In medieval France, along with various domestic political struggles and international great power games, the French royal power has been greatly developed, when the Capetian dynasty successively appeared Louis VI, Philip II, Louis IX and Philip IV These important monarchs, and during the period of Philip IV, France's administrative, judicial, and financial institutions were further improved, which took a key step for the final formation of the French state system.
Philip's mother died when he was three years old, and his father, who married his stepmother, did not care about him, and as a young man, he grew up in the midst of complex court struggles, becoming heir to the throne after the death of his older brother, ascending to the throne in October 1285.
Philip IV was known as the "Philip the Beautiful", but unlike his grandfather and father, he had no interest in campaigning far from mainland France, and what he wanted to do was to complete the unification of mainland France and the strong consolidation of royal power. Through his marriage to Queen Juana I of Navarre, he gave France champagne from the territory of the Kingdom of Navarre. The growing power of France fueled the ambitions of Philip IV, whose main act during his reign was to expand the royal realm as much as possible.
Philip IV had four major achievements.
The first is the creation of the first conference. Due to the strong power of the French upper class and the lack of unity of the urban citizen power at the bottom, in order to adapt to the social development of France, Philip IV stipulated that the clergy and noble members of the council should be appointed by the king, and the small and medium nobles accounted for a large proportion, and the citizens were elected by each city. The council was convened by the king and met separately for each rank, with each rank giving an opinion. So that the royal power can allow all levels and regions to check and balance each other and maintain stability.
The second is territorial expansion. In 1294, Philip IV summoned King Edward I of England to Paris for trial in the name of a lord, but Edward I refused, so Philip IV took the opportunity to seize Gascony's castle, which led to the outbreak of war. Edward I formed an alliance with Count Flanders, but was defeated by Philip IV, and France occupied almost all of Gascony, beginning to establish effective rule over Gascony. At the same time, Philip IV repelled the attacks of the princes of the Holy Roman Empire on Champagne in the east, maintaining tranquility on the eastern border.
The third is to kill the Pope. At that time, Pope Boniface VIII was a very unreasonable person, he ignored the basic fact that the French clergy were also French, and believed that ** taxing the clergy was a violation of the privileges of the Church, so he issued an edict affirming the tax-free privileges of the Church, and threatened the king with excommunication that the king could not tax the clergy, so Philip IV forbade the French princes and clergy to pay tribute to the pope, and finally Boniface VIII had to make concessions. Later, Philip IV wanted to deal with a guilty bishop, but Boniface VIII said that the bishop could only be tried in Rome, and at the same time canceled the previous financial concessions, and then condemned Philip IV for his crimes in the church, and Philip IV concocted a papal edict on this matter in an even more rude tone, so as to anger the French people and convene a ** council against the pope. Finally, in 1303, he sent people to unite with the anti-papal forces in Italy, and on September 7, Anani arrested and executed Boniface VIII, causing Boniface VIII to be angry more than a month later.
The fourth was the dissolution of the Knights Templar. The Knights Templar once made their fortune in the name of the Crusades and enjoyed various religious privileges, forming a powerful religious force. However, the members of the Knights Templar lived a depraved life, often disobeying orders due to their deep pockets, and the French people hated them. Philip IV found an opportunity to abruptly arrest the Knights Templar, convict them of idolatry and heresy, and homosexuality, and convened a council to obtain support from all levels for sanctions against the Templars, and then with the consent of Pope Clement V, the Templars were finally disbanded.
Although Philip IV was a very accomplished monarch, many people scolded Philip IV for being unkind at the time, especially in the **religious world, there are many ** disciples who think that Philip IV is a tyrant. Their reasons were twofold: one was the angry death of the pope mentioned above, and the other was that they could not accept Philip IV's open robbery of money.
Speaking of which, you may be a little confused, why is it associated with public money grabbing?Could it be that such a good-looking king would also do robber things?That's right, it's true.
Philip IV spent money on everything he did as a monarch, but the finances of France were not in a good position at the time. In order to solve his financial difficulties, Philip IV set his sights on the Knights Templar, which he felt was a good opportunity to make money.
At that time, Philip IV disbanded the Knights Templar, nominally to maintain his rule, but the deeper reason behind it was to grab money, and Philip IV's order at that time was: "All Templars in the Kingdom of France are ordered to be arrested and imprisoned pending trial." But there is a more important sentence after this: "and all their movable and immovable property shall be confiscated." ”
See, this was the most important purpose of Philip IV's dissolution of the Knights Templar.
There were 138 Templars** in Paris that day, and since it was a Friday, the financial industry later had an allusion to "Black Friday".
Before Philip IV, the excellent monetary system established by Louis IX had always been a reference norm, but due to the increase in money reserves and the gradual decline of the monetary system, there were two options: either adjust the nominal value of the currency in circulation, or adjust the intrinsic value of the currency in circulation and mint new coins to increase the flow of currency. Philip IV adopted both measures, but the new coins did not work well, so Philip IV had a bad reputation as a counterfeiter.
The effects continued until the devaluation of the currency in 1313.
At that time, a man named Jofoir de Paris said: "In the year of my account, the currency has plummeted all the way ......Some people were so angry that they ...... madThe king was hated even more because of this, and all the old men in his palace ......”
So for Philip IV, his situation made it difficult to sympathize with him, because he didn't have many options at the time. So when what Joffois de Paris said became known, everyone fell silent.
Today, when we revisit this period of history, our evaluation of Philip IV should not be influenced by religious circles, because for the French people under Philip IV at that time, and for France after him, his legacy to this country and history is enough for him to get a positive evaluation, because he was a worthy monarch.