Philip II of France

King of France (r. 1179-1223)

• Born: August 21, 1165
• Birthplace: Paris, France
• Died: July 14, 1223
• Place of death: Mantes, France

Philip II, the strongest of the Capetian kings of France, greatly expanded the royal domain and created an efficient system of political administration.

Early Life

Philip II was born the son of King Louis VII and Adela of Champagne. Because he was Louis’s only son, his birth was received with great enthusiasm and hailed as the beginning of a new era. In his youth, however, Philip suffered from poor health and timorousness, which alarmed the king so much that in 1179 he made a pilgrimage to Saint Thomas Becket’s shrine in Canterbury. Philip recovered and apparently grew up a strong, well-built young man, though his health declined again after the Third Crusade. He returned with little hair, was extremely nervous, and had good vision in one eye only.

On November 1, 1179, Philip, continuing an old Capetian custom, was crowned at Reims to ensure the succession. Although he was only fourteen years of age, it was a fortuitous move, for King Louis would die shortly thereafter. The youth was plunged almost immediately into a morass of political problems, for his maternal uncles, William, archbishop of Reims, and the counts of Champagne, Blois, and Sancerre sought an opportunity to control the new king. Philip, like his grandfather Louis VI, was stubborn and determined to send a message to the nobility that he would rule as well as reign. Thus, on April 28, 1180, Philip married Isabella of Hainaut, daughter of Baldwin V, count of Hainaut, and niece of Philip of Alsace, count of Flanders; this marriage gave him control over the queen’s dowry of Artois and an interest in other family lands. He succeeded in avoiding domination by his wife’s family as well. Two months after his marriage, Philip formed an alliance with King Henry II of England that effectively alienated the counts of Champagne and Flanders. By the time of his father’s death on September 18, 1180, Philip was in firm control of the monarchy.

Life’s Work

Philip’s alliance with Henry drove his disaffected vassals together and precipitated a great revolt. The breach was widened in 1182, when Isabella, countess of Flanders and wife of Philip of Alsace, died, leaving Vermandois, Amiénois, and Valois to her sister Eleanor, countess of Beaumont. Because both the king and Philip of Alsace claimed these important lands, the rebellion continued until the two sides reached an agreement in 1186. For his part, the king received the county and city of Amiens, sixty-five castles, the county of Montdidier, and a portion of Vermandois.

At the expense of relatives and truculent nobles, Philip had begun to enlarge the royal domain. The most important story of his reign, however, was the struggle with the house of Anjou to recover French Continental possessions. The Angevin kings had come through the years to rule Normandy, Anjou, Aquitaine, Maine, and Touraine in sum, most of western and southern France. Although Henry II was Philip’s vassal for these lands, clearly the English king was the dominant force in the relationship. Because Philip was no match for Henry on the field of battle, he elected to continue the policy of intrigue begun by his father, Louis VII, with Henry’s discontented sons.

There was relative peace between the two sides until 1186-1187, when Richard, Henry’s eldest surviving son, failed to keep his promise to marry Alice, Philip’s sister. Richard I, called the Lion-Hearted and considered the most able warrior of his day, had little interest in a woman rumored to have been his father’s mistress. At any rate, when Henry refused to return either Alice or her dowry, the French Vexin (a region between central Normandy and the royal domain around Paris), Philip declared war and marched into Berry. As he had done in the past, Philip sought to foment discord in the Angevin house. In November, 1188, Richard threw his support to Philip and rendered homage for the Continental fiefs at Bonmoulins. The alliance proved successful, and in July of the following year, Henry submitted near Tours. According to the Treaty of Colombières, Richard was recognized as Henry’s successor, while Philip received Auvergne and other territorial concessions. Henry died two days later after learning that John, his favorite, had also turned against him.

For the moment, Richard and Philip were friends, but it soon became obvious that Philip had traded one formidable opponent for another. In 1190, the two kings joined forces and sailed from Europe on the Third Crusade . Philip’s mother, Adela, and his uncle, the archbishop of Reims, were appointed regents in his absence. In Messina, Italy, Richard and Philip quarreled and parted company. Richard, it would seem, had once again refused to marry Alice and, instead, had taken Berengaria of Navarre to be his queen. That necessitated a revision of their earlier agreement. According to the Treaty of Messina in 1191, Richard would retain the French Vexin, unless he died without issue, in exchange for Alice, the town of Gisors, and ten thousand marks.

After the settlement, Philip went on to Palestine, where he was eventually rejoined by Richard in the siege of Acre. Philip remained long enough to take the city, and then, supposedly for reasons of illness, he decided to return to France. More likely, his departure was hastened by mounting differences with Richard and political concerns at home. Philip of Alsace, count of Flanders, had died on the Crusade, and Philip was eager to assert his wife’s claim to the count’s lands. Philip was also determined though it would be a violation of feudal and canon law to take advantage of Richard’s absence from Europe to attack Angevin holdings in France. When Richard learned that Philip and John, his younger brother, were plotting against him, he left Palestine and attempted to dash incognito across Europe. He was recognized and captured by Leopold V, duke of Austria, and, at the insistence of Philip, was turned over to Emperor Henry VI to be held for ransom. With Richard out of the way, Philip attacked the Vexin and made plans to invade Normandy. His success, however, was short-lived. In 1194, Richard was released, and thereafter he initiated a series of wars that resulted in the eventual recapture of all lost lands.

Twenty years into his reign, Philip had gained little in his struggle with the Angevins. Moreover, he had become embroiled in a major dispute with the Papacy. In 1193, Philip formed an alliance with Canute VI, king of Denmark, in preparation for an invasion of England. As part of the agreement, Philip, whose first wife had died in 1190, was to marry the Danish king’s sister Ingeborg. Almost immediately, Philip developed an aversion to his new bride and tried to have the marriage annulled on grounds of consanguinity. Matters went from bad to worse when, in 1196, Philip took another wife. Eventually Ingeborg’s party referred the matter to Pope Innocent III, who placed France under an interdict in 1200. In July of that year, Philip’s third wife died, but the rift with the Church continued until 1213, when Philip, preoccupied with more important political considerations, took back his estranged queen.

Although the Ingeborg affair proved distracting and injurious, there were encouraging developments on another front. In 1199, Richard met an untimely death and was succeeded by Philip’s fellow conspirator, John. Although John was a better king and administrator than his brother, he was an inept general. He also had a rival claimant for the throne in his nephew Arthur, duke of Brittany and count of Anjou, a division Philip was quick to exploit. All that was needed was an excuse. The opportunity presented itself in August, 1200, when John married Isabella of Angouleme, who was betrothed to Hugh of Lusignan, count of La Marche. The angry count waged a brief, unsuccessful war against John before referring the matter to Philip’s court. John, accordingly, was summoned to answer for his crime, and when he failed to appear, Philip and Arthur prepared for war. In the ensuing struggle, Arthur was captured, imprisoned, and executed, probably on John’s orders. Arthur’s outraged Breton and Angevin vassals then threw their full support behind Philip. By 1205, Philip had taken control of Normandy, Maine, Anjou, Touraine, and portions of Poitou. Yet John would not concede defeat and was soon at work lining up new allies. The most important of these was his nephew, Otto IV , the Holy Roman Emperor. In 1214, the coalition invaded Philip’s dominions, but suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Bouvines , which put an end forever to John’s hopes of reclaiming the lost French lands.

By 1214, Philip’s most important battles with the English, his nobles, and the Church were over. He had increased the size and wealth of the French royal domain to such extent that it was necessary to revamp the archaic Capetian system of administration. Royal agents, called bailiffs and seneschals, drawn from the middle class and paid a salary, were sent into the various counties and duchies to collect the king’s revenue, administer justice, and occasionally command armies in defense of the realm. In this way, Philip built up an efficient and powerful administrative bureaucracy composed of men whose first loyalty was to the king.

Philip’s last years were fairly tranquil. He apparently felt comfortable enough with his conquests and administrative arrangements to eschew the coronation of his son and heir, Louis VIII, in his lifetime, a departure from the Capetian practice of the past two centuries. Nor would he lend anything more than token support to Louis’s invasion of England in 1216. As his health failed, Philip’s chief concerns were spiritual, namely, the Albigensian crusade and the defense of the Holy Land. Philip died at Mantes on July 14, 1223.

Significance

The first two centuries of Capetian rule were relatively uneventful. Although the great nobles of the realm recognized the king as their feudal overlord, the king’s actual authority did not extend much beyond the Île de France, or Paris and its environs. Some gains were made under Louis VI and Louis VII, but when Philip II assumed power in 1180, he was still surrounded by the great magnates of the realm. Over the next forty years, through marriage, political alliances, and war, Philip would more than triple the size of the French royal domain. The additional land and revenue, in turn, necessitated a revision of existing administrative agencies, giving France a more centralized government.

There can be little doubt, then, that Philip was the greatest of the Capetian monarchs. Yet he has received less attention than some of the other historical giants of the era, and he has been judged more harshly. Critics point out that he was cruel and treacherous and that he accomplished little while Henry and Richard were alive. His supporters, on the other hand, argue that while he had little interest in education and the arts, he was intelligent, generous, and a great supporter of the Church. He reigned longer than Henry II and was a more accomplished king than Richard. When he died in 1223, his empire was still intact.

Bibliography

Baldwin, John W. The Government of Philip Augustus. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. A lengthy study of Philip’s administration, with detailed footnotes and appendices. Should appeal mainly to an advanced reader.

Bradbury, Jim. Philip Augustus: King of France, 1180-1223. New York: Longman, 1998. Part of the Medieval World series, this biographical study explores Philip’s life in the context of the Battle of Bouvines, Church history, and French history in general.

Burl, Aubrey. God’s Heretics: The Albigensian Crusade. Stroud, England: Sutton, 2002. Explores the crusade, ordered by Pope Innocent III, including Philip’s role. Argues that the massacre was the first act of genocide in Europe.

Davis, R. H. C. A History of Medieval Europe: From Constantine to Saint Louis. 2d ed. New York: Longman, 1988. A general history of the area from the fourth through the thirteenth centuries. A brief section is devoted principally to Philip’s attempts to expand the royal domain at the expense of his barons and the English. Very good for the beginning student.

Dunbabin, Jean. France in the Making, 843-1180. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. A thorough political history of France under the Capetians. Includes an extensive bibliography and an index.

Fawtier, Robert. The Capetian Kings of France: Monarchy and Nation, 987-1328. Reprint. London: Macmillan, 1962. Perhaps the best study of the Capetian line from beginning (987) to end (1328). Philip receives much attention throughout.

Hallam, Elizabeth M, and Judith Everard. Capetian France, 987-1328. 2d ed. New York: Longman, 2001. A 480-page history of the Capetian Dynasty for both students and other scholars. Maps, genealogies, and detailed, extensive bibliographies enhance the book’s value.

Luchaire, Achille. Social France at the Time of Philip Augustus. 1912. Reprint. New York: Harper and Row, 1967. A good work that, although not primarily concerned with Philip, yields valuable background information about the Church, nobility, and peasantry during his day.

Powicke, F. M. “The Reigns of Philip Augustus and Louis VIII of France.” In The Cambridge Medieval History/Middle Ages, edited by H. M. Gwatkin and J. P. Whitney. Vol. 6. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1911-1936. A chapter from an excellent multivolume survey for all readers of the period. One of the best brief studies of Philip’s reign, by an eminent British historian. Provides valuable information on Philip’s character, marriages, and political struggles.

Tierney, Brian, and Sidney Painter. Western Europe in the Middle Ages, 300-1475. 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992. One of the better surveys of the period. Contains an excellent chapter on the feudal monarchies of England, France, and the empire. Provides a good overview of Philip’s career. An excellent introductory work.