Philip Augustus

Chapter I The Frankish Monarchy In The Twelfth Century

France at the beginning of the twelfth century was one of the smallest and least important of the European states. The duchy of France — a title borne for three centuries by the house of Robert the Strong — was no domain exactly bounded and compact. Its lands were situated not only in the country between the Seine and the Loire, but lay in small and scattered fragments farther south, in Poitou, and in the north. Peculiar rights belonged to the king in distant towns and churches. He was lord in Orleans. He was abbat of S. Martin's at Tours and senior canon of the church of S. Quentin. And step by step within the lands of the great lords of the north, of the great dukes and the great ecclesiastics, he acquired new rights, by intervening to check some injustice or win some privilege on behalf of a lesser lord. The royal domain w^as the strength of the early Capets. As rich lords they could stand against the barons who hedged them in, and appear, unlike the Karlings, at least the equals of their great vassals. But the territory which they possessed was small,

S B and tlieir material resources, in comparison with those of other European states, were contemptible. Entering rarely into foreign politics, and then with a conspicuous absence of dignity or success, the royal house of France saw its kingdom surrounded by foes or lukewarm friends, nearly every one of whom was superior to itself in strength. To the north and east the Empire and Lorraine, the great dynasties of Flanders and Burgundy, were each more than an equal combatant for the Frankish king. Southwards the kingdom of Aries, sometimes close linked to the Empire, sometimes enjoying a precarious independence, stood aloof, with many marches and counties, from the influence of the central realm. The great dukes of Aquitaine and the proud house that ruled in Toulouse scarce in their most friendly moments professed any allegiance to the Capets. And the demon race, sprung, said legends, from the union of an Angevin count with an unearthly bride, which ruled on the banks of the lower Loire and the Maine, the borderland between France, Aquitaine, and Brittany, was gathering its powers in grim concentration of purpose for a wider sweep, which should endanger the throne of the Frankish king. The circle was completed by the great duchy of Normandy, to which was annexed the county of Maine. But small as was its territory and slight its power, the house which ruled from Paris claimed all the prerogatives and dignity of the imperial line which it had dispossessed. It clung with sagacious tenacity to the assertion that it was the successor of the line of Charles the Great. Hugh Capet had been elected in 987 by the influence of the Church at a moment when the Karling race had dwindled into impotent decadence. He had him-

I THE FEANKISH MONARCHY 3

self been a great feudal lord, the greatest and strongest of his peers. He had large possessions, his brother Henry held Burgundy for him, the dukes of Normandy and Aquitaine were his brothers - in - law, the count of Vermandois vv^as of his kin. In the twelfth century his descendants had lost the strength of his position. The great duchies around them w^ere in alien and often hostile hands. But the grandeur of their theoretical claim was not abandoned. They were still far above the feudal hierarchy, as the heirs of the Caesars, sovereigns by divine right, the lawful kings of the AVest Franks.

The monarchy of the twelfth century was absolute in principle. It claimed to be the source of all power and authority, to hold in its own hand the control of all local and central government. More than this, it was founded on an alliance with the Church, which, in spite of their persistent moral lapses, the kings had shown the keenest anxiety to keep intact. It had seemed at one time as if the irresistible movement of the feudal theory, which had transmuted all offices into fiefs, and swept all ancient survivals into the net of its universal encroachment, would overwhelm the monarchy as it had transformed the nobility and invaded the Church. And indeed in his relations with those who held land directly under him the Capetian king had fallen under the domination of the feudal claim. He was a lord like other lords, with vassals whose dues were limited and whose rights were secured. But he never ceased to be sovereign as well as suzerain, and the persistence of his assertion of the old monarchical theory, even in the period of his greatest weakness, preserved the idea and prepared the way of the absolute monarchy that was to rise in the thirteenth century above the mighty vassals which had surrounded its territories and limited its powers.

The monarchy of the Capets then was never a feudal monarchy, however closely it might be embedded in feudalism. The king was a real king, not a mere primus inter pares. The exercise of his power and the geographical limits of its extension might be restricted, but he still acted as sovereign where he could, and waited for the time when all the authority of his predecessors should be exerted without restraint. The sovereign who raised the French monarchy to the height which its most sanguine supporters in the tenth century had scarce dared to predict for it was Philip Augustus, who shares with two very different men — S. Louis and Louis XL — the fame of having created the power which became the arbiter of Europe. But his work, great as it was, was built on foundations which others had laid. It is impossible to understand his reign without a sketch of those of his father and grandfather.

Louis YL, who came to the throne as sole king in 1108, had already proved his prowess by his suppression of the barbarities and disorders of the barons of the domain. He identified the interests of the crown w^ith the assertion of the principles of good government. Engaged throughout his reign in perpetual wars, he yet managed, by diplomacy as well as military skill, to raise the monarchy far above the position which any of his house had achieved. Centralisation was his chief aim, — and the concentration of his power within the royal domain. He ceased to make journeys through

I THE FRAXKISH MONARCHY 5

the distant fiefs. Towards them his attitude was almost always hostile. He set himself, by stern repression of disorder, by constant espousal of the interests of the Church and the rising towns, to become master of his own domain and to base his sway upon his protection and his justice. Like an eager landlord adding field to field, he was constantly increasing the royal domain by purchase, confiscation, and escheat. And what he acquired he brought to order and submission. Year by year he went about redressing the wrongs of churches and monasteries, and reducing the barons — a Hugh du Puiset, a Thomas de Marie, men infamous for their devastations and their vices — to subservient peace. Year by year he visited town after town, heard cases, issued establishments, which gave the monarchy new roots in the affection of the people. Against Henry I. of England he was as persistent a foe as his external weakness would allow. Often compelled to give w^ay and temporise, he yet really held his own, and the marriage which united the Angevin lands to the fiefs of the Norman house in 1128 seemed to be more than counterbalanced by the wedding in 1137 of the heir of France with the heiress of Aquitaine.

Almost at the moment of his son's marriage Louis VI. died. He had done much to make his small state firm and compact. By his last diplomatic triumph he seemed to have opened a new era of extension for the monarchy. France and Aquitaine under one rule should be ever striving to unite ; and the house of Anjou, whose hasty and reckless Count Geoffrey Courtmantel had to fight for his wife's lands as well as his own, might well by a strong attack from north and south have been swept away. But the great opportunities needed a statesman and a warrior to use them. "La France attendait un grand homme," says Martin, "mais le grand homme ne parut pas."

The earlier part of the reign of Louis VIL, while the great Suger, the friend and minister of his father, still watched over his career, was not without strength and vigour. He held his own against pope and barons. He watched the struggle of Geoffrey of Anjou for Normandy with a sagacious abstention from active intervention, and received as reward the castle of Gisors. But the period of prosperity was ended by the call to a crusade. The voice of S. Bernard called kings and peoples to succour the Christians of the East, and Louis VH. sacrificed the prosperity of his country and the strength of his rule to what seemed a still more urgent and imperative demand. The wise rule of Suger, 1147-1150, could do no more, with all its vigour, than avert disaster during the king's absence.

On his return Louis found himself confronted by new difficulties. The most serious of them was of his own making. On March 18, 1152, an ecclesiastical council at Beaugency, near Orleans, pronounced the nullity of his marriage with Eleanor of Aquitaine. The cause which was considered sufficient was the fact that Hugh Capet, from whom Louis VII. was fifth in descent, had married a sister of the great-great-grandfather of Eleanor. When this was recognised as a sufficient cause, we can scarcely wonder that Philip Augustus should have anticipated no difficulty in freeing himself from his wife Ingeborgis. Closer personal reasons were the opinion which Louis had formed of his wife's character and the contempt

I THE FRANKISH MOXARCHY 7

which she did not hesitate to express for his pious and simple life. Strong as may have been the personal causes for the dissolution of the alliance, no greater political blunder could have been committed. The duchy of Aquitaine, with the county of Poitou — a district stretching from the Creuse to the Adour, and from Lyons to the Bay of Biscay — had hardly begun to feel it possible that it should be permanently united to the French monarchy when it was again severed. Two months later it was united to the power which most threatened the growth of the French kingdom, Eleanor, sought of many interested suitors, became, on May 18, 1152, the wife of a boy fourteen years her junior — Henry, the young count of Anjou, the heir to the great possessions of the Norman house from which his mother sprang. A few months more, and before the year 1154 was ended, Louis VIL found himself confronted by a young and vigorous rival, the husband of his former wife, who was king of the English, overlord of Scotland and Wales, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, count of Poitou, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine. He was opposed at his own doors by what might claim to be called a great continental empire.

Within the next few years causes of disagreement sprang up on every side. Henry laid claim to the homage of Toulouse, laid hands on Auvergne, pressed his encroachments into Berry, formed a strong alliance with Flanders, and by the marriage of his third son acquired control of Brittany. Louis attempted to resist the pressure of this dangerous environment by a policy of quiescence aided by secret diplomacy ; and, on the whole, he succeeded. He took for second wife Constance, daughter of Alfonso, king of Castile and Leon. He gave his sister in marriage to Raymond V., count of Toulouse. Thus he did something to counteract the Angevin influence in the south. He made a marriage treaty with his great rival, by which his little daughter Margaret and Henry's eldest boy were betrothed. On his wife's death in 1160 he married Alice of Champagne, daughter of Count Thibault V., whose four brothers, William, an ecclesiastic ; Henry, count of Champagne and Brie ; Thibault, count of Chartres and Blois ; and Stephen, count of Sancerre, formed the strongest family alliance that could be opposed to the menacing power of Henry II. He maintained a firm alliance with the orthodox pope, Alexander III. He showed himself a constant vindicator of ecclesiastical rights. When his rival's minister, Thomas Becket, the greatest prelate of the age, fled from his dominions, Louis gave him refuge in his own lands, and steadily, in spite of the strongest pressure, maintained his cause against the jealous anger of the English king. Sputters of war broke from time to time across the sky, but Louis, if not strong enough to resist for long, lost little by any of the disturbances. Again and again, half secretly, half openly, he stirred up and supported the rebellious sons against their father, notably in the great and dangerous insurrection of 1173.

By every means Louis strove to extend his influence outside the royal domain, which his father had rendered strong and submissive. With the great ecclesiastics he was in constant and amicable relations. With the rising liberties of the towns he showed himself to be in sympathy by many grants of privilege and charters of

I THE FRANKISH MONARCHY 9

incorporation. Outside his domain he appeared in arms in the valley of the Rhone, in Aiivergne, and in \e\sLy. In Languedoc he was in constant communication with the barons who chafed under the Angevin rule. Bertrand de Born, most gallant of knights and of troubadours, called to him loudly to vindicate the rights of his crown. He was content not to answer the appeal, but to neglect no means of confirming his southern alliances. It was a day of small things, and among small measures only could the ruler of the French kingdom take his w^ay. From a military point of view the power of the crown had fallen back, but diplomacy gave a different aspect in which to view its position.

The later years of Louis YII. showed the power of the crown gradually increasing, but still feeble indeed in comparison with the great states by which it was surrounded. The Empire under Frederic I., one of the greatest of medieval monarchs, had triumphed over the Italian cities, and made a concordat with the pope, by which the imperial power, if it had nominally retired from some of its pretensions, was certainly not in reality the weaker. At a critical juncture it had seemed probable that the emperor would even intervene in French politics. He remained a strong power on the eastern frontier, and a source of support to the border bishoprics and great lay fiefs in any quarrel that might arise with the French' king. In the south too he held a power which threatened that of the French crown. In 1178 he was crowned king of Burgund}^ and Aries, and thus entered into feudal relations with many fiefs over which the French king claimed some authority. But a far more important factor in French politics was the widespread and increasing power of the Angevin house under the greatest of its rulers. The dominions of Henry 11. stretched from the Somme to the Pyrenees, and inchided ahnost the whole of the land between the Creuse and the Lot. Duke of Normandy, with the practical command of Brittany ; duke of Aquitaine, having imprisoned his wife, whose liberty might have been dangerous as an encouragement to the intrigues of the turbulent baronage of the south ; count of Anjou, and Maine, and Touraine, lord of many petty counties which impinged on the French kingdom at every point, Henry H. confirmed, by diplomatic and military alliances, the power which marriage and inheritance had founded. The Lombard cities were his allies, his friends held the passes of the Alps and the Pyrenees. Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony, at one time the greatest territorial lord in Europe, at another the banished possessor of but a few northern cities, was his son-in-law. Alfonso IX., king of Castile, had married another of his daughters, and was eager in seeking his counsel. With all the Spanish kingdoms in turn he had relations, as with the distant lands of Scandinavia, with Sicily, whose king was his son-in-law, with Jerusalem, and the nearer powers of Flanders and Burgundy. Year by year, by purchase or exchange, by treaty or deliberate aggression, his power over the small lordships which surrounded the territory of the French king increased. Yet great as was the external power of the English king, his position was uneasy in the extreme. So long as his own extraordinary physical and mental vigour endured, he was able to suppress his turbulent vassals, to overawe his timid neighbours, and to conquer his rebellious sons.

I THE FRANKISH MONARCHY 11

But the extent of his possessions was too vast, the peoples submitted to his sway were too heterogeneous, for his power to endure after his death, or even to survive any cessation of his personal activity. In 1179 Henry's word was still thrice as powerful in Gaul as that of the king who reigned in Paris, but ten years later it would be seen that the whole current of affairs had set in a new direction.

Meanwhile the Frankish monarchy was advancing, less by a steady and deliberate policy than by fortunate accidents and a certain fitful sagacity of the monarch. The direct power of the crown extended over but a small part of Gaul, hardly more than the Ile-de- France, the Orleanais, and Picardy. But within that limited area the turbulence of the baronage had received severe checks. The chatelains, guardians of royal castles, whose position, originally official, had become a serious menace to the tranquillity of the country, to the peace of the church, and to the poAver of the crown, had, by the policy of Louis YL, continued by his successor, been almost extinguished. The smaller barons attended the royal summons with more alacrity, and the barons of the district round Paris, the lords of Beaumont and Montmorency, of Clermont and Dammartin, were learning to serve the crown as its more intimate servants and responsible officials. A gradual concentration of powers was preparing the monarchy to extend its influence. It was from within that the strength came before any serious attempt was made to use it outside. The great house of Champagne, holding also the county of Blois, hemmed in the royal domain in dangerous proximity. It was a diplomatic triumph to knit the princes of this powerful line in close alliance with the crown. In 1160, as has been said, Louis married Alice, daughter of the count of Blois and Champagne, whose elder brother was already seneschal, and whose second brother, William of the White Hands, was before long given the highest ecclesiastical dignity in the realm — the archbishopric of Rheims. The alliance was strengthened later hj the marriage of one of Louis's daughters to Henry, count of Champagne, and of another to Thibault, count of Blois.

The extension of the royal influence thus obtained was increased by several definite steps, some of them proceeding from this alliance. Li the north, through William of Rheims, Louis VH. won greatly increased authority. He entered into friendly relations with the bishops, and in some cases with the citizens, of Arras, Terouanne, Tournai, and Cambrai, while the bishoprics of Lorraine sought in him a protection from the encroachments of their duke. Himself, as men said, though not with complete truth, more of a monk than a king, Louis entered readily into friendly association with the great ecclesiastical fiefs which depended on the crown. In the duchy of Burgundy not only the great abbeys of Cluny and Tournus, but the bishoprics of Langres, Macon, Chalon, and Autun depended directly on the crown, and Louis did not allow the relation to be merely formal. In the political disputes of the Burgundian duchy he no less actively intervened. He encouraged the disagreements between the Duchess Mary and her son, Hugh HI., and secured the submission of their dispute to the decision of his own court. He even intervened in the districts of the kingdom of Burgundy

I THE FKANKISH MONARCHY 13

which depended feudally on the empire. His sister's son, Alberic of Toulouse, married the daughter of the dauphin of Vienne, from which, as Raymond V. wrote to the king, "there should be a gate opened for the increase of your realm, though this county of the dauphin belongs to the jurisdiction of the emperor." In the kingdom of Burgundy itself he found it impossible to withstand the power of Frederic, the emperor and king, but he succeeded in securing the election of his candidate to the archbishopric of Lyons, through whom he expected to receive no slight accession of political influence.

In central France Louis YII. never ceased to watch for occasions to protect the bishoprics and to grant them privileges for money. The material aid which he gave to the prelates in their struggles with neighbouring barons was more than returned by the moral support which he obtained from the Church. The ecclesiastical side of his policy, congenial to his own inclinations, was in reality no less conducive to the growth of his power. His most effective weapon against Henry II. was his continued support of Becket, which taught those who, for any reason, were discontented with the Angevin government to look for countenance to the king of the Franks.

In the south the great house of Toulouse retained much of its ancient power. Geographically, it was allied with Spain ; historically, with the Empire. It has been observed that there is no historical record of a sinsfle

o

performance from Toulouse of service at the king's court or in his host during the reign of the first five Capets. The counts of Toulouse in the twelfth century Avere

14 PHILIP AUGUSTUS chap, i

practically independent sovereigns. Louis's marriage with Eleanor of Aquitaine gave him more direct relations with the southern districts, and though his divorce severed his direct authority, his influence was not altogether obliterated. In 1154, by his second marriage with Constance of Castile, he strengthened his association with the southern states, and he passed through Languedoc on his way to Compostella — a progress which was not without its political effects. By the marriage of his sister Constance in the same year to Raymond V. he acquired a more direct interest in the affairs of Toulouse, and set up an opposition to the influence of Henry II. in that region, whose claims, four years later, he successfully withstood. AVith the southern sees he approached an actual feudal connection. Over the barons he began to assume some of the rights of a suzerain. Before his death his name was at least well known in Languedoc, and if his authority was not formally recognised, the frequent appeals for his advice and assistance had prepared the way for that recognition of overlordship which the Albigensian war made inevitable. It has been said by a great French historian that the influence of Louis YII. was that of a moral conquest which prepared the way for the military successes of his son. It may be added that his work, though not striking or impressive, was genuine and durable. Philip had little to inaugurate or to undo : he had chiefly to continue and to accomplish.

Chapter II The Beginnings Of Philip's Power

Louis's first two marriages had given him no male heir. With his third wedding his hopes were renewed. On August 19, 1165, the expectations of the king and his people were gratified, and a boy was born.

There is some doubt as to where the heir so earnestly desired first saw the light. He is frequently by later writers called Philip of Gonesse, from a royal manor near Pontoise. In the great chronicle of Tours, the land of Gonesse is represented as his especial patrimony. Philip Mouskes, the historian of Tournai, shows that he was brought up there.

But it is almost certain, from the contemporary poem of Peter Riga, that he was actually born at Paris ; and Giraldus Cambrensis, who was studying in Paris at the time, gives a reminiscence which leaves little doubt on the point. In his delightful book, the De Instrudione Princijmm, where he greatly glorifies the French kings at the expense of the English, he suddenly introduces a story of his own youthful experience. He says : —

"While in his early years, he who wrote this was at -Paris, enthusiastically engaged in liberal studies, it chanced that one night at the very beginning of autumn, about the hour of the first sleep, shortly after the dead of night, it was said that by God's grace Philip had been born. This rumour was bruited through the city, and received with inexpressible delight. At once throughout the length and breadth of the city on every side there burst forth such a clamorous pealing of bells, and so great were the waxen lights kindled in every street, that those who knew not the cause of the unwonted tumult, the deafening sounds, and the universal illumination, imagined that some conflagration was even then threatening the city. The author of this work, who was at that time living in the city as a youth just completing his twentieth year, sprang from the bed on which he had but now fallen asleep, and hastened to the window. Looking out, he saw in the street two poor and miserable old crones carrying waxen candles before them ; their countenances, their ^^ords, their gestures all alike expressed exultation as they hastened along with rapid steps, ever and anon meeting and jostling one another. He inquired of them what might be the cause of all this excitement and delight, whereupon one of them looked back and replied, ' Now we have a king given us by God, a mighty heir to the kingdom through God's bounty ; through him shall fall on your king loss and disgrace, shame and heav}^ punishment, rich in confusion and distress.' Just as if she had openly said, 'A boy has been given us this night, who certainly by God's grace shall be the hammer of your king, and who also, beyond a doubt, shall diminish the power and lands of him and his subjects.' The woman knew that the author and liis companions were natives of England, and therefore it was that the crone, as if in a spirit of prophecy, bitterly launched forth against them and their king this sentence, which was afterwards only too truly fulfilled."

It is a quaint picture of the dark narrow streets, lighted on a sudden by the enthusiastic processions which shouted the joyful news of the birth of the " Godgiven " heir. The young English scholar, aroused from his sleep to listen to the boastful cries of the old Avomen, joined in the gratulations of the people. From every quarter messages of thankfulness reached the king. Even the city of Toulouse, far removed from royal domination, proud in the freedom of its citizen lords, "los baros de Tolosa," sent congratulations to the French king. A messenger brought the joyful news to the abbey of S. Germain des Pres at the moment when the monks sang " Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His people." Dieudonne, they cried out, is this new child of France — a gift of God to king and people.

Scanty records reach us of the childhood of the "godgiven child." He was brought up, as has been said, in a county manor of the king. He had a menagerie of wild beasts to amuse him. He was under the care of learned clerks and statesmen. Robert Clement, who exercised much influence during the first year of his reign, had watched over him for a long time. He was a bright and active child, eager to learn and quick at all manly sports, a hunter from his youth. Pious too he was, said the clerkly chroniclers. In the first year of his

C reign liis pure eyes saw the miracle of the mass in its reality. At S. Leger in Yveline, as the priest elevated the host, he saw a cliild of surpassing splendour, whom choirs of angels worshipped, and he adored with tears.

As early as 1177 his father designed a marriage for him. He asked from Philip of Flanders the hand of his niece, the daughter of Matthew of Boulogne. But the project was abandoned.

A medieval king had generally but few years of schooling. His training in the work of government began early. It was so with Philip Augustus. He was not fourteen years old when, in the spring of 1179, his father was attacked by paralysis. Louis recovered, but, though only fifty-nine, he felt himself already an old man. He determined, after the fashion of his predecessors, to secure the succession by crowning his son in Jiis lifetime. He had long postponed this customary ceremony. In spite of the urgent advice of the pope and the force of the custom of his fathers, he had declined even nominally to share his power with his young son. But illness, and the feeling that " his last days " were upon him, induced him to take steps at once for the election and coronation of Philip. Probably towards the end of April the archbishops, bishops, abbats, and barons met in the bishop's palace at Paris and heard the king's will that his son should be crowned. There is no reason to suppose that the formal election was omitted. All the prelates and barons, says Eigord, cried out " Fiat, fiat," and the king at once began the preparations for the ceremony, which was to take place on the Feast of the Assumption. A proclamation was issued fixing the day.