Link to Chronology
We resume after a longish break
Various complications in my "real" life have prevented my building up a reserve of chapters to start in on. None the less, I feel it is time to resume, as I'm hitting some quite interesting material about the development of the bourgeoisie in the 14th and 15th century. I'm hoping I can stay ahead of my posts here.
A History of Europe by Henri Pirenne
University Books, first published 1938 but written during the Great War
Book Seven
The Hegemony of the Papacy and of France in the Thirteenth Century
Chapter IV
Philip the Fair and Boniface VIII
1. The Cause of the Crisis
p356 ... On December 12th, 1294... [the Roman Curia] elected... a Roman noble, Benedetto Gaetani, who took the name of Boniface VIII.
p357 In this person the last pope of the line of Innocent III and Innocent IV ascended the throne of St Peter. His manifest aim was to restore to the Holy See the splendor, the prestige, the moral authority, and the universal political domain which it had enjoyed in their time... There was nothing new in... [his attempting to affirm] the primacy in the Church of the successor of St. Peter, and of reminding the world that the temporal power was subordinate to the Church, since, as part of the Church, it could make no pretension to shake off the authority of the head of the Church. There was nothing new in this, nothing that had not already been pointed out by Nicholas I and Gregory VII, clearly formulated by Innocent III, and logically demonstrated by the Scholastics... Boniface had merely summarized and repeated the principles of his great predecessors, without adding anything to them.
Why, then, did they excite such a storm of indignation, and result in catastrophe? Simply on account of their immutability. They were not in accordance with political realities; times were changed, and what the Pope, in conformity with tradition, promulgated as the essential truth, now excited the opposition of the most advanced nations in Europe, since both kings and peoples were agreed in regarding them as an insupportable encroachment on their most legitimate rights and interests.
Nothing to do with religion or politics is ever set in stone.
...[Boniface VIII] found Edward I [of England] no more tractable than Philip the Fair [of France], and the English Parliament repudiated his claims no less vigorously than the States General in Paris...
p358 ...the [English Parliament's] prerogative of granting taxation -- was formally acknowledged [by the Crown] in 1297. Henceforth the nation and the sovereign were associated in the government of the country. Although the personal power of the prince was subjected to definite limitations, and although, alone among his European peers, he had to renounce the possibility of waging wars inspired by mere dynastic ambition, and apply himself solely to enterprises approved and subsidized by his people, yet, on the other hand, what strength he derived from this compliance! From the end of the 13th century the English policy was truly... a national policy...
...what France had become she owed exclusively to the monarchy. It was the monarchy that had liberated her from the particularism of the feudal system, had defended her against external enemies, had protected her nascent cities, and had endowed her with financial and administrative institutions which safeguarded the people against violence and exaction... Thus in France the king enjoyed the same popularity which in England was enjoyed by the Parliament...
Philip (IV) the Fair, who succeeded to his father, Philip the Bold, in 1285, made a new addition to the kingdom on ascending the throne. His wife was the heiress of the Kingdom of Navarre, and what was more important, of the County of Champagne, which was united to the royal domain. With the exception of Guyenne, in the possession of the King of England, Brittany, which had always maintained an independence which was not particularly embarrassing, on account of the outlying position of the country, and Flanders, all the great fiefs had now returned under the direct power of the Crown...
I'm not going to go into the methods of his reign. His reliance on "men of obscure birth, who had emerged from the bourgeoisie or the petite noblesse to act as his agents.
p362 ... Hitherto [the Crown] has always supported [in the Low Countries] the house of Dampierre against the rival dynasty of Avesnes, and had helped it to extend its influence over Namur, Liege, Guelders and Luxembourg. In this way it set up the power of one of its vassals in those portions of the ancient Lotharingia which were dependent on Germany, and its support of the Count of Flanders against the Count of Hainaut was part of its skillful policy of encroachment at the expense of the Empire... In 1293, breaking with his past... [Jean d'Avesne] took his place among the proteges of the Capet dynasty. In this way Philip the Fair became the ally of the mortal enemy of the House of Flanders, whose suzerain he was, and to whom, according to feudal law, he owed comfort and assistance!...
p363 The social unrest which was manifest in the Flemish cities from the middle of the 13th century offered the royal policy a fresh occasion to intervene, which it did immediately with extraordinary success. In the great industrial centers of Gand, Bruges, Ypres, Lille and Douai, the masses of the workers -- weavers, fullers, clothworkers, etc. -- were inspired by a veritable class hatred of the patricians who constituted the municipal government. They accused the aldermen of administering the affairs of the municipalities to the sole advantage of the wealthy bourgeoisie, of sacrificing the workers to the interests of the rich wool and cloth merchants, and of reducing them to starvation wages... In 1280 a general revolt broke out simultaneously in all the Flemish and Walloon cities, leading to veritable street battles in several of them. Guy de Dampierre had taken this opportunity of intervening. Incapable, unassisted, of dealing with the patrician municipalities, which for some time past had openly defied his authority, he adopted an attitude of great benevolence to the people, in order to induce them to defend his princely prerogatives. [Thus] Threatened by the alliance between the count and the "vulgar," the patricians immediately sought a protector in the suzerain of their prince, the King of France. Already, in 1275, under the reign of Philip the Bold, the Thirty Nine of Gand, [Footnote: Sheriffs, representatives of the patriciate who governed the commune.] dismissed by Guy de Dampierre, had appealed to the Parlement of Paris. The Parlement had pronounced an equitable judgement... But the legists of Philip the Fair had before long to replace the impartiality of the law by the parti pris of politics... Mere "sergeants" were despatched to the Flemish cities as "guardians," in the name of the Crown; the fleur-de-lys banner was flown from the city belfries, conferring upon then an immunity which enabled them to confront their seigneur and his bailiffs with flat defiance. The arrogant plutocracy which dominated the cities had nothing to fear now that it could take shelter beneath the formidable emblem of the royal power. Henceforth it could laugh at the efforts of the count and the "vulgar." It gloried in the name of leliarts (lily-men) which the people conferred upon it as a term of abuse. To the novel methods of the pitiless policy now directed against him, Guy de Dampierre, threatened from without by the alliance of Philip the Fair with Jean d'Avesnes, and from within by the king's protectorate over his great cities, could have devised no means of resistance, had not the war which had just broken out again between France and England inspired him with the hope of opposing force with force.
I'm finding these peeks into the workings of the cities the most interesting part of these chapters. That there was already a plutocracy with a patriciate and, my favorite, "the Thirty Nine of Gand," already in the late 13th century is remarkable. The rivalry of the kings of France and England is much less interesting, though how we are getting from this stage of history to the stage I'm more familiar with (during the wars of religion) I am curious to learn.
Edward I defeats the Scottish king, Baliol, at Dunbar in 1296, ending the Kingdom of Scotland. He then moves against Philip the Fair in the Low Countries in alliance with Guy de Dampierre and Adolphus of Nassau. Unfortunately, as soon as Edward landed in Flanders the Scots revolted again. He was forced to make a quick peace with Philip and return to deal with Scotland. Flanders was confiscated by the Crown. Holland and Zeeland were inherited by Philip's ally Jean d'Avesnes, the Count of Hainaut. The new king of Germany, Albert of Austria, was defeated when he advanced to "Nimeguen."
p366 ...Already the French were beginning to regard the Rhine as the natural frontier of the kingdom. The power of the Capets had attained its apogee.
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