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or could not pay, a debt which the ecclesiastical courts had decided they should pay. To these were added all kinds of subterfuges for levying fines and taxes. Thus the Bishop of Amiens was in the habit of levying a tax upon those guilty of incontinence. He extended this so far as to compel the citizens to pay for the liberty of living with their own wives. This pretention, the subject of a special ordonnance of Philip of Valois, in 1330, is a sample of the extravagant legislation, to which the fiscality of the clergy proceeded.

Griefs of this kind were so many, that the king summoned his prelates to hear them stated in detail by his advocate-general. That legist proposed sixty-six articles to remedy these abuses. He insisted that all disputes about property belonged to the lay courts, and all cases of debt. In whatever trial ecclesiastical judges passed sentence, they should allow it to be executed by secular authorities, instead of making use of excommunication. The clergy were in the habit of tonsuring a great portion of the population, never destined to become priests, and thus withdrew them from the lay authorities. To these most just complaints, the clergy replied, that Peter had judged and condemned Ananias and Sapphira for robbery and deceit, which proved that the clergy was the only proper judge of this as of all crimes; that the distinction between temporal and spiritual was absurd, that Moses and Aaron enjoyed both authorities, and that the Pope wielded one sword as well as another. The king was perplexed to give judgment in this matter; he hesitated. The threatened ordonnance did not appear, but the advocate-general told the prelates that if they did not themselves correct the abuses complained of, the king would see to putting them to rights himself in due time. Fleury has given very fairly the arguments on both sides.

Philip of Valois knew not what use to make of that absolute power, which the efforts of so many kings had

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He liked the splendour, magnificence, and pride of a court; and, consequently, preferred his noblesse to any other class of society. Still he showed, in the case of Robert d'Artois, his determination not to allow any of them to dictate or impose upon him. He consulted his lawyers as in the case of Church encroachments, but shrunk from ordonnance or legislation in their favour. Abroad, Philip was generally uncertain in purpose. True, indeed, to the principal aim of his predecessor, he had humbled Flanders: he had endeavoured to secure the reversion of Brittany to the crown by marriage, and extended his patronage over Dauphiné. He had a vague jealousy of England; towards the Emperor Louis of Bavaria he felt a strange rivalry, and, had an oppor tunity presented itself of prosecuting that rivalry, Philip would have done so.

But, in truth, the kings of France had not increased their influence or power by the vassalage to which they had reduced the Papacy. Although the pontiffs were at the mercy and under the dictation of the court of France, its monarchs knew not how to derive proportionate advantage from what was apparently such great good fortune. Whilst the popes remained almost prisoners at Avignon, Italy escaped from their influence, whilst Germany established by positive legislation its total independence of Rome.* Benedict the Twelfth, weary of French vassalage, was anxious to return to Italy, and Philip hastened to Avignon to retain him. Desirous of profiting by his visit, Philip made a number of demands. According to Villani, he asked the Pontiff, as the price of his proceeding to the Holy Land, to give

* In the Diet of Frankfort, where it was declared that the Pope had no authority whatever in the election of Emperor, and that the oath taken by that potentate on his coronation was one of protection, not allegiance, to

the Pope. The Diet declared the papal intervention null; thus abolishing, long before Luther, the papal right of excommunication. To deny this declaration was treason, &c.

him all his treasure, together with the tenths of all christendom for six years, to be paid up in three. He demanded the right of investiture and promotion to all benefices in his dominions. He desired the kingdom of Arles resuscitated for his son, and the vicariate of Italy for his brother Charles. The Italian, Villani, probably exaggerates these demands of the French king; but at least they show the incertitude of his aims, and his perplexity as to what should be the fitting goal for his ambition.

The monarch's incertitude was, however, soon relieved. Edward the Third became more and more irritated at the support which the French and Flemings gave to the Scots: in June, 1335, he issued an order from Newcastle to the Cinque Ports to arm, and intercept a naval expedition fitting out at Calais for Scotland. In February, 1336, an edict appeared ordering all Englishmen, from sixteen to sixty, to be prepared to repel invasion. Still negotiations continued; and it was not till August of the same year that Edward announced to his subjects the refusal of the French king to cease rendering active assistance to the Scottish foe. At the same time the Count of Flanders threw off the mask by arresting all the English traders in his dominions, and Edward was obliged to respond to it by a similar

act.

The following year was spent by both monarchs in preparing alliances, and by Edward in making the most active and unusual preparations for war. Philip hired large bodies of Germans, both men-at-arms and light troops. By marrying the heiress of the Duke of Brittany to one of his relatives, he hoped to have secured the allegiance of that prince and family; but Philip's attention was chiefly turned towards the south and the conquest of Guienne, for which enterprise he had the succour of the nobles of the Pyrenees as well as of Languedoc. He

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seemed not to expect to be seriously attacked on the side of Flanders.

Yet it was in that direction that Edward principally turned his efforts, expending the year 1337 in negotiations with the princes whose territories extended from Antwerp to Cologne. The English king had married the daughter of the Count of Hainault, who was the first that he gained, or hoped to have gained; the Duke of Brabant, the Duke of Gueldres, and the Archbishop of Cologne also listened to Edward's proposals, and willingly received his subsidies. They might bring into the field a thousand knights. But Edward pushed his quest for allies still further: he engaged the Duke of Austria to invade Burgundy, he concluded an agreement with the Count Palatine for a subsidiary force, and even obtained a promise from the Emperor Louis of Bavaria that he would aid in the war against France with an army of 2000 knights; for this his Imperial Majesty was to be paid 300,000 florins.

*

These counts and knights observed to the envoy of Edward that, notwithstanding their prowess, the Flemish artisans would prove far more potent auxiliaries against France than any number of lordly chivalry. Edward approved of the idea; and the Bishop of Lincoln and other envoys proceeded to Ghent, "not sparing their money by the way." The subjection of Flanders had been caused by the rich citizens of Ghent proving false to the national cause, supported solely by the men. of Bruges and West Flanders. This enabled the democracy of Ghent to triumph over them, and to become organised under the lead of a brewer of that city, named Arteveld. Froissart gives of this man a formidable and not a favourable account, representing him. as going about with some eighty followers, who struck down and slew all who were inimical to him, and who

Edward was to pay the Count Palatine fifteen Florentine florins a month for every man-at-arms.

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established by his paid agents a similar dictatorship in CHAP. the other towns. Those who were partisans of the Count of Flanders he expelled, taking half their revenues for the use of the State, and leaving the other half to their widows and relatives. The envoys of Edward addressed themselves to this new kind of popular sovereign, and were well received by him. He summoned consuls or deputies from the other towns, and these soon came to an accord that trade should be carried on as usual, and wool imported from England, notwithstanding the prohibitions of France and the Count of Flanders. These obstructive measures had already caused considerable distress amongst the artisan class, and the English alliance was with them the most popular, as procuring the materials of manufacture.

To Edward wool was at once money and alliance. When he summoned his parliament, what he demanded of it was so many packs of wool, which he transferred to Antwerp, then part of Brabant, enabling the king to pay the large subsidies which he had stipulated. Sometimes he did not await the formality of parliamentary grant in order to the seizure. Whilst the working and manufacturing class of Flemings thus profited by the English, the chiefs and Arteveld himself received money for the occasion. Still, however easy to win over the Flemings to neutrality, it was difficult to induce them to enter upon active war with France. The artisan was ready to quit his loom for a brief campaign to repel an invading foe; but prolonged or distant warfare was opposed to his interests and habits. The French, however, and the Flemish aristocracy did all in their power to provoke the civic democracy; they enticed from Ghent almost the only personage of birth who favoured the popular party, and had entertained the envoys of Edward. This was a knight of Courtray, father-in-law of Arteveld; when he fell into their hands, they decapitated him, to the great irritation of the men of Ghent.

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