Philip Augustus

PHILIP AUGUSTUSBYWILLIAM BOLDEST HTJTTOX, B.D.FELLOW AXD TUTOB OF S. JOHNS COLLEGE, OXFORD LECTURESIS ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, EXAMINING CHAPLAIN TO THE LORD SISHOP OF ELYYOEK: MACHILLAN CO.1896CONTENTSCHAPTER ITHE PRANKISH MONARCHY IS THE TWELFTH CENTUEY, CHAPTER IITHE BEGINNINGS OF PHILIPS POWER ... 15CHAPTER IIITHE FALL OF THE ANGEVINS ...... 53CHAPTER IT. 88THE ADVANCE OF THE MONARCHY ..... 112CHAPTER VIPHILIP AND THE PAPACY ....... 159CHAPTER VIILAST YEARS ......... 198CHAPTER ITHE FRANKISH MONARCHY IN THE TWELFTH CENTURYFRANCE at the beginning of the twelfth century was oneof the smallest and least important of the Europeanstates. The duchy of Francea title borne for threecenturies by the house of Kobert the Strong was nodomain exactly bounded and compact. Its lands weresituated not only in the country between the Seine andthe Loire, but lay in small and scattered fragments farthersouth, in Poitou, and in the north. Peculiar rightsbelonged to the king in distant towns and churches.He was lord in Orleans. He was abbat of . Martinsat Tours and senior canon of the church of S. Quentin.And step by step within the lands of the great lords ofthe north, of the great dukes and the great ecclesiastics, he acquired new rights, by intervening to check someinjustice or win some privilege on behalf of a lesser lord.The royal domain was the strength of the earlyCapets. As rich lords they could stand against thebarons who hedged them in, and appear, unlike theKarlings, at least the equals of their great vassals.But the territory which they possessed was small, self been a great feudal lord, the greatest and strongest ofhis peers. He had large possessions, his brother Henryheld Burgundy for him, thedukes of Xormandy andAquitaine were his brothersinlaw, the count ofYermandois was of his kin. In the twelfth century hisdescendants had lost the strength of his position. Thegreat duchies around them were in alien and oftenhostile hands. But the grandeur of their theoreticalclaim was not abandoned. They were still far abovethe feudal hierarchy, as the heirs of the Caesars, sovereignsby divine right, the lawful kings of the West Franks.The monarchy of the twelfth century was absolutein principle. It claimed to be the source of all powerand authority, to hold in its own hand the control of alllocal and central government. More than this, it wasfounded on an alliance with the Church, which, in spiteof their persistent moral lapses, the kings had shown thekeenest anxiety to keep intact. It had seemed at onetime as if the irresistible movement of the feudaltheory, which had transmuted all offices into fiefs, and swept all ancient survivals into the net of itsuniversal encroachment, would overwhelm the monarchy as it had transformed the nobility and invadedthe Church. And indeed in his relations with those whoheld land directly under him the Capetian king hadfallen under the domination of the feudal claim. He wasa lord like other lords, with vassals whose dues werelimited and whose rights were secured.