Europe in the Middle Ages

by Ierne L. Plunket

The proud old man survived the indignities he had suffered only by a few weeks, and his successor, having dared to excommunicate those who took part in the scene at Anagni, died also with mysterious suddenness. No definite suspicion attached to Philip IV, but rumour whispered the fatal word ‘poison’, and the conclave of cardinals spent ten uneasy months in trying to find a new pope. At last a choice emerged from the conclave, the Archbishop of Bordeaux, with the title of Clement V. He was crowned at Lyons, and never ventured into Italy, choosing as his residence the city of Avignon in Provence.

Here for just over seventy years, during the ‘Babylonish Captivity’ as it was usually called, a succession of popes reigned under French influence, having exchanged the imperial yoke for one still more binding.

Philip IV at once made use of this French Head of Christendom to condemn the Order of Templars, which from their powerful organization and extensive revenues he had long regarded with dislike and envy.

The crusades at an end, the Templars had outlived the object of their foundation; while the self-denial imposed upon them and their roving, uncloistered life, exposed them to constant temptations to which many of the less spiritual succumbed. Thus their suppression was probably wise; but Philip IV, a pitiless enemy, did not merely suppress, he pursued the Knights of the Temple with vindictive cruelty. Hundreds were thrown into dungeons, and there tortured into confessing crimes, the committal of which they afterwards recanted in vain; while their principal officers were burned at the stake in the market-places of the large French towns. By papal commands the revenues of the Templars passed into the exchequer of the Knights of St. John, who still guarded one of the outposts of Christendom, the island of Rhodes; but the French king took care that a substantial part of the money confiscated in France went instead to his own treasury.

Philip was indeed in serious financial straits, for the revenues of the royal demesnes were proving quite inadequate to meet the expenses of a government that now extended its sway over the length and breadth of France. Philip tried many expedients to meet the deficiency, most of them bad. Such were the frequent debasement of the coinage and the imposition of the gabelle, that is of a tax on the sale of goods. This was justly hated because instead of encouraging commerce it penalized industry by adding to the price of nearly every commodity put on the market. Thus a gabelle imposed on grain would mean that a man must pay a tax on it three times over, first in the form of grain, then of flour, and finally as bread.

Worse even than the gabelle was Philip’s method of ‘farming’ the taxes, that is, of selling the right to collect them to some speculator, who would make himself responsible to the government for a round sum, and then squeeze what extra money he could out of the unfortunate populace in order to repay his efforts.

Government of Philip IV

It is not, then, for any improved financial administration that the reign of Philip IV is worthy of praise. His was no original genius, but rather a practical ability for developing the schemes invented by his predecessors. Like them he hated and distrusted his insubordinate baronage; and, seeking to impose his fierce will upon them, turned for advice and obedience to men of lesser rank, employing as the main instrument of his government the lawyer class that Philip Augustus and Louis IX had introduced in limited numbers amongst the feudal office-holders at their court.

The employment of trained workers in the place of amateurs resulted in improved administration, so it followed that under Philip IV the French government began to take a definitely modern stamp and became divided into separate departments for considering different kinds of work. Thus it was the duty of the Conseil du Roi, or King’s Council, to give the Sovereign advice; of the Chambre des Comptes, or Chamber of Finance, to deal with financial questions; of the Parlement, or chief judicial court, to sit in Paris for two months at least twice a year to hold assizes and give judgements.

The Parlement de Paris resembles the English Parliament somewhat in name; but except for a right, later acquired, of registering royal edicts, its work was entirely judicial, not legislative. The body in France that most nearly corresponded to the English Parliament was the ‘States-General’, composed of representatives of the three ‘Estates’ or classes, of clergy, nobles, and citizens. The peasants of France, who composed the greater part of her population, were not represented at all.