Moral Imperatives and

Conundrums of Conscience:
Reflections on Philip the Fair of France
By Elizabeth A. R. Brown

W hen I was asked to propose a topic for my presidential address, the subject I
chose, moral imperatives and conundrums of conscience, seemed to me particularly appropriate and timely. This was in part because of the problems of conscience caused for many members of the Academy by the decision to hold the
annual meeting in Arizona, whose restrictive laws on immigration seemed to many
to violate basic principles of right and justice and hence to warrant a boycott.
Long, thoughtful, and impassioned discussion of the issues revealed their complexity. Although the final decision disappointed many members, all recognized
its virtue in supporting the Arizonans who were struggling to accomplish revocation of legislation they believed wrong.1 There was more. The crises in the leadership of the Academy during two of my years as a presidential officer raised
issues of conscience and morality for all who worked to achieve equitable, just,
and rational solutions to our problems and conflicts. On both issues, the site of
the meeting and the governance of the Academy, colleagues adopted and defended positions that demonstrated the variety and strength of their convictions
and the diversity of their reasons for holding them.
Those issues aside, individual and governmental morality in times past has always fascinated me, not simply because of the subjects resonance with present
concerns but because of its importance as a key to character and personality. Questions of ethics and conscience were fully as complicated in the Middle Ages as
they are today, pace those who believe that the modern secular world is fundamentally different from an age when, they think, everyone shared the same
frame of values. 2 Despite the churchs great authority and the widespread belief
This presidential address was delivered on 15 April 2011 at the annual meeting of the Medieval
Academy of America in Scottsdale, Ariz.
I would like to express my gratitude for the generous assistance and counsel of Ghislain Brunel,
Charlotte Denoel, James K. Farge, Sean L. Field, Franoise Hildesheimer, Howard M. Kaminsky, MariePierre Laffitte, Sbastien Nadiras, and especially Richard C. Famiglietti. I am also grateful to the staffs
of the many archives and libraries who have provided me the support and assistance without which
historians cannot work.
1
As it happened, on 11 April 2011, the Monday before the annual meeting opened, the United
States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected the appeal of Arizonas governor to lift the
stay that blocked implementation of large portions of the law. The medievalist John T. Noonan, Jr.,
was one of the justices responsible for the decision. Noonan discussed issues pertinent to this article
in his Laetare Medal remarks at Notre Dames commencement in 2009, which can be seen on YouTube.
2
Garry Wills, Superficial and Sublime?, a review of Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly,
All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age (New York, 2011),

Speculum 87 (2012)

doi:10.1017/S0038713411003939

Philip the Fair

in an eternity of punishment or reward for earthly deeds, individual consciences

in the Middle Ages seem to have been the same infinitely variable, unpredictable, mysterious, impalpable, imprescriptible, indestructible, and indispensable
guide[s] to action that they are today.3 Chinks in the veils that shroud consciences are rare and difficult to find, but once discovered they offer special access to the motivations and personalities of individuals long dead.
My work as a graduate student on that enigmatic and controversial monarch
Philip the Fair of France (12681314, r. 12851314) inevitably drew me to problems of conscience and morality. Opinions of Philip, his family, his ministers, and
his government vary markedly. In 1908 Charles-Victor Langlois (18631929) indignantly expressed his contempt for and anger at the king and his policies. Philip
and his advisers, he judged, threatened to turn France into
a monarchy like that of Philip II of Spain, an inquisitorial monarchy, governing by means
of inquisitorial terror. . . . What would have become of the France of Philip Augustus
and Louis IX . . . if the procedures inaugurated at the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth century (probably under the influence of legists from the south)
and used against all the enemies of the king, real or accused, had been definitively
adopted? Secret denunciations, prompted or received under the pretext of maintaining
the purity and unity of the faith; arrests, torture, efforts to rouse popular anger against
the accused, autos-da-f, expulsions, spoliation. And not only the Templars: the Jews,
later the lepers, with similar methods used against individuals and in proceedings against
the memory of Boniface VIII.4

Langloiss condemnation has recently been echoed by James Given. Characterizing Philips rule as government by terror, Given argued that Philip and his ministers invented fantastic charges with which to persecute selected groups and in-

in the New York Review of Books (7 April 2011), pp. 16 and 18 (and online); see also Susan Neimans review in the New York Times on 20 January 2011. See as well my article Laity, Laicisation
and Philip the Fair of France, in Law, Laity and Solidarities in Medieval Europe: Essays in Honour
of Susan Reynolds, ed. Pauline Stafford, Janet L. Nelson, and Jane Martindale (Manchester, Eng.,
2001), pp. 200217.
3
I owe the adjectives I quote to John Noonans address at Notre Dame in 2009.
4
Charles-Victor Langlois, Laffaire des Templiers, Journal des savants, n.s., 6 (1908), 41735,
at pp. 43233, in a review of Heinrich Finke, Papsttum und Untergang des Templerordens, Vorreformationsgeschichtliche Forschungen 45 (Mnster i. W., 1907): . . . la monarchie franaise faillit
alors devenir une monarchie la Philippe II dEspagne, jentends par l une monarchie dInquisition,
gouverne par le moyen de la terreur inquisitoriale. On peut dire sans exagrer que jamais pril plus
grace na menac notre pays. Que serait-il advenu de la France claire, joyeuse et libre de Philippe
Auguste et de Louis IX, si la tradition des procds inaugurs la fin du XIIIe et au commencement
du XIVe sicle (trs probablement sous linfluence des lgistes du Midi) contre tous les ennemis du
roi, vritables ou points comme tels, sy tait dfinitivement installe? Dnonciations secrtes, provoques ou accueillies sous prtexte de maintenir la puret et lunit de la foi; arrestations, tortures,
agitations pour soulever contre les accuss lindignation populaire, autodafs, expulsions, spoliations, etc. Les Templiers ont t, au commencement du XIVe sicle, les victimes les plus notoires de
ce redoutable engrenage; mais il y en a eu dautres: les Juifs y avaient pass dabord; ce fut plus tard
le tour des Lpreux; des machinations analogues avaient servi ou servirent en mme temps contre
des particuliers et dans le procs typique la mmoire de Boniface [VIII].

Philip the Fair

dividuals in order to consolidate their power and authority, achieve spectacular

victories over their invented victims, and reaffirm the kingdoms solidarity and
restore the sacred moral order. 5
Others have judged differently.6 In 1956 Joseph Strayer (190487) declared
Philip a constitutional king, who aimed to conform to the traditions of the
French monarchy and the practices of the French government.7 Twenty-four years
later, in 1980, aware that not all agreed with his assessment, Strayer denied that
Philip was an unfettered despot and argued that the king was restrained by a
body of laws and precedents that binds the conscience of the ruler even if it cannot be enforced by external agencies. 8 In his view, Philips reign was by and
large a good thing, [making] possible the building of a French state and marking the transition from the medieval to the modern period. 9 A political conservative, Strayer held the nation-state and modern times in high esteem, and he
admired Philip the Fairs political acumen. But in writing that Philip [gave] at
least an appearance of legality to all his actions, he came close to acknowledging that some of his policies were morally questionable.10 Having elected to write
my doctoral dissertation on the movements of protest against Philip the Fair and
his policies that erupted immediately before his death,11 I found myself unavoidably involved in the ongoing debate over Philip and his ministers, their intentions, their characters and consciences, and their respective responsibililties for
the monarchys policies.
The first conference paper I delivered was presented, in 1966, at a session of
the annual meeting of the Society for French Historical Studies. The session was
dedicated to the memory of the eminent authority on the Capetians Robert Fawtier (18851966), who had recently died. My paper treated Philip the Fairs
cancellation and restitution of a war tax imposed for a campaign against rebel
Flemings in 1313 that had ended in a truce. This act had been hailed by Frantz
5
James Given, Chasing Phantoms: Philip IV and the Fantastic, in Heresy and the Persecuting
Society in the Middle Ages: Essays on the Work of R. I. Moore, ed. Michael Frassetto, Studies in the
History of the Christian Tradition 129 (Leiden, 2006), pp. 27189, at pp. 282 and 289.
6
Robert-Henri Bautier provided a useful survey of readings of Philips character in Diplomatique
et histoire politique: Ce que la critique diplomatique nous apprend sur la personnalit de Philippe le
Bel, Revue historique 259 (1978), 327, reprinted in his tudes sur la France captienne: De Louis
VI aux fils de Philippe le Bel, Collected Studies Series 359 (Aldershot, Eng., 1993), no. 6.
7
Joseph R. Strayer, Philip the FairA Constitutional King, American Historical Review 52
(1956), 1832, reprinted in his Medieval Statecraft and the Perspectives of History: Essays by Joseph
R. Strayer, ed. John F. Benton and Thomas N. Bisson (Princeton, N.J., 1971), pp. 195212, esp. pp. 195
and 20911.
8
Joseph R. Strayer, The Reign of Philip the Fair (Princeton, N.J., 1980), pp. 3233, citing Charles
Howard McIlwain (18711968), The Growth of Political Thought in the West from the Greeks to
the End of the Middle Ages (New York, 1932), pp. 128, 13233, and 136.
9
Strayer, Reign, pp. xxiv.
10
Ibid., p. 33.
11
Charters and Leagues in Early Fourteenth-Century France: The Movement of 1314 and 1315
(Ph.D. dissertation, Radcliffe College, Harvard University, 1961). See my article Reform and Resistance to Royal Authority in Fourteenth-Century France: The Leagues of 13141315, first published
in 1981, reprinted in my Politics and Institutions in Capetian France, Collected Studies Series 350
(Aldershot, Eng., 1991), no. 5, pp. 11112.

Philip the Fair

Funck-Brentano in 1897 as an act of financial probity, 12 and more expansively by Jean Favier, in 1963, as an act of fiscal probity rarely seen in history,
an honest act, an act intended for the peoples greater profit.13 Where FunckBrentano and Favier led, I followed, attempting in my paper to account for Philips decision. Philip acted as he did, I argued, for reasons of conscience, because
he was convinced of the moral necessity of canceling and restoring improper subventions, promoted by many theologians, who based their position on the popular and ubiquitous principle cessante causa cessat effectus. 14 My arguments may
not have been as finely tuned or as voluminously buttressed by sources as they
would become. Still, I was abashed when the chair of the session, Joseph Strayer
himself, took the podium to declare that if Robert Fawtier could know what I
had just said, he would be rolling in his grave.
The idea that the policies of Philip the Fair, the constitutional king, were
motivated by pressures of conscience did not sit well with Professor Strayer (who
often referred to the king as my Philip the Fair). In a study of Philips taxes
published in 1939, Strayer had stated that collection of the tax was stopped in
1313 but never mentioned restitution (nor indeed does his book on Philips reign,
published in 1980).15 Just what M. Fawtiers reaction would have been is per-

12
Frantz Funck-Brentano, Les origines de la guerre de Cent ans: Philippe le Bel en Flandre (Paris,
1897), p. 641: Ce trait de probit financire nest pas isol dans lhistoire du rgne et contribue
mettre dans son vrai jour le gouvernement de Philippe le Bel.
13
Jean Favier, Un conseiller de Philippe le Bel, Enguerran de Marigny, Mmoires et Documents
publis par la Socit de lcole des chartes 16 (Paris, 1963), pp. 1078: Ceci claire dun jour particulirement intressant la physionomie morale du roi et de son conseiller [Enguerran de Marigny];
car il ne peut tre question de faire honneur de cet acte dhonnt au seul Philippe le Bel. . . . Nous
voyons ici que . . . [Enguerran de Marigny] participa, pour le plus grand avantage du peuple, un
acte de probit fiscale comme lhistoire en connat peu. Favier did not discuss the episode in his
Philippe le Bel (Paris, 1978).
14
This principle was even more widely employed than I realized when I wrote my article Cessante causa and the Taxes of the Last Capetians: The Political Applications of a Philosophical Maxim,
Studia Gratiana 15 (= Post Scripta; 1972), 56787, reprinted in Brown, Politics, no. 2, and see also
my article Taxation and Morality in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries: Conscience and Political Power and the Kings of France, French Historical Studies 8 (1973), 128, reprinted in Brown,
Politics, no. 3. For the use of the principle in canon law see Richard Helmholz, The Spirit of Classical Canon Law (Athens, Ga., 1996), p. 57, and, even more important, Kenneth Penningtons review of this book, in The Spirit of Legal History, University of Chicago Law Review 64 (1997),
10971116, at pp. 10078. See also Andr Gouron, Cessante causa cessat effectus: la naissance
de ladage (note dinformation), Comptes-rendus des sances de lAcadmie des Inscriptions et BellesLettres 143 (1999), 299309.
15
Joseph R. Strayer, Consent to Taxation under Philip the Fair, in idem and Charles H. Taylor,
Studies in Early French Taxation, Harvard Historical Monographs 12 (Cambridge, Mass., 1939),
pp. 3103, at pp. 8182. In Reign Strayer stopped short of saying that restitution actually took place,
although he acknowledged that the tax was canceled (p. 394), that the principle of cessante causa
[was] fully recognized in 1313 (p. 418), and also that Philip the Fair halted collection of a similar
tax in 1314. For the record, the royal mandate of 16 August 1313, addressed to the seneschal of
Poitou and to royal agents sent to the seneschalsy ad levandum financias pro nostro exercitu, ordered that because of the truce recently concluded nullam financiam vel aliquid aliud ratione dicti
exercitus a majore, juratis, communia et habitatoribus ville Pictavensis aut a quibuscumque aliis senescallie Pictavensis exigatis vel levetis aut per alios quoscunque permittatis exigi vel levari, et, si

Philip the Fair

haps less clear than Professor Strayer believed. In a book on the Capetians published in 1942 he wrote that the kings doubted their right in financial matters.
The expressions of regret for the subsidies they had exacted from their people,
which their biographers put into the mouths of the dying Capetians, were certainly not mere commonplaces. 16 Whatever M. Fawtier would have thought, I
was disconcerted, although I continued working on the question and its larger
context, investigating other instances of cancellation and restitution of taxes. I
argued my case again in 1969, at the annual meeting of the American Historical
Association in Washington. There the talk attracted some notice, witnessing the
appeal in the nations capital of the notion that fiscal morality in high places once
existed and that, however long ago, taxes deemed unwarranted had been annulled and the proceeds returned.17
Pursuit of governmental rectitude, fiscal remorse, and Philip the Fairs motivations led me to his and other rulers testaments and codicils. Like his cancellation of his war tax the day before he died, Philips three testaments and codicil
reveal his deep-seated concern for his own salvation, witnessed by the enormous
sums he left for pious purposes. The extravagance of his bequests was such that
his son and successor negotiated a restrictive settlement with his fathers executors. Although interference with testamentary bequests was thought to imperil
the salvation of those who contravened them, the settlement significantly limited
the executors ability to carry out the provisions of the will until God once again
granted peace and prosperity to the realm of France.18 Other instances of royal

aliquid propter hoc exactum fuerit ab aliquo vel levatum, illud sibi indilate restitui faciatis: douard Audouin and Prosper Boissonnade, Recueil de documents concernant la commune de la ville
de Poitiers: De 1063 1327, Archives historiques du Poitou 44 (1923), 32122 (available online
through Gallica). Also relevant is the statement in the contemporaneous anonymous rhymed chronicle attributed to Geoffroi de Paris, under the year 1313: Et le roy, qui avoit mand // Par tout son
royaume et command // De prendre argent por ceste guerre, // Fist tantost mander par sa terre //
Con ne preist riens, mes rendist // Que pris avoit; ainsi fu dist // Et command de par le roy, // Et il
fu fet, si com je croy: La chronique mtrique attribue Geffroy de Paris, ed. Armel Diverrs, Publications de la Facult des lettres de lUniversit de Strasbourg 129 (Strasbourg, 1956), pp. 190 (lines
51255222). For the abolition of the tax in 1314 see Chronique mtrique, pp. 217 (lines 67069)
and 220 (lines 684144, attributing to Louis X the promise not to raise tostes ne tailles).
16
Robert Fawtier, The Capetian Kings of France, Monarchy and Nation (9871328), trans. Lionel
Butler and R. J. Adam (London, 1960), p. 193, originally published as Les Captiens et la France:
Leur rle dans sa construction (Paris, 1942 [not 1941, as stated in the translation]), pp. 18687:
Les rois eux-mmes doutaient de leur droit en matire de finances. Et ce ne sont certainement pas
de simples lieux communs que les expressions de regrets au sujet des subsides levs par eux sur leurs
peuples, mises dans leur bouche, leurs derniers moments, par leurs biographes. In this book Fawtier did not discuss Philips cancellation and restitution (see Capetian Kings, pp. 19798), whereas in
his study of Philips reign published in 1940, he mentioned Philips cancellation of a tax in 1314 but
not the similar events of 1313: LEurope occidentale de 1270 1380, 1: De 1270 1328, vol. 6 of
Histoire du moyen ge, ed. Gustave Glotz (Paris, 1940), pp. 42425.
17
Martin Weil, Historians Delve into Era When Taxation Was Sinful, Washington Post and Times
Herald (30 December 1969), p. A3.
18
Elizabeth A. R. Brown, Royal Salvation and Needs of State in Early-Fourteenth-Century France,
in The Monarchy of Capetian France and Royal Ceremonial, Collected Studies Series 345 (Alder-

Philip the Fair

and princely testamentary lavishness and the reactions of the survivors showed
that Philips excesses and his sons response were extreme but not unique.19
To paraphrase a nineteenth-century American saying, testamentary acts, like
the deathbed, are great detectors of the heart. 20 Philips acts demonstrate, to
be sure, his compelling desire for salvation, but also the devious pliability of his
conscience. The acts show the guilt he felt at the damage the wild beasts he loved
to hunt had caused his subjects, guilt that was strong enough to lead him to order monetary compensation to all who were injured (although not severe enough
to move him to abandon his favorite pastime).21 The acts also demonstrate the
remorse Philip felt in 1297 over the monetary changes he had made, changes that
continued throughout most of his reign. Confirming and expanding a pledge he
had made in 1295, his will of 1297 promised full compensation to all who were
harmed by alterations of the weight, alloy, and value of the coinage. Curiously,
however, no mention of this appeared in his testament of 1311, for reasons that
I will discuss below.22 The acts reveal lapses of conscience as well. Not until the
day before his death (29 November 1314) did Philip cancel a war tax similar to

shot, Eng., 1991), no. 4, esp. p. 55: ou cas dabundance et de Pais / que diex nous otroit. An earlier version, Royal Salvation and Needs of State in Late Capetian France, appeared in Order and
Innovation in the Medieval West: Essays in Honor of Joseph R. Strayer, ed. William C. Jordan, Bruce
McNab, and Teofilo F. Ruiz (Princeton, N.J., 1976), pp. 36583 and 54161.
19
See my article, Royal Testamentary Acts from Philip Augustus to Philip of Valois: Executorial
Dilemmas and Premonitions of Absolutism in Medieval France, in Herrscher- und Frstentestamente im westeuropischen Mittelalter, ed. Brigitte Kasten, Norm und Struktur: Studien zum sozialen Wandel in Mittelalter und Frher Neuzeit 29 (Cologne, 2008), pp. 41530. This article was
based on a talk I delivered at a conference, Herrscher- und Frstentestamente im westeuropischen
Mittelalter, organized by Brigitte Kasten and held at the Universitt des Saarlandes from 15 to 18
February 2006. The papers prompted a nostalgic article by Oliver Jungen, Ein Knigreich fr mein
Seelenheil. Wenn Herrscher testieren: Eine innovative Konferenz in Saarbrcken, FAZ: Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung 49 (27 February 2006), 41. On problems posed by testamentary execution see
also my articles Royal Testamentary Acts; The Kings Conundrum: Endowing Queens and Loyal
Servants, Ensuring Salvation, and Protecting the Patrimony in Fourteenth-Century France, in Medieval Futures: Attitudes to the Future in the Middle Ages, ed. John A. Burrow and Ian P. Wei (Woodbridge, Eng., 2000), pp. 11565; The Testamentary Strategies of Jeanne dvreux: The Endowment
of Saint-Denis in 1343, forthcoming in a festschrift for Bonnie Wheeler; and Jeanne dvreux: Ses
testaments et leur excution, forthcoming.
20
Interview with Drew Gilpin Faust, Radcliffe Quarterly (Summer 2007), pp. 1213.
21
See my article, The Prince Is Father of the King: The Character and Childhood of Philip IV of
France, Mediaeval Studies 49 (1987), 282334, at p. 292, esp. n. 29; reprinted in my Monarchy,
no. 2.
22
Brown, Royal Salvation, pp. 1213. Pierre Dubois vividly described the damage that royal
mutations of money inflicted on the people of France (including himself) in a tract written in 1300,
Summaria brevis et compendiosa doctrina felicis expedicionis et abbreviacionis guerrarum ac litium
regni Francorum nach dem Cod. Lat. nr. 6222C der Bibliothque nationale zu Paris, ed. Hellmut
Kmpf, Quellen zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters und der Renaissance 4 (Leipzig, 1936), pp. 54
55. Still useful is the analysis by Franois Le Blanc (d. 1698), Trait historique des monnoies de France
depuis le commencement de la Monarchie jusques a present (Paris, [1690]), pp. 20126, and a later
edition, idem, Trait historique des monnoyes de France, Avec leurs figures, depuis le commencement de la Monarchie jusqu present. Augment dune Dissertation Historique sur quelques Monnoyes de Charlemagne, de Lois le Debonnaire, de Lothaire, & de leurs Successeurs, frapes [sic]
dans Rome (Amsterdam, 1692), pp. 17996.

Philip the Fair

the one that he aborted in 1313; and even though he was dying, he refrained
from ordering restitution.23 Equally striking are his failures, acknowledged in a
deathbed ordonnance, to carry out his sworn obligation to execute the testamentary dispositions of his wife, Jeanne of Champagne and Navarre, who had died
nine years earlier, and to relinquish to his sons the lands in Champagne they should
have received at her death.24
The circumstances under which Philip had committed himself to execute his
wifes testament make his insensitivity to this obligation all the more striking.
Jeannes last will (the second she is known to have issued) was drawn up on 25
March 1305, just a week before she died. In it Jeanne named Philip her principal
executor and had him and their oldest son, Louis, seal her provisions and promise solemnly to execute them.25 The care Jeanne took to obtain these reassurances was extraordinary and suggests that she had grave reservations about her
husbands and her sons trustworthiness. Indeed, in the codicil Jeanne added to
her will on 31 March 1305, two days before her death, she requested Philip
to promise now and expressly to acquit her of all she owed for the expenses
of her household and other necessities made during their marriage, as he was
bound to do. 26 Bound he may have been, but this did not satisfy the dying

Brown, Royal Salvation, pp. 2526.

Ibid., pp. 2224 and 51, drawing on Paris, Archives nationales (hereafter AN), J 403, no. 19
(28 November 1314), edited ibid., pp. 4852: Item pour Rendre et paier a lexecucion de nostre
chiere compaingne deuant dicte dont dieux ait lame Ce que nous en auons eu par quoy la dicte execucion puisse estre acomplie. Navarre was another matter, far more public, and their oldest son,
Louis, had indeed been crowned king of Navarre in 1307.
25
AN, J 402, nos. 1616ter (the three acts are attached; no. 16bis is Jeannes codicil of 31 March,
and no. 16ter is Philip the Fairs permission to their son Louis to permit him to seal the act, also
dated 31 March). The queens first will (AN, J 403, no. 15) was dated 1 April 1304; only the king
sealed and approved it, as well as any codicil or codicils the queen might draw up. The king and
Louis also approved and sealed the queens foundation on 25 March 1305 of a college in the University of Paris (AN, J 155A, no. 2 [AE II 308]) and of a hospital at Chteau-Thierry (AN, K 185,
no. 920 [221]; and the original, numbered AX 2 in the archives of the hospital of Chteau-Thierry,
now deposited in the Archives dpartementales of the Aisne in Laon). See Brown, Royal Salvation, pp. 2224, and my article La mort, les testaments et les fondations de Jeanne de Navarre,
reine de France (12731305), in Une histoire pour un royaume (XIIeXVe sicle): Actes du colloque Corpus Regni organis en hommage Colette Beaune, ed. Anne-Hlne Allirot, Murielle
Gaude-Ferragu, Gilles Lecuppre, Elodie Lequain, Lydwine Scordia, and Julien Vronse, with Mary
Leroy (Paris, 2010), pp. 12441 and 50810.
26
AN, J 403, no. 16bis: Et requerons nostre chier seigneur Le Roi dessus dit / que ia soit ce que
il soit tenuz a nous acquitter & deliurer de tout ce que nous deuons pour raison des despenz de nostre ostel / & dautres choses que nous deuons & auons acreues pour noz necessitez durant le mariage
de lui & de nous / que il Weille promettre des maintenant expresseement a nous en acquitter & deliurer du tout en tout outre la somme que il nous a donnee & otroiee / & outre ce que nous prenons
pour parfere nostre execution / sicomme il est plus plainement contenu en nostre dit testament. &
que il toutes les choses dessus dites & chascune dicelles / Weille loer / approuuer / & confermer. Ne
nest pas nostre entencion / que par ceste promesse que nous requerons que li Rois nous face de nous
acquitter de ce que nous deuons pour les despenz de nostre ostel & pour autres choses que nous
auons acreues pour noz necessitez / nous ne noz hoirs soiens de riens deschargiez / de ce en quoi
nous & noz hoirs sommes tenuz au dit nostre seigneur le Roi / pour raison des fraiz / mises & despenz
qui ont este faiz pour la deffense de nostre Roiaume de Nauarre. . . . Et nous Philippe par la grace de
dieu Roi de France / a la requeste de nostre dite chiere compaigne / volons / loons / & approuuons ce
23
24

Philip the Fair

woman. Accordingly, at the end of the codicil, in sealing and approving the act
(which their son Louis also endorsed), Philip made the explicit promise the queen
had demanded. On the same day, Jeanne obtained from Philip a solemn act in
which he explicitly authorized their son Louis to consent to all his mothers provisions, and this and the codicil, all sealed by the queen, king, and their son, were
carefully attached together.
Jeannes suspicions were well founded. The revenues that were supposed to fund
her major bequests were largely diverted to other ends, as Philip admitted in his
ordenance of 28 November 1314. Some legacies were carried out, but little
was done to promote the hospital at Chteau-Thierry and the college in Paris
that Jeanne had established. Philip may have been stricken by his wifes death,
and for a time may have been lost in mystic reveries, as Robert-Henri Bautier
proposed in 1978.27 But he was not so bereft as to forget himself and his own
interests. During the years that followed Jeannes death, Philip indulged in an orgy
of foundation and pious donation.28 To be sure, Jeannes name was often mentioned in the acts, but their nature suggests that Philip was engaging in intense
competition with his dead wife, establishing foundations that were similar to hers,
while neglecting her testamentary foundations. On the other hand, there is no
evidence that Philip made any attempt to claim from her estate money spent for
her household or other necessities. An oath as specific as the one Philip had sworn
at his wifes deathbed seems to have possessed for him a moral urgency that other
more general ones, however solemnly attested, did not. Philip also carried out
his wifes wish, expressed in secret letters found after she died, to be buried in
the church of the Franciscans in Paris rather than in the royal mausoleum, SaintDenis. Her burial took place in Paris, with little ceremony, shortly after her death.
The chroniclers who reported the episode attributed the queens decision to the
influence of her Franciscan confessor and said, as was likely, that Philip was opposed and wanted her interred at Saint-Denis.29 Philip perhaps hesitated to in-

present Codicille - & prometons toutes Les choses qui i sont contenues / faire / acomplir / & acquitter [ainsi comme dit est / la dite / nostre compaigne, [squeezed in over an erasure] de ce que elle doit
pour les despenz de son ostel / & pour autres choses que elle a accreues pour ses necessitez / durant
le mariage de nous & de lui.
27
Bautier, Diplomatique et histoire politique, pp. 19 (Durant ce temps, le roi, dj atteint par le
dsastre de Courtrai, a t bris par la mort brutale de sa femme, la reine, Jeanne, et il se trouve plong
dans un mysticisme dont les documents diplomatiques permettent de mesurer toute limportance et
qui lempchene de se mler des choses terrestrielles), 22 (la pit du roi la fin de sa vie), and 23
(le roi se plongeait le plus en plus dans le rve [ou le cauchemar] du mysticisme). Bautier did not
mention the cancellation of the war tax in 1313 or the restoration of the Val dAran to Aragon (ibid.,
pp. 2324), both of which must have been ordered with the kings full knowledge and agreement; see
Strayers discussion of the Val dAran in Reign, pp. 2630. Bautier treated the prosecution and execution of the lovers of the kings daughters-in-law in 1314 as a facet of the kings retreat into mysticism.
28
Bautiers discussion and catalogue of Philips foundations and donations are invaluable: Diplomatique et histoire politique, pp. 1823. See also Brown, La mort, les testaments, pp. 13738;
and lisabeth Lalou, Les abbayes fondes par Philippe le Bel, Revue Mabillon 63 (1991), 14365.
29
Chronique latine de Guillaume de Nangis de 1113 1300, avec les continuations de cette chronique de 1300 1368, ed. Hercule Graud, Publications de la Socit de lhistoire de France 33 and
35 (Paris, 1843), 1:347: quod factum monitis tractatum potius, aut inducta creditur, quam spiritu

Philip the Fair

terfere with his wifes wishes because he remembered the uproar among influential theologians caused by his decision in 1285 to have his fathers heart buried
apart from his body at the Dominican church in Paris, despite Philip IIIs desire
to be interred undivided at Saint-Denis.30 Although the Dominicans retained the
heart, it is difficult to imagine that Philip the Fair would have forgotten the disapproval his act had elicited.
Philip the Fairs attitude to moral imperatives and the authorities that issued
them was inconsistent. He was timorously respectful of principles whose violation he believed might jeopardize his souls welfare. But he also believed that principles could be bent and adapted to his needs, and seems to have considered few
so sacrosanct as to be unmodifiable. He was particularly susceptible to the pronouncements of authorities whose offices he respected, especially those accompanied by the threat of excommunication, which he dreaded.
The Grande Ordonnance for the reform of the kingdom that Philip promulgated on 18 March 1303 provides a dramatic example of Philips responsiveness
to ecclesiastical admonition. This ordonnance, inspired by and in part based on
Louis IXs reforming measures, was designed to correct and restrain royal officials and insure responsible governance. It became one of Frances foundational
documents, often reissued and reconfirmed. At first sight, Philips issuance of the
ordonnance seems as principled and exemplary as his cancellation and restitution of the war tax in 1313as it might be judged, had Philip the Fair issued it
of his own volition and had he subsequently insisted on its strict enforcement.
That, however, was not the case.31 Rather, it was promulgated in response to attacks by Boniface VIII, who in 1301 began accusing and taunting the king, denigrating him and his capacity to rule. In Asculta fili, issued on 5 December 1301,
Boniface charged Philip the Fair and his ministers with inflicting multiple injuries on the churches of France, with altering the currency, and with committing
grave and injurious acts against his kingdoms inhabitants, great and small.
The pope declared himself consequently bound to intervene to correct these

suo ducta. Another continuation, which breaks off in 13067, contains the statement concerning
Philip the Fair: contra uotum mariti sui . . . atque propositum . . . confessoris sui monitu . . . litteris
furtiuis ut dicitur eligens . . . (Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 4598, fol. 203r;
I quoted the passage in Prince, p. 306 n. 84). For Jean de Saint-Victor see Recueil des historiens
des Gaules et de la France, ed. Martin Bouquet et al., 24 vols. (Paris, 17381904), 21:644: unde
offensi sunt monachi Sancti Dionysii, quia hoc in preiudicium ipsorum esse videbatur. Here and
elsewhere I have altered some of the modernized spelling and punctuation of earlier editions.
30
See my article Death and the Human Body in the Later Middle Ages: The Legislation of Boniface VIII on the Division of the Corpse, Viator 12 (1981), 22170, at pp. 23541, and also pp. 254
57, on the dispensation Benedict XI issued on 18 April 1304, permitting Philip and Jeanne to have
their bodies divided after death. See also my article Prince, pp. 299300 and 3046. Cf. William
Chester Jordan, A Tale of Two Monasteries: Westminster and Saint-Denis in the Thirteenth Century
(Princeton, N.J., 2009), pp. 21213.
31
See my forthcoming article Unctus ad executionem justitie: Philippe le Bel, Boniface VIII, et la
Grande Ordonnance pour la rforme du royaume (du 18 mars 1303), to appear in Le roi fontaine
de justice, ed. Jean-Patrice Boudet, Silvre Menegaldo, and Bernard Ribmont (Paris, 2012); see also
Brown, Prince, pp. 29192; and Tilmann Schmidt, La condamnation de Pierre Flote par le pape
Boniface VIII, Mlanges de lcole franaise de Rome: Moyen ge 118 (2006), 10921.

10

Philip the Fair

things and provide for the direction, peace, and salus [welfare, but also salvation], and the good and prosperous governance of the realm. 32 In the bull Ante
promotionem nostram, issued the same day, Boniface summoned the prelates of
France to work with him to accomplish what was expedient for the honor of
God and the Apostolic See, the promotion of the Catholic faith, the conservation of ecclesiastical liberty, and the reformation of the kingdom, the correction
of the kings past excesses, and the good governance of the realm. 33 These and
other equally impassioned proclamations, including threats of excommunication, angered Philip and made him fear. The ordonnance of reform, together with
other pledges Philip made to rule responsibly, refuted Bonifaces charges and demonstrated Philips dedication to principled and ethical rulershipat least for the
moment. But to salve the injury to his pride, Philip aimed for more than the satisfaction of proving the pope wrong about his ability to govern. More than a
week before the ordonnance was issued, between 7 and 12 March, Philip bestowed on Guillaume de Nogaret and some associates the exceptional powers of
action that served as Nogarets authority for traveling to Anagni to confront the
pope between 7 and 13 September.34 Within a month of the encounter, on 11
October 1303, Boniface died.35
A bull issued by Pope Clement V (r. 130514)36 casts further light on the workings of Philips conscience. Ferventis devotionis integritas, dated 23 December

32
Pierre Dupuy, Histoire dv differend dentre le pape Boniface VIII. et Philippes le Bel Roy de
France. O lon voit ce qui se passa touchant cette affaire, depuis lan 1296. iusques en lan 1311.
sous les Pontificats de Boniface VIII. Benoist XI. & Clement V. Ensemble le procs criminel fait
Bernard evesqve de Pamiez lan MCCXCV. Le tout iustifi par les Actes & Memoires pris sur les
Originaux qui sont au Tresor des Chartes du Roy (Paris, 1655; repr., Tucson, Ariz., 1963; available
online through Gallica), Actes et prevves, pp. 4852, esp. pp. 5051: Sicut de mutatione monete,
aliisque grauaminibus & iniuriosis processibus per te ac tuos magnis ac paruis regni eiusdem incolis
irrogatis & habitis contra eos . . . tractare consultius & ordinare salubrius valeamus, que ad premissorum emendationem quam directionem, quietem atque salutem ac bonum & prosperum regimen
ipsius regni, videbimus expedire.
33
Ibid., Actes et prevves, pp. 5354: tractare, dirigere, statuere, procedere, facere & ordinare
que ad honorem dei & apostolice sedis, augmentum catholice fidei, conseruationem ecclesiastice libertatis & reformationem regni & Regis correctionem preteritorum excessuum & bonum regimen regni
eiusdem viderimus expedire. This could also be read as calling for the reformation of the kingdom
and the king, the correction of past excesses, and the good governance of the realm.
34
Bautier, Diplomatique et histoire politique, p. 17. Robert Fawtiers assessment of these events
remains fundamental: Lattentat dAnagni, first published in 1949, in Mlanges darchologie et
dhistoire 60, reprinted in idem, Autour de la France captienne: Personnages et institutions, ed. Jeanne
C. Fawtier Stone, Collected Studies Series 267 (London, 1987), no. 8, pp. 15379, at pp. 16569.
See also Jean Coste, Les deux missions de Guillaume de Nogaret en 1303, Mlanges de lcole
franaise de Rome: Moyen ge 105 (1993), 299326.
35
Boniface had continued to upbraid Philip. In a bull dated 15 August 1303, Nuper ad audientiam, the pope reminded the king of his predecessors actions against other rulers. See Dupuy, Histoire, Actes et prevves, pp. 16568, esp. p. 168: nullus sic eius correctionem euitet, an sic, vt
taceamus de Rege Francorum a Zacharia regno priuato, diue recordationis Theodosius magnus ab
Ambrosio Mediolanensi Episcopo extra Ecclesiam factus contra eum exarsit, an Lotarius gloriosus
contra Nicolaum Papam sic erexit cancaneum, aut contra Innocentium Fredericus, an Rex Francie
maior est iis, an nos minores sumus predecessoribus nostris, an minus iuste procedimus.
36
Clement was elected on 5 June 1305 and crowned in Lyon on 14 November. Philip the Fair was
in Lyon from 8 November 1305 until well into January 1306; he was back in the Paris region on 24

Philip the Fair

11

1305, is the first of a number of munificent epistolary Christmas and New Years
gifts that the pope, newly elected and installed, bestowed on the king and his
familyobviously at the kings request.37 The bull, edited in 1906,38 deserves reexamination, particularly because its many erasures and compressed insertions
suggest the close and careful attention and oversight of the popes (and perhaps
the kings) advisers.
Clement began by lavishing effusive praise on Philip and his ancestors. He then
turned to the subject that had led the king to approach him: the problems of
conscience the king had laid before him. Philips primary concern was the changes
in the coinage he had madefor which, as has been seen, he had promised to
atone and for which Boniface VIII had roundly criticized him. Philip maintained
that attacks by his enemies had forced him to alter the coinage, but he acknowledged that the mutations had harmed both his own subjects and the inhabitants
of neighboring regions. Philip was also bothered by the subventions and other
burdens necessity had forced him to impose on churches, ecclesiastics, and his
secular subjects. He was troubled as well by the property he had seized from
church treasuries and testamentary executions; by his extortions from unwilling
victims, including foreigners, Jews, and others dwelling in France; and by his violation of the terms of papal grants for the defense of the realm. Lamenting what
he had done, Philip repeatedly invoked necessity to excuse his actions. As a Catholic prince, concerned for the welfare of his soul, he humbly asked the pope to
provide him relief from his perplexity and the scruples of his conscience.
What was Clement to do? Evidently lacking the courage to force Philip to make
the amends both he and the king knew were right, Clement granted Philip par-

January: lisabeth Lalou, with Robert-Henri Bautier, Robert Fawtier, and Franois Maillard, Itinraire de Philippe IV le Bel (12851314), Mmoires de lAcadmie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres
37, 2 vols. (Paris, 2007), 2:26771.
37
AN, J 452B, no. 35; see Fig. 1 and the Appendix, Document 1, below. For this and the other
letters see Bernard Barbiche, Les actes pontificaux originaux des Archives nationales de Paris, Index
Actorum Romanorum Pontificum ab Innocentio III ad Martinum V Electum 13 (Vatican City, 1974
82), 3:516, nos. 223664 (stating of this bull, no. 2236, that the pope super dampnis subditis ejus
et aliis populis propter mutationem monete illatis eum absolvit). The privileges included permission
for the king to divide his body (pp. 89, no. 2245, 4 January 1306) and indulgences for those attending the projected translation of the head of St. Louis from Saint-Denis to the Sainte-Chapelle
(p. 9, nos. 224647, same date); see also below, at n. 42. I discussed this bull in Prince, p. 292 (see
also pp. 29798), and, less accurately, in Royal Salvation, pp. 1013. See the pertinent observations of Le Blanc, Trait historique, pp. 22425 (1690) and 192 (1692), who does not seem to have
known the text of the bull directly since he cited as his source a book called Des avantages de la
Viellesse. He quite rightly observed that dans labsolution il nest pas dit un seul mot des Monnoyes. Il nen est parl quau commencement de la Bulle, o le Pape dit que le Roy luy a fait exposer
les causes qui lavoient oblig de les affoiblir. He did not, however, discuss the permission the pope
gave to Philip the Fairs confessor to grant additional dispensations to him. Mmorial A of the Chambre des comptes contained a copy of the bull: Joseph Petit et al., Essai de restitution des plus anciens
mmoriaux de la Chambre des comptes de Paris, Bibliothque de la Facult des lettres de lUniversit
de Paris 7 (Paris, 1899), p. 94, no. 507.
38
Karl Wenck, Aus den Tagen der Zusammenkunft Papst Klemens V. und Knig Philipps des
Schnen zu Lyon, November 1305 bis Januar 1306, Zeitschrift fr Kirchengeschichte 27 (1906),
189203, at pp. 200202, who did not know the original act and relied on late and defective copies.

Fig. 1. AN, J 452B, no. 35. Bull of Clement V to Philip the Fair. See the Appendix, Document 1, below.

Philip the Fair

13

tial relief and held out the prospect that his problems would be fully resolved.
The decision Clement made, while clever, was hardly exemplary. Because of his
concern for the salvation of a monarch who was a special and exceptional son
of the church, Clement proclaimed, he forgave Philip the taxes levied on churches
and ecclesiastics for the necessary defense of the kingdom, and he authorized Philip
to use for pious and charitable purposes what he had taken from Jews and other
usurers if the individuals to whom the money should be restored could not be
found. That was all Clement himself was prepared to offer.
As to the other issues that troubled the king, Clement authorized Philips confessor to grant the king one or more dispensations and to release him and his
officials from any sentences of suspension, excommunication, or interdict they
had incurred for committing the acts enumerated in the bull. In this way Clement shifted the burden of decision and the moral choices it entailed from himself
to the kings confessor. This was a tactic for which there was clear and recent
precedent. In Etsi de statu, which Boniface VIII had reluctantly issued on 31 July
1297, the pope burdened the consciences of secular rulers with the responsibility
for determining that a state of necessity existed sufficient to warrant the imposition of taxes on clergy. Thereby, for all practical purposes, he annulled the bull
Clericis laicos, which he had issued on 2425 February 1296, in a short-lived
attempt to protect ecclesiastics from such taxation.39 Clement found the strategy
useful and appealing. He employed it again on 29 December 1305, in another
New Years gift to Philip the Fair. Perhaps because he was finding the pope surprisingly pliant, the king had boldly asked Clement to grant him and his successors immunity from prosecution or penalty for failing to carry out any vow to
go on crusade or send aid to the Holy Land. Clement capitulated, but in doing
so, he imposed on the consciences of Philip and those who succeeded him the
onus of deciding that the existence of the conditions he specified justified such
immunity.40

39
Jeffrey H. Denton, Taxation and the Conflict between Philip the Fair and Boniface VIII, French
History 11 (1997), 24164. For Clericis laicos see Dupuy, Histoire, Actes et prevves, pp. 1415;
for Etsi de statu, ibid., pp. 3940: quin potius idem Rex ac successores ipsius possint a prelatis . . .
petere ac recipere pro huiusmodi defensione subsidium vel contributionem . . . inconsulto etiam Romano Pontifice . . . non obstantibus constitutione predicta seu quouis exemptionis vel alio quolibet
priuilegio sub quacunque verborum forma confecto a Sede apostolica impetrato quodque necessitatis
declaratio supradicte ipsius Regis & successorum suorum conscientiis, dummodo successores ipsi vicesimum etatis annum exegerint relinquatur, super quo dictorum Regis & successorum conscientias onerari eisque innotescere volumus quod quicquid recipi vltra ipsius defensionis casum contigerint in
suarum recipient periculum animarum sub quo nisi salubriter prouidere aut attendere potuerunt in
quo periculo remanerent. Si vero defensionis predicte tempore huiusmodi etatis annum prefati non
excesserint successores, declaratio necessitatis eiusdem prelatorum, clericorum & laicorum qui de ipsorum successorum stricto consilio seu maioris partis ipsorum fuerint conscientiis relinquatur, quorum similiter conscientias onerari volumus, eisque plenius aperiri, quod si quid vltra casum defensionis reciperetur eiusdem, in dispendium salutis consiliariorum reciperetur ipsorum, illudque restituere
teneantur.
40
Barbiche, Actes pontificaux, 3:6, no. 2238; and for the text of the bull, Georges Lizerand, Clment V et Philippe IV le Bel (Paris, 1910; available online through Gallica), pp. 42425, no. 2: . . .
si adversa valitudine corporis aut alio impedimento legitimo, quod avertat Omnipotens, prepeditus
non posses comode exequi votum tuum, aut si propter guerrarum discrimina seu impacatum statum

14

Philip the Fair

Having protected his own conscience, Clement waxed eloquent in addressing

a final warning to the king. He counseled Philip, his most loving son, to accept with gratitude the indulgences he had received and to refrain in future from
seizing the churchs property. Then he put the king on solemn notice. The ease
with which Philip had gained forgiveness and the extent of the favor he had been
shown should not encourage him to sin again. If that should happen, Clement
declared, the king should fear the sentence of the supreme judge, which as a
recidivist he would justly incur. Thus at the end of the bull the pope resorted to
sober admonition in a forced attempt to compensate for, if not justify, the excessive favors he had just granted to the king.
Had it not been for the final sentences, Philip the Fair might have felt fully
satisfied. The pope had taken some measures to relieve the kings perplexity and
scruples of conscience, and he had opened the way for Philips confessor to forgive him all he had taken for his wars, as well as his monetary mutations. Philip
could have been confident that he would receive from his confessor what the pope
had not granted. The Dominican Nicolas de Frauville, cousin of Enguerran de
Marigny, had been Philips confessor since 1295 and had just been named cardinal on 15 December. His place had been or would shortly be taken by Guillaume de Paris, Philips chaplain since at least 1297 and confessor of the royal
children. Guillaume had been named inquisitor, probably during the short pontificate of Benedict XI.41 That Nicolas or Guillaume produced for Philip the indulgence or indulgences he sought seems unquestionable, since the provision for
reimbursing all harmed by alterations of the coinage, announced in May 1295
and elaborated in the testament Philip approved in March 1297, was absent from
the will he sealed on 17 May 1311 and from his deathbed testamentary acts.42
The closing admonition in Clements bull may have had some effect on Philip
the Fair and may have played a role in leading him to cancel and return the war
subsidy in 1313 and nullify the tax in 1314.43 The popes warnings would surely
have been reinforced by the popular outcry that accompanied any imposition and
by the reproach, Rendre ou pendre, that became a rallying cry for the disaf-

vel adversas conditiones alias regni tui eidem regno universaliter vel particulariter ex discessu tuo vel
absentia grave, quod absit, periculum immineat, tu vel successores tui Francorum reges ad eundum
personaliter vel mittendum in predicte Terre subsidium aut alias ad assumptionem, promotionem vel
prosecutionem negotii memorati, pretextu emissionis voti vel assumptionis crucis huiusmodi, durantibus periculo vel impedimento predictis, super quibus tue ac successorum ipsorum conscientiis omnino
credendum et standum fore auctoritate premissa decernimus. For Philip the Fair and the crusade
see Brown, Royal Salvation, pp. 1819; and eadem and Nancy Freeman Regalado, La grant feste:
Philip the Fairs Celebration of the Knighting of His Sons in Paris at Pentecost of 1313, in City and
Spectacle in Medieval Europe, ed. Barbara A. Hanawalt and Kathryn L. Reyerson, Medieval Studies
at Minnesota 6 (Minneapolis, 1994), pp. 5686.
41
Xavier de la Selle, Le service des mes la cour: Confesseurs et aumniers des rois de France du
XIIIe au XVe sicle, Mmoires et Documents de lcole des chartes 43 (Paris, 1995), pp. 26365. Sean
L. Field treats the career and writings of Guillaume de Paris in a forthcoming book on Marguerite
Porete, and in several articles, which he was kind enough to share with me in advance of publication.
42
Brown, Royal Salvation, pp. 913.
43
Ibid., pp. 2526.

Philip the Fair

15

fected before Philip died and that continued to inspire resistance during the reigns
of his sons.44
Philip the Fair and his ministers pursuit of Boniface VIII, alive and dead, and
of the Knights Templar raises issues of morality that are different from and more
complex than those posed by taxation and monetary manipulation. These campaigns deserve special attention because of the passion that animated the attacks
and the moral choices involved in their initiation, orchestration, and execution.45 Closely linked, these two efforts dwarf in scope, complexity, and elaborateness other campaigns featuring similarly exaggerated and implausible accusations and analogous strategies to influence opinion and garner support, most
notably the prosecutions of Bernard Saisset, bishop of Pamiers, begun in 1301,
and of Bishop Guichard of Troyes, which erupted in 1308.46 The proceedings
against the two bishops eventually petered out and resulted principally in inflicting misery on the two ecclesiastics. In contrast, the attacks on Boniface and the
Templars, which became closely intertwined, were pursued with signal determination and finally ended in the dissolution of the order. Pursuit of the Templars
involved torture, rendition, and what Given termed judicial murder, the execution of numerous Templars who, after confessing, retracted their avowals and
defended the innocence of their order.47

44
Chronique mtrique, ed. Diverrs, pp. 215 (lines 658589) and 228 (line 7295); Brown, Reform and Resistance, p. 111.
45
For Boniface see Tilmann Schmidt, Der Bonifaz-Prozess: Verfahren der Papstanklage in der Zeit
Bonifaz VIII. und Clemens V., Forschungen zur kirchlichen Rechtsgeschichte und zum Kirchenrecht 19 (Cologne, 1989), and Jean Coste, Boniface VIII en procs: Articles daccusation et dpositions des tmoins (13031311). dition critique, introductions et notes, Pubblicazioni della Fondazione Camillo Caetani, Studi e Documenti dArchivio, 5 (Rome, 1995); for the Templars, Malcolm
Barber, The Trial of the Templars, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Eng., 2006), and Ghislain Brunel et al., Laffaire
des Templiers, du procs au mythe, exhibition catalogue (Paris, 2011).
46
Strayer, Reign, pp. 26264 and 300313, for useful summaries of the proceedings against these
two men. For Saisset see also Jeffrey H. Denton, Bernard Saisset and the Franco-Papal Rift of December 1301, Revue dhistoire ecclsiastique 102 (2007), 399426; and Julien Thry, Allo scoppio del conflitto tra Filippo il Bello di Francia e Bonifacio VIII: Laffaire Saisset (1301). Primi splunti
per una rilettura, in I poteri universali e la fondazione dello Studium urbis: Il pontefice Bonifacio
VIII dalla Unam sanctam allo Schiaffo di Anagni. Atti del Convegno di studi RomaAnagni, 910
maggio 2003, ed. Giovanni Minnucci (Bologna, 2008), pp. 2168. For Guichard see also Alain Provost, Domus diaboli: Un vque en procs au temps de Philippe le Bel (Paris, 2010); Provost plans
to publish the documents concerning Guichard, of which only some were edited by Abel Rigault in
his still useful study, Le procs de Guichard, vque de Troyes (13081313), Mmoires et Documents Publis par la Socit de lcole des chartes 1 (Paris, 1896; available online on Google through
Harvard University). See also Alain Provost, La procdure, la norme et linstitution: Le cas de Guichard, vque de Troyes (13081314), in Les procs politiques (XIVeXVIIe sicle), ed. YvesMarie Berc, Collection de lEcole franaise de Rome 375 (Rome, 2007), pp. 83103 and 696, and
idem, On the Margins of the Templars Trial: The Case of Bishop Guichard of Troyes, in The Debate on the Trial of the Templars (13071314), ed. Jochen Burgtorf, Paul F. Crawford, and Helen J.
Nicholson (Farnham, Eng., 2010), pp. 11727.
47
Given, Chasing Phantoms, p. 280. Strayer was inclined to believe some at least of the charges
against the Templars, notably that they were unchaste and that they often engaged in homosexual
practices: Reign, pp. 29091, where he also remarked, Men may tell truth as well as lies under
torture.

16

Philip the Fair

Philips minister Guillaume de Nogaret, together with Nogarets protg and

associate Guillaume de Plaisians, played major roles in these prosecutions.48 Still,
there is no reason to doubt that Philip the Fair approved the policies they implemented. When some fifty-four Templars were burned near Paris on 12 May 1310,
Philip, perhaps by design, was absent.49 But he attended the Council of Vienne,
where the attack on Bonifaces memory was abandoned and the Templars dissolved.50 He was in Paris when, on 18 March 1314, Jacques de Molay, the grand
master of the Templars, and the commander of Normandy, Geoffroi de Charny,
repudiated their confessions and were summarily burned on a small island in the
Seine.51 At this point, the advisers who had led the prosecution of Bonifaces memory and the Templars were gone. Nogaret had died almost a year before, on 11
April 1313, and his alter ego Guillaume de Plaisians did not long outlive him.52
What led Philip to endorse these campaigns?

48
Sbastien Nadiras is completing a comprehensive study of Nogaret, expanding on the thesis he
submitted at the cole nationale des chartes in 2003, Guillaume de Nogaret et le pratique du pouvoir; for the moment see the summary in Positions des thses de lcole des chartes (2003), pp. 161
68. I am deeply grateful to M. Nadiras for permitting me to consult his thesis, for much stimulating
debate, and for numerous references. Still useful is Robert Holtzmann, Wilhelm von Nogaret: Rat
und Grosssiegelbewahrer Philipps des Schnen von Frankreich (Freiburg i. B., 1898); see as well the
references given by Thry, Allo scoppio, p. 44 n. 65. Plaisians was closely involved in Nogarets
attack on Boniface: see Charles-Victor Langlois, Les papiers de Guillaume de Nogaret et de Guillaume de Plaisians au Trsor des chartes, Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothque nationale et dautres bibliothques 39 (1909), 21541, at p. 23, no. 261.
49
Barber, Trial, pp. 17880; Lalou, Itinraire, 2:352.
50
Ewald Mller, Das Konzil von Vienne 13111312: Seine Quellen und seine Geschichte, Vorreformationsgeschichtliche Forschungen 12 (Mnster in W., 1934), pp. 196235 (Verhandlungen in
Anwesenheit des franzsischen Knigs); Lalou, Itinraire, 2:38388.
51
Barber, Trial, pp. 28182, citing the continuation of Guillaume de Nangis, ed. Graud, 1:4024;
Lalou, Itinraire, 2:41617. The kings presence in Paris on 17 March is attested in a mandate to
Pierre de Galard preserved in a register now in Tournai. For his presence there on 19 March, Lalou
cited the chronicle of Jean de Saint-Victor, stating that it records on that date a meeting of the Conseil royal to decide the execution of Jacques de Molay, Hugues de Pairaud, and Geoffroy de Gonneville. In fact, however, Jean de Saint-Victors account is vague and gives no date; it states that those
who retracted their confessions were ad incendium iudicati, magisterque fuit combustus in parva
insula sub capella: Recueil des historiens, 21:658.
52
Acta Aragonensia: Quellen zur deutschen, italienischen, franzsischen, spanischen, zur Kirchenund Kulturgeschichte aus der diplomatischen Korrespondenz Jaymes II. (12911327), ed. Heinrich
Finke, 3 vols. (Berlin, 190822), 1:46064, no. 309, at p. 463: die mercurii ante festum Pasche (in
a dispatch of an Aragonese envoy dated from Poissy on 23 April 1313); Strayer, Reign, p. 30 n. 84.
Holtzmann (Nogaret, p. 211) did not know this source but deduced from the appointment of Pierre
de Latilly as keeper of the seals on 26 April that Nogaret must have died around the middle of April.
The precise date of Plaisianss death seems to be unknown, but he is thought to have died not long
after Nogaret: Holtzmann, Nogaret, pp. 21213; Abel Henry, Guillaume de Plaisian, Le Moyen
ge 5 (1892), 3238; Joseph R. Strayer, Les gens de justice du Languedoc sous Philippe le Bel, Cahiers de lAssociation Marc Boch de Toulouse, tudes dhistoire mridionale, 5 (Toulouse, 1970),
pp. 5758 and 79; Franois Maillard, propos dun ouvrage rcent: Notes sur quelques officiers
royaux du Languedoc vers 12801335, in Actes du 96e Congrs national des Socits savantes, Toulouse, 1971: Section de philologie et dhistoire jusqu 1610, 1: France du Nord et France du Midi:
Contacts et influences rciproques (Paris, 1978), pp. 32558, at p. 327, for Plaisianss ties with Dauphin. He was alive on 1820 November 1313, when he appeared in Lyon as Philip the Fairs emis-

Philip the Fair

17

As concerns the attacks against Boniface, Philip the Fair publicly declared in
1303 that he was acting because of his fervor for the Catholic faith and his great
devotion to the most holy and universal Roman church, the mother of all the
faithful, the bride of Christ. Before him, his predecessors had risked their lives
to exalt and defend the churchs liberty and faith, and thus his conscience, fortified by the general outcry for his intervention, pressed him to act.53 As for the
Templars, Philip was extolled as the elect instrument of Divine Providence, chosen because he was most devout, most Christian, most powerful, and most rich,
and hence without need for Templar wealth,54 a man who pursued the accusations meticulously, for the honor of the church, whose devoted son he was. 55
Again the kings progenitors were invoked, and the blood they and their noble
followers were said to have shed for the church. These were charged and ringing
statements, but it is difficult to believe that such general and formulaic spurs to
action would have been enough to move Philip to pursue, for almost a decade,
the charges that were launched against his adversaries. Other sources suggest the
likelihood that the king and his conscience were subjected to pressures that were
considerably more profound and compelling. This leads us to Guillaume de Nogaret and to letters and memoranda that he wrote in his own hand.
Guillaume de Nogaret, erstwhile lawyer and professor of law, likely the grandson of a convicted Albigensian, was in the kings service by 1293 and was ennobled in 1299. He rose to prominence after the death of Pierre Flote at Courtrai
on 11 July 1302, incurred excommunication because of his confrontation with
Boniface VIII at Anagni in September 1303, and became keeper of the seals on
22 September 1307, on the eve of the arrest of the Templars. A man of action,
words, and moral imperatives, a razor-sharp thinker, an inspired zealot who wrote
and spoke with oracular conviction, a controller and manipulator, endowed with

sary to the archbishop: Claude Franois Menestrier, Histoire Civile ou Consulaire de la Ville de Lyon
. . . (Lyon, 1696; available online through Gallica), pp. 43840; I owe this reference to the rich prosopographical files of Joseph R. Strayer, which William Chester Jordan kindly entrusted to me.
53
See Philips reply to the oration of Guillaume de Plaisians against Boniface, delivered on 13 June
1303, in Dupuy, Histoire, Actes et prevves, pp. 100109, at p. 107: ob feruorem tamen Catholice fidei ac deuotionem eximiam quam ad sacrosanctam Romanam & vniuersalem Ecclesiam matrem
nostram & omnium fidelium, sponsam Christi, progenitorum nostrorum inherendo vestigiis gerimus, qui pro exaltatione ac defensione ecclesiastice libertatis & fidei proprium sanguinem fundere
minime dubitauerunt, fidei negotio & ecclesie statui consuli cupientes, pro vitando dispendio scandali generalis, premissa nequeuntes vlterius, vrgente conscientia, sub conniuentia vel dissimulatione
transire, cum super his & frequentibus & assiduis clamoribus per fide dignos & magne auctoritatis
viros, sepe & sepius inculcatis, eius opinio vehementer & notabiliter sit grauata, cum super excidio
fidei nostre & quorumlibet aliorum & precipue Regum & Principum orbis terre, qui ad eius exaltationem & augmentum collatam nobis a Domino suscepisse cognoscimus potestatem, debet negligentia reprobari. . . .
54
See the account of Guillaume de Plaisianss speech before Clement V, summarized in French in
Langloiss review of Finke, Papsttum, p. 427, and also Finke, Papsttum, 2:14050, at pp. 14445.
The discourse opened with the charged phrases Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat.
55
Finke, Papsttum, 2:146: Sed rex adhibitis totis viribus hoc cohibuit propter honorem ecclesie,
cuius ipse est devotus filius.

18

Philip the Fair

a prodigious memory and immense energy, a connoisseur of the Bible both Jewish and Christian, Nogaret was Philip the Fairs chief spokesman and leading minister from 1302 until his death in 1313.56 Nogarets own force of character, I
believe, powerfully influenced Philip and affected the decisions he made on moral
issues that were close to Nogarets heart.
Some ninety years ago, in 1917, Charles-Victor Langlois published an autograph letter that, as he contended, casts important light on Nogarets motivations and character.57 The letter was sent to tienne de Suzy, archdeacon of Bruges,
who preceded Nogaret as keeper of the seals between 1302 and 1306 and whom
Clement V made a cardinal on 15 December 1305.58 The letter was written in
Sens, where fever had forced Nogaret to interrupt the journey on which he had
set forth. Langlois argued convincingly that this happened in 1303, while Nogaret was on his way to encounter Boniface VIII. Having told the archdeacon of
his illness, Nogaret enumerated detailed memoranda he was dispatching on numerous affairs, every word of which he declared necessary and which only the
delay caused by his fever had enabled him to complete. At the end he wrote, May
the Lord by his grace direct my steps. My lord, pray the Lord that it please God
to direct me on my way, and otherwise that he stop me, by death or any other
means it please him. He concluded with a postscript: May I still [be able] to
complete todays stage [of the trip], the Lord permitting. 59
Langlois believed that these closing sentences suggested that Nogaret had a
conscience troubledperhaps by his poor physical stateon the eve of this great
56
In addition to the sources cited in n. 48 above, see Andr Gouron, Comment Guillaume de
Nogaret est-il entr au service de Philippe le Bel?, Revue historique 299 (1998), 2546, esp. pp. 35
37, on Nogarets style; Louis Thomas, La vie prive de Guillaume de Nogaret, Annales du Midi
16 (1904), 161207; Yves Dossat, Guillaume de Nogaret, petit-fils dhrtiques, Annales du Midi
209 (1941), 391402; and Franklin J. Pegues, The Lawyers of the Last Capetians (Princeton, N.J.,
1962), pp. 98102. The range of affairs in which Nogaret was involved and on which he was consulted is clearly demonstrated by the inventory of papers found in his house after his death, for which
see Langlois, Papiers de Nogaret et de Plaisians, pp. 21935 (309 items); following this are 301
entries listing items found in the house of Guillaume de Plaisians after his death (pp. 23547). See
Nadiras, Guillaume de Nogaret, pp. 1927.
57
Charles-Victor Langlois, Autographes nouveaux de Guillaume de Nogaret, Journal des savants, n.s., 15 (1917), 32127, at pp. 32223. The letters shelfmark, which Langlois did not give, is
AN, J 1050, no. 52 (AE II 1713). See Fig. 2 and the Appendix, Document 2, below. In Attentat,
pp. 16566 n. 1, Fawtier edited another autograph letter of Nogaret to tienne de Suzy, this one
Paris, Bibliothque nationale de France (hereafter BnF), P.O. 1389, dossier 31322 (de Grancey), no.
2, dated on the Tuesday before the feast of St. Thomas, probably 27 December 1300. Although Langlois referred to the archdeacon as tienne de Suisi and Fawtier referred to him as tienne de Suisy,
I follow Sebastien Nadiras in associating him with Suzy, a village in the Aisne (ar. Laon, c. Anizy-leChteau), twelve kilometers west of Laon.
58
See lisabeth Lalou, La chancellerie royale la fin du rgne de Philippe IV le Bel, in Fauvel
Studies: Allegory, Chronicle, Music, and Image in Paris, Bibliothque nationale de France, MS franais
146, ed. Margaret Bent and Andrew Wathey (Oxford, 1998), pp. 30919, at p. 312 n. 12 (tienne
de Suzy served as chancellor until April 1306, when he was succeeded by Pierre de Belleperche, who
served until Nogaret assumed office); Nadiras, Guillaume de Nogaret, pp. 5778; and Strayer, Reign,
pp. 7475.
59
See Document 2 in the Appendix below: domine mj orate ad dominum ut in uia mea deo placeat
me in ea diriguat. al[ias] me per mortem uel ut Sibj placebit impediat. Datum senonis die martis post
tertiam. adhuc faciam meam dietam / domino Concedente.

Fig. 2. AN, J 1050, no. 52 (AE II 1713). Autograph letter of Guillaume de Nogaret to tienne de Suzy.
See the Appendix, Document 2, below.

20

Philip the Fair

act. 60 For Robert Fawtier, writing in 1942, they demonstrated that far from being a hypocrite and scoundrel as was generally assumed, Nogaret was a man of
such ardent faith that he prayed God to stay his hand, if need be to strike him
dead, if the task he was undertaking . . . was contrary to His will. 61 Seven years
later, Fawtier declared that Nogarets words revealed that he was profoundly
religious and that he realized that his mission could have serious consequences
for religion. 62 In my view the whole letter sheds important light on Nogarets
character, and its last lines demonstrate his belief that his actions were divinely
inspired and sanctioned.
Written while Nogaret was ill, the letter displays his energy, his dedication, and
his determination (and ability) to master and control an enormous range of affairs and projects.63 It makes clear his confidence in the correctness of his judgments and assessments. As regards his conscience and faith, the final petitions
served to witness Nogarets piety and humility before God. They reveal an impulse to mold the image of himself he conveyed to others, here by convincing
tienne de Suzy of his exemplary rectitude, and suggest that Nogaret was a man
who cared greatly about his reputation and the way others viewed him. On the
other hand, at a deeper level, Nogarets plea to God to direct his steps implies
the hope, and indeed the conviction, that God was in fact doing so and that Nogarets mission had divine approval. The request that God intervene and stop him
if that was not the case suggests Nogarets confidence that, unless God struck
him dead or otherwise prevented him, his acts had Gods full endorsement. Nogarets imperatives thus became Gods as well. Such confidence is consistent with
Nogarets use of the talismanic formula In nomine dominj nostri Ihesu christi
to begin his memoranda.64

60
Langlois, Autographes, p. 323: une conscience troublepeut-tre par le malaise physique
la veille de ce grand acte. Langlois interpreted the phrase adhuc faciam meam dietam / domine
Concedente as Ce chemin que jai faire, je le ferai, avec la permission de Dieu. Note, however,
that earlier in the letter Nogaret had written that tienne de Suzy would not have had all the memoranda he would be receiving so quickly if I had been able to complete the daily stages of the trip
that I began (which he had not been able to do because of his fever; sciatis quod al[ias] Memorialia predicta non habuissetis ita cito si inceptas dietas facere potuissem). This leads me to believe
that the final phrase should be read, rather, May I still complete the stage of the trip planned for
today, God willing. Fawtier (Attentat, p. 166) translated dieta as voyage (si javais pu faire les
voyages commencs). He read Langloiss alias Memorialia predicta as alia Memorialia predicta; Nogaret wrote al, which can be expanded as alias, as it should be several lines down, or
alia, although the sense of the statement seems to me to support Langloiss choice.
61
Fawtier, Les Captiens, pp. 4243 (Capetian Kings, pp. 4243): dans les documents o il exprime
son opinion et dfend la cause du roi . . . Guillaume de Nogaret a protest que, seul, lintrt de la foi
le guidait ainsi que son matre, on a accus cet homme de loi dtre retors, par surcrot, hypocrite . . .
la dcouverte dune lettre particulire de la main mme de Nogaret . . . fait apparatre le prtendu
hypocrite comme un homme dune foi si ardente quil supplie Dieu de larrter, mme par la mort, si
la tche quil entreprendil est alors en route pour Anagninest point conforme sa volont.
62
Fawtier, Attentat, pp. 16667: que la mission quil entreprend peut tre grave pour la religion; profondment religieux.
63
Nadirass thesis on Nogaret makes clear the impressive sweep of his activities: Guillaume de
Nogaret, pp. 5679.
64
See, e.g., AN, J 904, no. 13, a draft of one of his defenses of his actions at Anagni. Similarly, the
draft he prepared earlier of articles to be used against Bernard Saisset commences, In nomine do-

Philip the Fair

21

Still, Nogaret could not have been completely sure that his enterprises were
divinely sanctioned. Whatever the strength of his belief in Gods support and approval, he also knew that he was subject to earthly authority and the dictates of
the church. Like his master Philip the Fair, he lived in terror of excommunication, but unlike Philip, Nogaret had to suffer the penalties of exclusion from the
church for some seven years after the encounter at Anagni and Bonifaces subsequent death. Nogaret worked obsessively to contest the sentence and to gain
release from it, which he did not achieve until 27 April 1311.65 The numerous
erasures and cancellations in the many memoranda he wrote in his defense, like
the six copies he commissioned of the bull of absolution he finally obtained,66
suggest the desperation and frustration he must long have felt, as well as the depth
of his emotional involvement in his struggle.67 So, too, do the vigor and determination of his campaign to gain condemnation of the memory of Boniface VIII,
a valuable weapon in his effort to clear himself.
Another document that Nogaret wrote, prompted by this campaign, illuminates his thinking, motivations, fears, and convictions.68 It reveals the tactics he
was prepared to use to achieve his goals and the pressures he was capable of
devising to persuade the king to endorse the policies he advocated. A curious,

minj Ihesu christi amen (AN, J 336, no. 91 ); this phrase was not reproduced in the fair copy of the
charges (AN, J 336, no. 92 ). In editing these latter acts, Denton (Bernard Saisset, p. 415) overlooked the phrase at the start of J 336, no. 91, which, together with the distinctive script and spelling, testifies to Nogarets responsibility for the memorandum; cf. Nadiras, Guillaume de Nogaret,
p. 50; and Thry, Allo scoppio, pp. 4245. See also a list of exaggerated and farfetched accusations against Guichard de Troyes drafted by Nogaret, which commences in the top lefthand corner
with the phrase In nomine dominj nostri ihesu christi amen (AN, J 438, no. 8, published in Rigault,
Procs, pp. 27075, no. 13). Nadiras, Guillaume de Nogaret, pp. 1519, showed that some features of Nogarets curious orthography, especially the insertion of u between g and o or a, are found
in documents emanating from southern France. In addition to the examples given by Nadiras, note
Inteliguo and huguo in copies of acts recorded in the late-thirteenth-century register of the commune
of Montpellier, BnF, lat. 9192 (which contains acts concerning Nogaret and Plaisians), fols. 54v and
56v.
65
Clement V issued seven bulls concerning Boniface VIII and Anagni on 27 April 1311 to appease
Philip the Fair and Nogaret: Actes pontificaux, ed. Barbiche, 3:7476, nos. 241319. Clement excluded Nogaret from the bulls granting general forgiveness for the encounter at Anagni and issued a
special bull to impose penances on him as a condition of his absolution: ibid., p. 75, no. 2415; AN,
J 491A, no. 7851 (in Dupuy, Histoire, Actes et prevves, pp. 592602).
66
In June and July following, six copies of the bull concerning Nogaret were made by the royal notary Jacques de Vertus (Virtuto) and authenticated by the official of Paris, of which five were endorsed
Magne pro domino .G. de Nogareto super facto Bonifacii: AN, J 491A, nos. 78529 ; Schmidt, BonifazProzess, pp. 39293 (note that no. 7859 was issued [as well as sealed] by the official of Paris). These
copies were likely preserved among Nogarets papers: Langlois, Papiers de Nogaret et de Plaisians,
p. 234, nos. 283 (Tenores litterarum papalium absolutionis in dicto facto Bonifacii), 288 (Transcriptum cujusdam clausule littere papalis in quantum tangit dominum Guillelmum de Nogareto super
dicto facto), and 289 (Transcriptum littere papalis facte pro domino Guillelmo de Nogareto).
67
See, e.g., AN, J 908, no. 13.
68
AN, J 491, no. 797bis. See Fig. 3 and the Appendix, Document 3, below. See n. 70 below, for
Holtzmanns edition of the act. In Autographes, p. 323 n. 1, Langlois referred to the document as
a supplique of Nogaret and noted that it had une trace de cachet rouge semblable celle de [AN, J
1050, no. 52], which he edited.

Philip the Fair

22

Fig. 3. AN, J. 491, no. 797bis. Epistolary memorandum of Guillaume de Nogaret.

See the Appendix, Document 3, below.

hybrid act, neither quite letter nor memorandum, it is perhaps best termed an
epistolary memorandum. Obliquely addressed to Philip the Fair, it was written
after Clement V was elected pope in June 1305 and before Philip reached Lyon
in early November to attend Clements coronation.69 The document has been edited before, although its distinctive features have been obscured by the editions
altered and modernized spelling and punctuation and by its failure to make clear
how many canceled and corrected phrases the act contains.70
Lalou, Itinraire, p. 267.
Holtzmann, Nogaret, pp. 25355, no. 2. Holtzmann entitled the document Nogaret ermahnt
den Knig, nicht vom Prozess gegen Bonifaz abzustehen, und giebt ihm verschiedene Ratschlge zur
69
70

Philip the Fair

23

The document begins, not with the invocation of Christ with which Nogaret
often opened his memoranda, but rather with the abrupt statement that Guillaume de Nogaret was asking the most serene prince, whose knight he was, to
attend to the matters he was bringing to his attention. The Latin is stilted and
artificial: Serenissimo principi Suplicat Guillelmus de noguareto. Miles eius. ut
Magestas Regia dignetur aduertere Super hiis que Sequntur. The king is not addressed directly, and the Serene Prince is distinguished from the Royal Majesty who is entreated to deign to consider the matters that will be laid before
him. Seven proposals, buttressed (rather vaguely) by authorities, are then solemnly presented.
The first axiom is expressed with passionate conviction: First, that Christ is
the truth, and whoever denies truth denies Christ, and whoever draws back from
the truth draws back from Christ, and whoever draws back from Christ or
from the truth is not faithful but profane. He does not hold Gods way, especially
if he changes the truth designedly. This God and all saints write and say. 71 The
second postulate, invoking Augustine (and informed by scriptural citations), pursues a theme dear to Nogaret: the universal duty not to neglect ones reputation
( fama). Nogaret elaborated, declaring that although a persons conscience may
excuse an innocent man before God, that is not sufficient here on earth.72 The
third proposal, appealing to Christ, proclaims the universal duty to continue the
work of Christ once begun and pronounces any who willingly abandon Christs
work unfit for the kingdom of heaven.73 The fourth cites the authority of Christ,
the prophet, and all saints in describing the confusion that will be visited on any
hypocrite and prevaricator who feigns religion and zeal for God. The fifth proposition, invoking (erroneously) the prophets and the Book of Wisdom, declares
that much is demanded from those to whom much is givenand particularly kings
and magnates, who will be more harshly judged for sinning in the offices committed to them. The sixth axiom, presented without any specific authority, proclaims that when Christs business cannot be finished because of adverse times,
it should not be impeded, so that it can be completed when times change; in short,
it is more tolerable for Christs business to be deferred than for it to be totally

Behandlung desselben. (JuniNovember 1305). He dated the document as he did, first, because of
Nogarets insistence on the necessity of pressing the pope to name French cardinals, which in fact
happened on 15 December 1305, and, second, because the phrase as soon as you arrive (in principio uestri aduentus) anticipated Philip the Fairs arrival in Lyon in early November. Holtzmann
noted that Nogarets doubt that the pope would be cooperative (quia non habemus ad hoc papam
voluntarium) suggested a date shortly after Clements election, when his position on numerous issues was unclear. Holtzmann discussed this document on pp. 13132, simply saying it advised that
the attack on Bonifaces memory should continue; see pp. 24677 for documents relating to Nogarets efforts to gain absolution. Curiously, Fawtier described the document as a dposition by Nogaret explaining his role in the Anagni affair: Attentat, p. 169 n. 3.
71
Cf. John 14.6: Ego sum via, et veritas, et vita. Nemo venit ad Patrem, nisi per me.
72
Cf. 2 Corinthians 8.21: Providemus enim bona non solum coram Deo sed etiam coram hominibus; Holtzmann, Nogaret, p. 253 n. 3.
73
Luke 9.62: Ait ad illum Iesus: Nemo mittens manum suam ad aratrum, et respiciens retro, aptus est regno Dei.

24

Philip the Fair

abandoned. The seventh and final proposition is a dire warning, and here the royal
highness is once more directly addressed, still in the third person, and again admonished to take to heart Gods revelation in the Old Testament and the New
that he destroyed many kings and princes for their sins and drove them from their
thrones: princes of Judah, kings of the Gentiles, Roman emperors, a king of France
called Louis, as well as the emperor Frederick. The added phrase, and their successors, was a theatrical exaggeration, and Nogaret in the end crossed it out.74
The propositions once set forth, Nogaret turned to the king himself, abandoning the third person and addressing him directly: With you therefore is judgment, O lord king, before God and men. The king is reminded that he has no
temporal judge, but only God, who cannot be deceived, bribed, or convinced,
except by the simple truth. It was he, the king, who openly and publicly had assumed the business of Christ, the Catholic faith, and the defense of the church,
against Boniface, as the king himself has said. Linking the pursuit of Boniface
with the axioms, Nogaret warned the king to beware of his reputation and honor
and of the scandal and sin that would result if the affair was not pressed. By
abandoning the cause, Nogaret proclaimed, you would be cruel and sin before men, you would cause scandal, you would sin mortally, and by persevering
you would always remain in sin and not be fit for the kingdom of God. Nothing could excuse this, if the king withdrew from Gods truth, since Scripture cannot lie. To be sure, Nogaret acknowledged, continuing to address the king directly, the way would not be easy, since the pope was likely to resist and the king
was engaged in wars, but even though difficult it was not impossible, and these
were no excuses for withdrawing from the truth. It would be still more difficult,
Nogaret remarked, were a general council of the church to be convened before
Bonifaces heresy was demonstrated, since prelates from other countries were likely
to oppose the French, particularly if the pope proved to be hostile, which was a
great danger. Nogaret then went on to plead that he be permitted to defend himself as soon as the king arrived in Lyon, since the way of defense is easier and
less dangerous than the way of accusation, and this would lay the ground for
proceeding against Boniface. Nogaret also noted that he could provide good reasons for recusing some of the cardinals. Abruptly abandoning his direct address
to the king and reverting to the third person, Nogaret counseled that whichever
way the king chose, French cardinals faithful to him should be created before
negotiations began in earnest, so that they could be involved and support the
king and his interests. In the closing sentence, Nogaret again admonished the king
directly: Before all things, in all things, and through all things, O lord, you should
remember that a duplicitous person who has one thing in his mouth and another
in his heart is abominable to God, since [quoting Wisdom], the holy spirit of
discipline will flee the deceitful. 75 Nogarets diatribe was harsh and uncomproThis final admonition may have been inspired by Boniface VIIIs bull of 15 August 1303, Nuper
ad audientiam, in which the pope reminded Philip the Fair of the many rulers his predecessors had
disciplined. See n. 35 above.
75
Wisdom 1.5: Spiritus enim sanctus discipline effugiet fictum; Et auferet se a cogitationibus que
sunt sine intellectu, Et corripietur a superveniente iniquitate.
74

Philip the Fair

25

mising, laying out the perilous consequences of veering from the course Nogaret
prescribed. In the memorandum Nogaret aimed to cow Philip and coerce him to
do his will or risk incurring Gods displeasure and punishment, forfeiting the
throne of France, and suffering eternal damnation.
That Nogaret would have dared to communicate such admonitions to the monarch he served, directly, in the form they are recorded in the memorandum seems
unthinkable. Yet there is no question that Nogaret composed the memorandum
and copied it out himself. Nor is there any question that Philip the Fair was the
person to whom Nogaret was directing his words. Yet it seems clear that the memorandum was not intended as a letter to be sent to the king. It has no proper
address and no traditional closing. Its tone and diction are exceedingly curious.
The king is sometimes addressed in the third person and sometimes in the second. It contains numerous cancellations and corrections. On the other hand, the
act was folded, carefully closed with two parchment strips, and sealed twice with
Nogarets seal, in a manner more careful than, but similar to, the way Nogaret
ordinarily prepared letters for dispatch. Still, its exterior lacks an essential and
critical element: an address. Nothing on the outside of the letter indicates to whom
it was to be sent, for whom it was intended.
Why, then, did Nogaret write the memorandum? Why did he prepare and seal
it as he did? A possible answer to the first question is that Nogaret wrote the
memorandum as an aide-mmoire, to rehearse and record arguments he could
advance to incite and indeed compel Philip the Fair to implement the policies he
advocated. But why was the document then sealed? His ideas once written down,
Nogaret did not need to see them again. They were fixed in his consciousness,
ready to be given voice. He may have wanted to keep the words close by him,
sealed to protect them from the eyes of others, but physically present as an amulet providing strength and inspiration to speak out. Still, Nogaret did not lack
for courage, and he may have been thinking of his fama, his reputation, hoping
that after his death the document, sealed as it was, would be opened and its contents read as a manifesto of the principles and moral imperatives that informed
his actions.
Nogaret must have believed firmly in the rightness of the standards he set forth,
which he may have judged self-evidently true. He was doubtless convinced that,
passionately presented, they could persuade the hesitant and impart to the reluctant the sense of moral certitude he felt. The arguments and, to us, often devious logic of the memorandum were apt instruments for promoting the attack
not only on Boniface but also on the Templars and the various other victims
and enemies of king and kingdom. It would have taken unusual moral strength
and self-assurance to withstand the relentless zeal that animated Nogaret, and
the fates visited on his and Philips adversaries show that such qualities were
notably lacking at the royal court. By the time Nogaret died, Philip the Fair seems
to have assimilated his ministers uncompromising principles, which may have
resonated with his own. The execution of the Templar leaders in 1314, and perhaps the brutal punishment inflicted on young men suspected of adultery with
royal daughters-in-law, suggests that Nogarets influence survived him, although
other acts of Philipthe restitution of the tax of 1313 and a number of his death-

26

Philip the Fair

bed provisionsreveal glimmerings of the sense of right and wrong perceptible

in some of his youthful declarations.
During Philips reign there were some whose consciences were finer tuned than
those of Nogaret and the king, some who attempted to stand up for justice and
truth. As has been seen, Boniface VIII spoke out, and Clement V was more assertive and far less pliant than Philip the Fair (and Nogaret) hoped he would be.
Some Templars went to their deaths for refusing to reaffirm confessions made
under torture and for defending their order. Queen Jeanne for a time strove to
defend Bernard Dlicieux and the victims of the Inquisition in Languedoc.76 Some
ecclesiastics, university masters and others, refused to endorse the governments
denunciations of Boniface and the Templars and suffered for their silence and
resistance.77 Jean de Pontoise, abbot of Cteaux, refused to support Philip the Fairs
attack in Boniface and was driven into exile.78 Jacques de Thrines, the Cistercian abbot of Chaalis, delivered a bold defense of the Templars before the pope
and the Council of Vienne.79 University masters in their quodlibetic debates questioned the morality of other royal actions, ranging from the burial of a fathers
heart apart from his body to taxation and warfare.80 Royal subjects, noble, bour-

76
Alan Friedlander, The Hammer of the Inquisitors: Brother Bernard Dlicieux and the Struggle
against the Inquisition in Fourteenth-Century France, Cultures, Beliefs and Traditions: Medieval and
Early Modern Peoples 9 (Leiden, 2000).
77
William J. Courtenay, Between Pope and King: The Parisian Letters of Adhesion of 1303, Speculum 71 (1996), 577605; idem, The Role of University Masters and Bachelors at Paris in the Templar Affair, 13071308, in 1308: Eine Topographie historischer Gleichzeitigkeit, ed. Andreas Speer
and David Wirmer, Miscellanea Mediaevalia 35 (Berlin, 2010), pp. 17181; idem and Karl Ubl, Gelehrte Gutachten und knigliche Politik im Templerprozess, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Studien und Texte, 51 (Hannover, 2010), pp. 965; Jrgen Miethke, Philippe le Bel von Frankreich
und die Universitt von Paris: Zur Rolle der Intellektuellen am Beginn des 14. Jahrhunderts, in 1308,
ed. Speer and Wirmer, pp. 18298; and Paul F. Crawford, The Involvement of the University of
Paris in the Trials of Marguerite Porete and of the Templars, 130810, in Debate on the Trial of
the Templars, ed. Burgtorf et al., pp. 12959.
78
Guillaume de Nangis, Chronique, ed. Graud, 1:341 (1304), and the fuller account in another
continuation of the chronicle, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 4598, fol. 202r: Cisterciensis
abbas cenobij Iohannes de pontizara sui loci et ordinis cessit ultra regnum non abbatis nomini renuncians aut honori motus ut aiunt quod Philippus rex francie in eius odium domos cisterciensis ordinis in regno francie constitut[a]s quamplurimum infestaret. Et Rex hoc maxime faciebat. ut plurimi
extimabant. eo quod dictus abbas minime concessisset anno preterito precedenti proximo in appellatione facta Parisius contra papam bonifacium a prelatis.
79
Nol Valois, Jacques de Thrines, Cistercien, Histoire littraire de la France 34 (1914), 179
219, esp. pp. 18081 and 198200; William Chester Jordan, Unceasing Strife, Unending Fear: Jacques
de Thrines and the Freedom of the Church in the Age of the Last Capetians (Princeton, N.J.,
2005), pp. 5255; Bibliothecae patrvm Cisterciensivm, . . . ed. Bertrand Tissier, 8 vols. (Bonofonte,
166069), 4:261315 (Tractatus Domini Iacobi de Thermis abbatis Caroliloci, Cister. Ordinis: contra Impugnatores Exemptionum & Privilegiorum, Editus Vienn tempore Concilij Generalis), at
p. 299.
80
Ian P. Wei, The Masters of Theology at the University of Paris in the Late Thirteenth and Early
Fourteenth Centuries: An Authority beyond the Schools, Bulletin of the John Rylands University
Library of Manchester 75 (1993), 3763; idem, The Self-Image of the Masters of Theology at the
University of Paris in the Late Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries, Journal of Ecclesistical
History 46 (1995), 398431.

Philip the Fair

27

geois, and ecclesiastic, joined in leagues on the eve of Philip the Fairs death to
protest his policies.81 The league in Champagne was led by the same nonagenerian Jean de Joinville who in his Life of St. Louis wrote that Louiss canonization brought honor to those of his descendants who followed him in doing well
and dishonor to those who did not, since people would point a finger at them
and say that the holy king, their progenitor, would have shrunk from doing as
they did. 82
Had I been writing eighteen months ago, I might well have included in this
company the heroic Marguerite Porete, the woman who has been called one of
the most important figures in the history of the heresy of the Free Spirit, 83 the
only medieval woman known to have been executed for a book she authored, 84
a woman whose bold and uncompromising spirituality led to her being burned
as a heretic on 1 June 1310,85 a woman whom one chronicle (essentially the only
one to report her death) portrays as dying nobly and devoutly and thus touching
the hearts of all,86 a woman who since 1946 has been thought to have written
the enormously popular (more now than in the Middle Ages) Mirror of Simple
Souls. Why do I hesitate to include her with the others I mention? Because, having studied the sparse and curious documentation concerning her and her alleged companion Guiard de Cressonessart, I have increasing difficulty believing
they believed or did what some of the odd documents connected with their names
declared they did. But that, clearly, is the subject of another talk.87
What of those who reported, chronicled, and commented on the deeds of Philip
the Fair and his ministers? As always, what and how they reported varied as

On the leagues see above, n. 11.

Jean, sire de Joinville, uvres, comprenant: lHistoire de saint Louis, le Credo et la lettre Louis
X, . . . ed. Natalis de Wailly (Paris, 1867), pp. 500 and 502: . . . grant honeur a toute sa lignee qui
a li vourront retraire de bien faire, & grant deshoneur a touz ceulz de son lignage, qui par bones
vres ne le vourront ensuivre; grant deshoneur, dis-je, a son lignage qui mal voudront fere; car en les
mousterra au doi, & dira len que le saint roy dont il sont estrait, feist envis une tele mauvestie.
83
Robert E. Lerner, The Heresy of the Free Spirit in the Later Middle Ages (Berkeley, Calif., 1972),
p. 71; see also Lerners article New Light on The Mirror of Simple Souls, Speculum 85 (2010),
91116.
84
Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, Books under Suspicion: Censorship and Tolerance of Revelatory Writing
in Late Medieval England (Notre Dame, Ind., 2006), p. 272.
85
Bernard McGinn, The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New Mysticism (1250
1350), The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism 3 (New York, 1998), p. 244.
86
Guillaume de Nangis, Chronique, ed. Graud, 1:380: Multa tamen in suo exitu penitentie signa ostendit nobilia pariter ac devota, per que multorum viscera ad compatiendum ei pie ac etiam
lacrymabiliter fuisse commota testati sunt oculi qui viderunt.
87
See, for the moment, the notice I contributed to Brunel, Laffaire des Templiers, Dossier
daccusation de Marguerite Porete et de Guiard de Cressonessart. Marsoctobre 1310, pp. 5051.
My doubts were first aroused by a talk given by Lydia Wegener at a conference organized by the
Groupe danthropologie scolastique in Paris in 2010 to commemorate the seven-hundredth anniversary of Marguerites condemnation and execution, The Supposed Interrelations between Marguerite Porete, the Mirror of Simple Souls, and Meister EckhartSome Remarks about the Limits of
a Historiographical Concept. An article by Wegener subsequently appeared: Freiheitsdiskurs und
Beginenverfolgung um 1308Der Fall der Marguerite Porete, in 1308, ed. Speer and Wirmer,
pp. 199236.
81
82

28

Philip the Fair

widely as did their perspectives. The chroniclers connected with the Abbey of
Saint-Denis received and repeated reports provided them expressly for dissemination. During the last half of Philips reign, his confessor Guillaume de Paris
(the prelate who dominated the Marguerite Porete affair) seems to have been a
privileged channel of information for at least one of the continuators of the chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis, the Dyonisian historian who died in or about 1300.88
The contemporary chroniclers Bernard Gui and Jean de Saint-Victor were more
discriminating.89
There were those within the government who opposed royal policies and recorded their dissent. As its different scripts witness, royal chancery clerks assembled the texts for and supervised the production of a striking manuscript that
contains works serious and satirical, including the Livres de Fauvel, the story of
the horse of hypocrisy who with the help of Dame Fortune ruled the France of
Philip the Fair.90 Fauvel attacks the corruption of the world and its rulers, as do
eight political poems and a rhymed chronicle covering the years 1300 to 1316
that follow the long satire.91 A prefatory poem proclaimed the compilers conviction that it was their moral duty to speak out.92 Other passages mocked the
leaders under whom they labored. Some of their messages were coded.93 In Fauvel, for example, a lengthy passage approves Philip the Fairs campaign against
the Templars, whereas the accompanying illustrations show, not Templar depravity, but rather groups of clerks lecturing first Fauvel and then mother church.94
In the rhymed chronicle, the account of proceedings against the order in 1307
are interrupted, time and again, with cautions: Je ne sai a tort ou a droit (I
dont know rightly or wrongly), Se voirs estoit quen disoit delz (If what they
say of them is true),95 Si comme assez de genz le dient: Mes je ne sai se il mes88
I intend to explore these issues in a study of the affair of Marguerite Porete and Guiard de Cressonessart. William L. Shirer recorded the ways in which and the extent to which the Nazi regime
controlled the press in the years before the outbreak of World War II, in Berlin Diary: The Journal
of a Foreign Correspondent, 19341941 (New York, 1941); see pp. 4446, 7273, 78, 104, 116,
13435, 136, 17273, 18283, 185, 186, 200, 230, 233, and 261.
89
Anne-Marie Lamarrigue, Bernard Gui (12611331): Un historien et sa mthode, tudes dHistoire
Mdivale 5 (Paris, 2000); Isabelle Guyot-Bachy, Le Memoriale historiarum de Jean de Saint-Victor:
Un historien et sa communaut au dbut du XIVe sicle, Bibliotheca Victorina 12 (Turnhout, 2000).
90
See the articles collected in Fauvel Studies, ed. Bent and Wathey; my article Rex ioians, ionnes,
iolis: Louis X, Philip V, and the Livres de Fauvel appears on pp. 5372. See also the facsimile of the
manuscript, Le roman de Fauvel in the Edition of Mesire Chaillou de Pesstain: A Reproduction in
Facsimile of the Complete Manuscript, Paris, Bibliothque nationale, Fonds franais 146, ed. Edward H. Roesner, Franois Avril, and Nancy Freeman Regalado (New York, 1990). Also useful is
Gregory Alexander Harrison, Jr., The Monophonic Music in the Roman de Fauvel (Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1963; University Microfilms 64-1613), which contains a photographic
reproduction and transcription of Fauvel.
91
For Jean de Saint-Victors use of this chronicle see Guyot-Bachy, Le Memoriale historiarum,
pp. 2013.
92
BnF, fr. 146, fol. Arv.
93
See Edward H. Roesner, Labouring in the Midst of Wolves: Reading a Group of Fauvel Motets,
Early Music History 22 (2003), 169245.
94
BnF, fr. 146, fols. 8v9r.
95
Chronique mtrique, ed. Diverrs, p. 156 (lines 3418 and 3426).

Philip the Fair

29

dient (As many people say, but I dont know if they are lying).96 Later, in 1314,
the chronicle presents a long account of the death of Jacques de Molay and his
companion, who are presented as holy martyrs.97 So there were some, however
few and however guardedly, who gave voice to their consciences and championed what they believed was true and right.
What then, if anything, can we conclude from this survey of consciences and
moral imperatives of times long past? Several things, I would suggest. Beware of
moral imperatives, however enunciated, and beware of the oracular voices that
proclaim them. Beware of those who dodge responsibility for judgment and try
to shift it to others. Welcome and confront the burdens and conundrums of conscience, and the perplexities and anguish they cause. These provide the challenges that summon forth the best in us and call on us to show our mettle. But
still beware. The examples of Philip the Fair and Guillaume de Nogaret show
how easy it is to dupe, to be duped, and to dupe oneself. Beware.

Appendix
Three Documents

1
AN, J 452B, no. 35: bull of Clement V of 23 December 1305, responding to grave problems of conscience that troubled Philip the Fair, including monetary mutations, subventions, seizures, and other extortions (see Fig. 1). Copied with many erasures and compressed words on expertly prepared parchment of medium quality and sealed. 626 mm.
wide 398 mm. high, with lines 12/13 mm. apart, the right margin 39 mm. wide, the left
margin 51 mm. wide, and the foldup 53 mm. high.
Endorsements in fourteenth-century script include Prima; viij viij; Remissio;
bona; .anno. I o.; and .Remissio / quictatio et datio facte domino Regi Philippo de
hiis que habuit racione passagij terre sancte 98 de Ecclesiis et vsurariis ac Iudeis iuxta modificaciones hic contentas.99 Above the holes for appending the bull is written .VII. Modern endorsements include 10. des Kalend. de janv. au 1er; 23 Xbre 1305; J. 452.
no. 35.; 1306; and Subsides Ecclesiastiques pour Croisades.
Clemens episcopus seruus seruorum dei / Carissimo in christo filio / Philippo. Regi Franc[orum] Illustri / Salutem et apostolicam benedictionem.

Ibid., p. 157 (lines 347879).

Ibid., pp. 198200 (esp. p. 199, lines 573942): Et si doucement la mort prist // Que chascun
merveilles en fist. // Quant lautre frere vit son mestre // Par tel mort a martyre metre. . . . The chronicle recorded that Jacques de Molay cried out, Diex en vengera nostre mort (line 5728), whereas
in Fauvel, God takes revenge on the Templars: Diex qui en ueut faire ueniance // A fait grant grace
au Roi de france // De ce quil a aperceu // Diex a samour la apele // Quant tel mal li reuele // Quains
mes ne pot estre scen (BnF, fr. 146, fol. 9r, first column).
98
racione . . . sancte, inserted, in a different hand.
99
iuxta . . . contentas, written in the same script as the insertion.
96
97

30

Philip the Fair

Feruentis deuotionis integritas quam tu tanquam filius benedictionis et gratie Progenitorum tuorum laudanda uestigia prosequens erga deum et apostolicam Sedem habere dinosceris promerentur / ut personam tuam paternis prosequentes affectibus / et apostolice
munificentie gremium tibi benignius explicantes uotis tuis in hijs potissime que anime tue
salutem respiciunt / promptis et gratiosis fauoribus annuamus.
Sane nobis exponere curauisti / quod dudum aduersus te Regnumque tuum hostili nequitia seuiente / cum eidem Regno rebellantibus subditis / et impugnantibus hostibus graue
periculum immineret / post diuersos modos et uias per te tuosque Consiliarios circa ipsius
Regni defensionis oportune remedium exquisitos / expediens immo necessarium uisum fuit
/ antiquas Regias tuas et Predecessorum tuorum pro huiusmodi defensione intrinseca dicti
Regni mutare monetas. Quibus ex consilij tui deliberatione mutatis / alias diuersis successiue temporibus cudi fecisti / legitimis lege et pondere diminutas 100 / Ex qua quidem diminutione non solum subditi tui / verum etiam circumadiacentium et aliarum undique populi Regionum dampna et deperdita grauia sunt perpessi. Coegit preterea urgens defensionis
predicte necessitas / subuentiones et onera imponi multimoda 101 ecclesijs / et tam ecclesiasticis quam secularibus dicti Regni personis / et demum ad thesauros / deposita 102 et alia
bona ecclesiarum / Prelatorum et aliarum personarum ecclesiasticarum / ac executionum
defunctorum quorundam 103 Regias manus extendi / aliasque exactiones et extorsiones uarias successiuis temporibus fieri ab inuitis / nedum eiusdem Regni Incolis / verum etiam
alienigenis 104 / Iudeis et alijs partes frequentantibus dicti Regni / et bona etiam habentium
in eodem. Pretextu siquidem certarum subuencionum et subsidiorum tibi pro defensionis
predicte negotio per sedem apostolicam concessorum / nonnulla de bonis ecclesiasticis preter concedentium intentionem / et contra interpretacionem et declaracionem sedis eiusdem / per Gentes tuas tuo nomine exacta et extorta / aliaque circa hec nonnulla necessitate cogente que legi non subiacet / commissa fuisse noscuntur / a quibus si defensionis
predicte necessitas non fuisset 105 / ingruentium negotiorum urgentia / et temporis aduersi
conditio paterentur / retraxisses ut asseris libencius manus tuas.
Quare tu uelut Princeps Catholicus de anime tue salute sollicitus / ad tollendum in hac
parte omnis 106 perplexitatis et conscientie scrupulum / prouideri tibi super hijs de oportuno remedio per apostolice sollicitudinis studium humiliter petijsti. Quia uero in te speciali et peculiari ecclesie filio / utriusque salutem hominis totis desiderijs affectamus / tuis
deuotis supplicacionibus inclinati / ea que de thesauris / depositis / pecuniarum quantitatibus / et alijs bonis ecclesiarum / Prelatorum / et aliarum personarum ecclesiasticarum /
pro defensione necessitatis predicte per Gentes / Offitiales 107 / uel Ministros tuos tuo nomine / exacta / capta / recepta / habita taliter / uel extorta fuisse noscuntur / tibi de speciali gracia et apostolice plenitudine potestatis omnino remittimus et donamus / teque super hijs omnino absoluimus et quitamus 108 / auctoritate apostolica decernentes te ad
ipsorum uel aliquorum ex eis restitutionem / ecclesijs / Prelatis et personis alijs ecclesias-

In Wencks ed. (p. 200) diminutis.

Wenck (p. 200) preferred the reading multimode, found in three of the four later copies he consulted.
102
Wenck (p. 200) preferred imposita, found in two of his four later copies.
103
quorudam in the manuscript, Wenck (p. 200) quorumdam. Below, the bull has in full cuiuscunque, which suggests a preference for n, over m, in similar words.
104
Following, a line was drawn through an erasure 23 mm. long.
105
Wenck (p. 201) added, following, sique.
106
The first letter, o, was written over an erasure.
107
Sic.
108
Wenck (p. 201), quittamus.
100
101

Philip the Fair

31

ticis supradictis / in posterum faciendam / aliquatenus non teneri. Ea uero que a Iudeis
et alijs vsurarijs exacta ut premittitur habita uel extorta et ab eis per usurarie prauitatis
uicium acquisita fuerunt / quatenus restitucioni subiacent / incertis faciende personis / que
omnino sciri uel inueniri non possint / eadem tibi auctoritate concedimus et donamus / in
pios usus et opera caritatis iuxta tue discretionis arbitrium conuertenda. Super alijs 109 autem .. Confessori tuo de cuius discretione confidimus / eiusque conscientiam in hac parte
intendimus onerare / prouidendi et consulendi tibi siue remittendo siue donando auctoritate nostra 110 illa de bonis alijs supradictis / quorum dispensatio uel dispositio nobis et
sedi predicte commissa noscitur uel permissa 111 / seu alias prout consideratis omnibus
que in hac parte fuerint attendenda secundum deum anime tue saluti claue 112 discrecionis preuia 113 expedire cognouerit necnon impendendi 114 tibi ac Gentibus Officialibus et
Ministris tuis et alijs quibuscunque 115 personis clericis uel laicis / cuiuscunque status uel
condicionis 116 existant / qui auctoritate uel de mandato tuo / premissa fecerunt / aut in
eis faciendis dederunt consilium auxilium uel fauorem illis uidelicet iuxta formam ecclesie absolucionis beneficium ab omnibus 117 suspensionis / excommunicacionis uel interdicti sentencijs ab homine uel a iure prolatis / siquas tu uel ipsi ex premissis uel occasione premissorum forsitan incurristis / ac restituendi te ad diuina officia et ecclesiastica
sacramenta et dispensandi cum illis de prefatis clericis / qui huiusmodi ligati sentencijs
sacros tam maiores quam minores ordines et 118 ecclesiastica beneficia receperunt / aut
alias immiscuerunt illicite se diuinis / ut premissis nequaquam obstantibus in sic susceptis ordinibus ministrare et 119 predicta ecclesiastica beneficia etiam si personatus uel dignitates existant / retinere licite ualeant / ac fructus medio tempore perceptos ex eis / sibi
nichilominus remittendi penitus et donandi / plenam et liberam presencium tenore committimus potestatem.
Ceterum tibi amantissime fili affectione paterna suggerimus / obsecrantes per uiscera
misericordie Ihesu christi / ac 120 in remissionem tibi peccaminum iniungentes / quatinus 121 ecclesie Matris tue affectum erga te beniuolum et sincerum / ac impense tibi magnitudinem gratie / grata mente suscipiens / et deuoto animo recognoscens / ecclesiam ipsam tanto deuocius studeas reuereri / honorare propensius / et ab ecclesiasticorum
occupatione bonorum deinceps retrahere manus tuas / quanto peramplius circa te fauor
apostolice liberalitatis exuberat. Nec tibi facilitas uenie uel paterni fauoris immensitas /
ausum prebeat / uel tribuat incentiuum / in talibus uel consimilibus in posterum delinquendi. Nam siquod absit 122 contingeret / sententiam animaduersionis illius tremendi Iu-

Wenck (p. 201), his.

Following, a line was drawn through an erasure 10 mm. long.
111
Wenck noted (p. 201) that three of the four copies he used read premissa.
112
Wenck noted (p. 210) that two of the four copies he used read clare.
113
Wenck (p. 201) preferred pervia, found in two of the four copies he used.
114
secundum . . . i[pendendi] was written over an erasure 129 mm. long.
115
Wenck (p. 201) preferred quibuscumque and, below, cuiuscunque; the latter word was written
cuicunque in the bull.
116
Wenck (p. 201), conditionis et status.
117
illis . . . omnibus, written with many abbreviations over an erasure 83 mm. long.
118
et written over an erasure 25 mm. long.
119
The initial letter of et was written over an erasure.
120
Wenck (p. 202) omitted ac, found in just one of the four copies he consulted.
121
Sic, although quatenus above.
122
Wenck (p. 201) added id.
109
110

32

Philip the Fair

dicis qui 123 est apud Reges terre terribilis et cuius sunt / abissus 124 multa iudicia 125 / ex
tante ingratitudinis recidiuo contra te posses non immerito formidare. /
Datum Lugduni .x. kalendas Ianuarij / Pontificatus nostri anno Primo.

2
AN, J 1050, no. 52 (AE II 1713): a letter of Guillaume de Nogaret to tienne de Suzy,
archdeacon of Bruges, written during the summer of 1303 (see Fig. 2). Copied on an irregular sheet of serviceable parchment, unruled, measuring 208/209 mm. wide 128/
119 mm. high.
The letter is addressed at the top of the reverse Magne reuerencie viro domino archidiacono Brugensi ex parte suj G. de noguareto. It was folded horizontally, and then vertically, into thirds; closed with a strip of parchment threaded through sets of parallel slits;
and sealed with red wax, of which traces remain.
Edited by Langlois, Autographes, pp. 32223, with detailed commentary on pp. 323
26.
Reuerende domine grauiter febricitauj per tres dies. Inter moras tamen feci plenissima
memorialia / primo super neguociis montispessulanj. Et ut cessent clamores Regis maioric[arum] & magis pacatus In neg[uocio] tractatus procedat 126 Mito uobis duas formulas
super duobus grauaminibus. pro literis dirigendis ad episcopum biterrensem & Senescallum bellicadri et jn utraque esset bonus & magis propinquus episcopus Magualonensis. et
est bonum quod dictas formulas ostendatis archidacono127 lexouiensi. quj scit dicta neg[uocia] ut si quid sit corrigendum corriguatur. et Si uenerit dominus .G. de plasiano. est bonum
quod sciat h[oc]. quia ipse defendit neg[uocia] pro rege. Mito etiam formulam 128 literarum Mitendarum Regi maioric[arum] tam pro tractatu quam pro 129 gualeis.
mito Insuper uobis Instruccionem plenam super neguociis castri salionis 130 super omnibus que facta sunt. et que expedire habemus Cum domino stephano de chacenay. et
philippo de chauueri.131 quj cotidie Regem Infestant. et subsequenter Super omnibus
adiausionis . . . qui, written over an erasure 65 mm. long.
Wenck (p. 201), abyssus.
125
Wenck (p. 201), judicia multa. Cf. Psalms 35.67: Domine in caelo misericordia tua et veritas
tua usque ad nubes; iustitia tua sicut montes Dei; iudicia tua abyssus multa; homines et iumenta salvabis Domine.
126
Following, formam or perhaps formulas was effaced, at the end of the line.
127
Followed by de ligeris d, crossed out, at the end of the line.
128
Followed by s, perhaps for scilicet.
129
Item mito was crossed out at the beginning of the line.
130
super . . . salionis, inserted above the line.
131
Chaimeri, in Langloiss edition (Autographes, p. 322). See also p. 324, where Langlois described the two knights involvement in Philip the Fairs acquisition of Saulx-le-Duc and located Chamery in the arrondissement of Reims and the canton of Verzy (Marne) and Chassenay (or Chacenay)
in the canton of Essoyes (Aube). See, however, AN, JJ 44, fol. 25r, no. 40, a royal letter of December 1307 granting tienne de Chancenayo and Philippe de Chauuerio, royal knights, and their wives
annuities of 450 l.t. per couple, to compensate them for their grant to the king of the castle of Saulxle-Duc in the diocese of Langres (which is located some thirty-five kilometers southwest of Langres); see also AN, JJ 44, fol. 47rv, no. 74, a royal letter of March 1308 clarifying the terms of the
exchange and specifying the rights of Philippe (here de Chauuere) and tienne that were reserved to
them; and Robert Fawtier, with Jean Glnisson and Jean Guerout, Registres du Trsor des chartes,
1: Rgne de Philippe le Bel (Paris, 1958), pp. 168, no. 933bis, and 174, no. 967 (where the names
123
124

Philip the Fair

33

que 132 habemus facere cum episcopo linguonensi. tertio uero Super omnibus que habemus facere cum duce.133
Item Mito uobis plenam instruccionem processuum habitorum Super neguociis figiaci
tam de hiis que habemus facere cum abbate figiaci. quam de hiis que habemus facere cum
consulibus.
Super singulis igitur generibus dictorum neguociorum mito uobis singulos Rotulos. quorum longua scriptura uos non afficiat. quia neccesse sic habuit fierj. propter plenam Instruccionem. nec potuj dimitere vnum verbum. et omnia per manum meam transierunt
scribendo licet eorum aliqua per alios sint transcripta. febris Me retardauit domine quarum
Si rex Intelligeret excusate me si placet. et sciatis quod al[ias] Memorialia predicta non
habuissetis ita cito si inceptas dietas facere potuissem. dominus per suj gra[cia]m diriguat gressus meos.
domine 134 mj orate ad dominum ut in uia mea deo placeat me in ea diriguat. al[ias] me
per mortem uel ut Sibj placebit impediat. Datum 135 senonis die martis post tertiam. adhuc
faciam meam dietam / domino Concedente.

3
AN, J 491, no. 797bis: undated epistolary memorandum of Nogaret addressing the king,
concerning the prosecution of the memory of Boniface VIII, written after the election of
Clement V on 6 June 1305 and before Philip the Fair arrived in Lyon in early November
(see Fig. 3). Copied on an irregular sheet of ordinary but serviceable parchment, unruled,
measuring 245 mm. wide 255 mm. high.
The sheet was folded horizontally and then vertically, into thirds; closed with two strips
of parchment threaded through two sets of parallel slits; and sealed twice with red wax,
of which traces remain. It was endorsed in a late-seventeenth-century hand: 797 Extraict ou Copie dune requeste de Guillaume de nogaret au Roy Philippe le Bel.
Edited by Holtzmann, Nogaret, pp. 25355; see also pp. 12832.
Serenissimo principi Suplicat Guillelmus de noguareto. Miles eius. ut Magestas Regia
dignetur aduertere Super hiis que Sequntur.
Primo quod christus est ueritas. et quicunque veritatem neguat christum neguat et quj
recedit a ueritate Recedit a christo. et quj recedit a christo uel a ueritate fidelis non est.
profanus est. non tenet viam dei. Maxime quj ex proposito veritatem ipsam inmutat. h[oc]
deus et omnes sancti scribunt & dicunt.

are rendered as Chassenay and Chauvery and where Chassenay is identified as Cte-dOr,
con. and cne. Arnay-le-Duc, or con. Semur, cne. Vic-de-Cheasseny). It seems likely that tienne should
be associated with Chtenay-Macheron (Haute-Marne, arr. and con. Langres, seven kilometers southeast of Langres; note, however, Noidant-Chatenoy, Haute-Marne, arr. Langres, con. Longeau, nine
kilometers south of Langres). Sbastien Nadiras has kindly advised me that Philippe should be linked
with Chauvirey in the county of Burgundy, some thirty kilometers east-southeast of Langres (either
Chauvirey-le-Chtel or Chauvirey-le-Vieil, Haute-Sane, arr. Vesoul, c. Vitrey-sur-Mance). Nadiras
studied this incident in detail, in Guillaume de Nogaret, pp. 22, 49, 247, 27277, and 377
82.
132
Followed by hem, which was crossed out at the end of the line.
133
As Langlois pointed out (Autographes, p. 322 n. 3), Lothoringie should be understood.
134
Preceding dne, at the beginning of the line, three letters were effaced.
135
Following, three letters were effaced.

34

Philip the Fair

Secundo. quod quj negligit famam suam. crudelis est. licet enim consciencia sua quemlibet 136 innocentem 137 excuset ad dominum. non tamen sufficit ad proximum. et qui
vicinj 138 scandalum ex falsa 139 opinione uel infamia procedens / negligit / pecat Mortaliter
/ Si dum potest non vitat scandalum. Cum id possit sine pecato vitare / augustinus apostulus.140
tercio. quod quj ponit Manum ad aratrum hoc est 141 ad christi neguocium non est
aptus Regno dej. Si sponte retro Reuertitur. / christus.142
Quarto quod qui fingit Religionem et dei zelum ubi non est. deum derridet. ipocrita
est preuaricator est. et oportet quod talis a domino neccessario Confundatur. / christus
profeta.143 & omnes sancti.144
Quinto. quod plus ab eo exigitur cuj plus exigitur.145 sic loquitur dominus per profetas & in libro sapiencie.146 et ideo cum regibus et Maioribus personis aliis quibus plus
deus Comisit plus exigitur. et durius est seu fit cum eis iudicium. Si peccent Maxime in
premissis. que eis precipua 147 Comjtuntur 148
Sexto quod ubi christi neguotium propter aduersa tempora Comode compleri non
potest per aliquem. Saltim non debet impediri quominus statim per alium. uel per principalem promotorem / cum comode poterit compleatur. tolerabilius est enim differri christi
neguocium ad tempus / quam prorsus tollj.
Septimo aduertat. regia celsitudo. quod deus in veteri testamento. et nouo Multos Reges
et principes.149 propter premissa pecata. destruxit. Sic principes iuda. sic Reges gentiles.
Sic imperatores Romanos Sic quendam 150 Regem franc[ie] ludouicum / sic imperatorem
fredelicum de suis Sedibus exulauit 151
Vobiscum ergo est iudicium o domine Rex. coram deo et hominibus / non habetis iudicem temporalem; habetis deum quj adest et fallj non potest. nec flectj 152 muneribus. nec
tenerj nisi per ueritatem Simplicem Sine duplicitate. palam et publice / christi fidei cato-

qlibet was written above cuique, which was crossed out.

e was written over an erasure, and, following, quequam was crossed out.
138
q is at the end of a line, and vicinj at the commencement of the next line; in Holtzmanns edition (Nogaret, p. 253), vitiosus.
139
falsa was inserted.
140
Cf. Matthew 18.7: Vae mundo a scandalis. Necesse est enim ut veniant scandala: verumtamen
vae homini illi, per quem scandalum venit, and Romans 14.13: sed hoc iudicate magis, ne ponatis
offendiculum fratri, vel scandalum.
141
ad aratrum hoc est, inserted.
142
Luke 9.62: Ait ad illum Iesus: Nemo mittens manum suam ad aratrum, et respiciens retro,
aptus est regno Dei.
143
In Holtzmanns edition (Nogaret, p. 253), profete.
144
Cf. Isaiah 41.11, 44.11, 45.23, and 49.23 (none of which is a precise match), and Jeremiah
17.13: Omnes qui te derelinquunt confundentur.
145
Here the sense demands commissum est, which Holtzmann (Nogaret, p. 254) substituted, indicating in a note that Nogarets letter in fact reads exigitur.
146
sic . . . sapiencie, inserted.
147
Following, coituntur was crossed out.
148
Luke 12.48: Omni autem cui multum datum est, multum queretur ab eo: et cui commendaverunt multum, plus petent ab eo. As Holtzmann noted (Nogaret, p. 254 n. 2), Nogarets reference
to the prophets and the Wisdom of Solomon are groundless.
149
d, following, was crossed out.
150
quendam, inserted.
151
Followed by et eorum successores, crossed out.
152
In Holtzmanns edition (Nogaret, p. 254), plecti.
136
137

Philip the Fair

35

lice et defencionis eclesie / contra bonifacium ut dicebatis 153 neguocium assumpsistis.

Caueatis ne contra ueritatem faciatis nec deo uos mendacem 154 reddatis. al[ias] ueritas
uos condempnat. coram hominibus neguocium assumpsistis. rex estis et tantus.155 Cauete
ne famam uestram & honorem negliguatis. nec scandalizetis homines vituperiose neguocium
dimjtendo. al[ias] 156 crudelis estis 157 & 158 coram hominibus pecaretis. scandalum generaretis / pecaretis mortaliter. et perseuerando Semper Remaneretis in pecato. nec aptus essetis regno dei. preces presidentis cujusquam uel temporis 159 aduersitas uel queuis 160 tribulacio uos excusare non possunt. ut a ueritate dominj recedatis. scripture namque mentiri
non possunt.161
Set dicent uobis quj neguociantur de vobis.162 uel hominibus placere volunt. uel forte163
uestrum non aduertunt honorem 164 quod neguocium est Modo 165 impossibile. tam quia
in se arduum tam quia non habemus ad hoc 166 papam voluntarium. tam quia uos tempus
/ propter guerras que nondum finem habent / non habetis paratum 167 ad prosequcionem
neguocij Memoratj. Respondeo. quod ex causis premissis neguocium est difficile ad prosequendum. set non impossibile. nec 168 propter h[oc] a ueritate Recedendum est licet Sit 169
adhuc grauior difficultas. Si ante omnja fieret concilium generale. quia Regna alia emulantur Regno franc[ie].170 et Si esset congreguatum concilium generale ante quam heresis
bonifacij plene posset ostendj. plures prelatos aliorum Regnorum & 171 istius haberemus
contra nos quam pro nobis. Maxime Si papa ex altero latere dependeret. quod esset Magnum periculum.
esset ergo Consilium Cum via defencionis sit leuior quam acusacionis. et Minus periculosa. quod 172 G. de noguareto in principio uestri aduentus Ante omnia Se defencioni
offerret.173 et quia publice diffamatus 174 per processum publicatum contra se. et Super
153
ut dicebatis was written above this paragraph, preceded by a hash mark, of which another appears between bonifacium and neg.
154
Curiously, Holtzmann (Nogaret, p. 254) rendered this deo veritatem and said that the original
act read vos veridatem. He rendered the second word following, al, as vel rather than alias or aliter.
155
In Holtzmanns edition (Nogaret, p. 254), tamen.
156
Again, Holtzmann (Nogaret, p. 254) expanded al as vel.
157
In Holtzmanns edition (Nogaret, p. 254), essetis.
158
&, inserted.
159
Holtzmann (Nogaret, p. 254) expanded tpis as queuis.
160
Holtzmann (Nogaret, p. 254) expanded quis as aliquis.
161
Pertinent scriptural statements concerning veritas are John 1.17, 8.32, 8.44, 14.6, 17.17; Romans 3.7; 2 Corinthians 11.10; Ephesians 4.21; and 1 John 5.6.
162
Cf. 2 Peter 2.3: et in avaritia fictis verbis de vobis negotiabuntur: quibus iudicium iam olim
non cessat: et perditio eorum non dormitat.
163
Holtzmann (Nogaret, p. 254) omitted fort.
164
uel . . . honorem is written above et cum uestris tribulacionibus sua faciunt et non uestra, which
is crossed out.
165
Holtzmann (Nogaret, p. 255) expanded Mo as immo.
166
ad hoc, inserted.
167
ut, following, crossed out.
168
Holtzmann (Nogaret, p. 255) has non.
169
Possibly Sic.
170
Here Holtzmann (Nogaret, p. 255) expanded franc to Francie but earlier expanded the same
letters to Francorum (p. 254).
171
Holtzmann (Nogaret, p. 255) omitted &.
172
eguo, following, is crossed out, as Holtzmann (Nogaret, p. 255) noted, rendering the word ego.
173
In Holtzmanns edition (Nogaret, p. 255), offerat.
174
Holtzmann (Nogaret, p. 255) supplied est.

36

Philip the Fair

tanto negocio 175 de quo loquitur totus mundus. petat audienciam publicam Ante omnes
tractatus. et quod ad suj defencionem proponat. neguotium in continentj magnam partem
ueritatis neguocij ostendet et probabit. que ad Minus exhonerabit et apud omnes homines excusabit Regiam excellenciam. et bonum zelum regium & ipsius Guillelmj.176 innocenciam. & admjnus saltim Semiplenam heresim bonifacij. et offeret se ad probandum
plenius. petet auditores non suspectos in neguocio. Recusabit suspectos Cardinales. ex iustis
causis et Manifestis. et sic Regi non poterunt nocere in neguociis / Si autem papa uelit
aliam viam tenere neccessario177 / ipse Guillelmus dabit uias post proposicionem neguocij.178
per quam sine dei offencione. et saluo honore regio neguocium alio Modo 179 procedet.
set oportet. neguocium tenerj in alto. Maxime ab inicio.180
Item quamcunque viam rex teneat. expedit quod ut cicius poterit 181 creari Cardinales
de regno et Sibj fideles 182 procuret Ante quam tractatus subeat ad hoc ut sint in ipsis tractatibus. et regj & regno possint prodesse. in agendis hoc tempore.
Ante omnja in omnibus et per omnia domine semper teneatis in mente & memorie reducatis quod quj duplici corde graditur aliud tenens in ore aliud in corde. abhominaboilis
est deo. scriptum est enim quod spiritus sanctus 183 discipline efugiet fictum.184
Sic.
in, following, was crossed out.
177
post hoc, following, was crossed out.
178
Among the papers found in Nogarets house after his death one item among the documents concerning Boniface VIII was perplexitas et vie medie in dicto facto: BnF, Dupuy 635, fol. 105v; see
Langlois, Papiers de Nogaret et de Plaisians, p. 233, no. 271.
179
Again, Holtzmann (Nogaret, p. 255) rendered Mo as immo.
180
set quamcunque uiam, following, was crossed out.
181
pro, following, was crossed out.
182
et Sibj fideles, inserted.
183
.s., inserted.
184
Wisdom 1.5: Spiritus enim sanctus discipline effugiet fictum; Et auferet se a cogitationibus que
sunt sine intellectu, Et corripietur a superveniente iniquitate.
175
176

Elizabeth A. R. Brown is Professor Emerita of History at Brooklyn College and the Graduate School and University Center, City University of New York (e-mail:
Earbrown160@aol.com).