did attempt to hold proper trials, but Philip used the 
previously forced confessions to have many Templars burned at the stake before they 
could mount a proper defense.

In March 1314, Philip had Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Temple, 
and Geoffroi de Charney, Preceptor of Normandy, burned at the stake. The account 
goes as follows:

The cardinals dallied with their duty until March 1314, (exact day is disputed by 
scholars) when, on a scaffold in front of Notre Dame, Jacques de Molay, Templar 
Grand Master, Geoffroi de Charney, Master of Normandy, Hugues de Peraud, Visitor of 
France, and Godefroi de Gonneville, Master of Aquitaine, were brought forth from the 
jail in which for nearly seven years they had lain, to receive the sentence agreed upon 
by the cardinals, in conjunction with the Archbishop of Sens and some other prelates 
whom they had called in. Considering the offenses, which the culprits had confessed 
and confirmed, the penance imposed was in accordance with rule — that of perpetual 
imprisonment. The affair was supposed to be concluded when, to the dismay of the 
prelates and wonderment of the assembled crowd, de Molay and Geoffroi de Charney 
arose. They had been guilty, they said, not of the crimes imputed to them, but of 
basely betraying their Order to save their own lives. It was pure and holy; the charges 
were fictitious and the confessions false. Hastily the cardinals delivered them to the 
Prevot of Paris, and retired to deliberate on this unexpected contingency, but they 
were saved all trouble. When the news was carried to Philippe he was furious. A short 
consultation with his council only was required. The canons pronounced that a 
relapsed heretic was to be burned without a hearing; the facts were notorious and no 
formal judgment by the papal commission need be waited for. That same day, by 
sunset, a stake was erected on a small island in the Seine, the Ile des Juifs, near the 
palace garden. There de Molay and de Charney were slowly burned to death, refusing 
all offers of pardon for retraction, and bearing their torment with a composure which 
won for them the reputation of martyrs among the people, who reverently collected 
their ashes as relics.[15][16]

The fact that, in little more than a month, Pope Clement V died in torment of a 
loathsome disease thought to be lupus, and that in eight months Philip IV of France, at 
the early age of forty-six, perished by an accident while hunting, necessarily gave rise 
to the legend that de Molay had cited them before the tribunal of God. Such stories 
were rife among the people, whose sense of justice had been scandalized by the 
whole affair. Even in distant Germany, Philip's death was spoken of as a retribution for 
his destruction of the Templars, and Clement was described as shedding tears of 
remorse on his death-bed for three great crimes: the poisoning of Henry VII, Holy 
Roman Emperor, and the ruin of the Templars and Beguines.[17] Within 14 years the 
throne passed rapidly through Philip's sons, who died relatively young, and without 
producing male heirs. By 1328, his male line was extinguished, and the throne had 
passed to the line of his brother, the House of Valois.

Expulsion of the Jews[edit]

While King Edward ordered the Jews to leave England in 1290, Philip the Fair expelled 
the Jews from France in 1306. With the Jews gone, Philip appointed royal guardians to 
collect the loans made by the Jews, and the money was passed to the Crown. The 
scheme did not work well. The Jews were regarded to be good businessmen who 
satisfied their customers, while the king's collectors were universally unpopular. 
Finally, in 1315, because of the "clamour of the people", 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, who did not honour 
his commitment.[18]

Tour de Nesle affair[edit]

In 1314, the daughters-in-law of Philip IV, Margaret of Burgundy (wife of Louis X) and 
Blanche of Burgundy (wife of Charles IV) were accused of adultery, and their alleged 
lovers (Phillipe d'Aunay and Gauthier d'Aunay) tortured, flayed and executed in what 
has come to be known as the Tour de Nesle Affair (French: Affaire de la tour de 
Nesle).[19] A third daughter-in-law, Joan II, Countess of Burgundy (wife of Philip V), 
was accused of knowledge of the affairs.[19]

Crusades and diplomacy with Mongols[edit]

Main article: Franco-Mongol alliance

Further information: Europeans in Medieval China § Diplomatic missions to Europe

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.[20][21][22] 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.[23] There was further correspondence 
between Arghun and Philip in 1288 and 1289,[24] outlining potential military 
cooperation. However, Philip never actually pursued such military plans.

In April 1305, the new Mongol ruler Öljaitü sent letters to Philip,[25] 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[26] and 
died soon after in a hunting accident.

Death[edit]

Philip IV's rule signaled the decline of the papacy's power from its near complete 
authority. His palace located on the Île de la Cité is represented today by surviving 
sections of the Conciergerie. He suffered a cerebral ictus during a hunt at Pont-
Sainte-Maxence (Forest of Halatte) and died a few weeks later, on 29 November 
1314, in Fontainebleau, where he was born. He is buried in the Basilica of St Denis. 
He was succeeded by his son Louis X.

Issue[edit]

The children of Philip IV of France and Joan I of Navarre were:
1.Margaret (ca. 1288, Paris – after November 1294, Paris). Died in childhood, but 
betrothed in November 1294 (aged six) to Infante Ferdinand of Castile, later Ferdinand 
IV of Castile.
2.Louis X – ( 4 October 1289 – 5 June 1316)
3.Blanche (1290, Paris– after 13 April 1294, Saint Denis). Died in childhood, but 
betrothed in December 1291 (aged one) to Infante Ferdinand of Castile, later 
Ferdinand IV of Castile. Blanche was buried in the Basilica of St Denis.
4.Philip V – (1292/93–3 January 1322)
5.Charles IV – (1294–1 February 1328)
6.Isabella – (c. 1295–23 August 1358). Married Edward II of England and was the 
mother of Edward III of England. This makes Philip IV the maternal grandfather of 
Edward III of England and an ancestor of every English king after Edward II.
7.Robert (1297, Paris – August 1308,Saint Germain-en-Laye). The Flores historiarum of 
Bernard Guidonis names "Robertum" as youngest of the four sons of Philip IV of 
France, adding that he died "in flore adolescentiæ suæ" and was buried "in 
monasterio sororum de Pyssiaco" in August 1308. Betrothed in October 1306 (aged 
nine) to Constance of Sicily.

All three of Philip's sons who reached adulthood became kings of France, and his only 
surviving daughter, as consort of Edward II, was queen of England.

The Family of Philip IV 

In fiction[edit]

Dante Alighieri often refers to Philip in La Divina Commedia, never by name but as the 
"mal di Francia" (plague of France).[27]

Philip is the title character in Le Roi de fer (The Iron King), the 1955 first novel in Les 
Rois maudits (The Accursed Kings), a series of French historical novels by Maurice 
Druon. He was portrayed by Georges Marchal in the 1972 French miniseries 
adaptation of the series, and by Tchéky Karyo in the 2005 adaptation.[28][29]

Parents
____ Philippe III "le Hardi" ("the Bold") (1 May 1245 - 5 Oct 1285)
OF ARAGON Isabel (1248 - 28 Jan 1271)

Siblings
CAPET Philippe IV "le Bel" (1268 - 29 Nov 1314)
OF VALOIS Charles I (12 Mar 1270 - 16 Dec 1325)

Marriage To DE NAVARRE-CHAMPAGNE Joann (Jeanne) (Jan 1271 - 2 Apr 1305)
    m. 16 Aug 1284 

Notes

Parents
OF NAVARRE Henry (Henri) (Enrique) (ABT 1244 - 22 Jul 1274)
D'ARTOIS Blanche (1248 - 2 May 1302)

Children by DE NAVARRE-CHAMPAGNE Joann (Jeanne) Jan 1271 - 2 Apr 1305
OF FRANCE Isabella (1292 - 21 Nov 1358)

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