France in the late 13th and early 14th centuries was ruled by the monarch Philip IV, known historically as the Handsome or as the Iron King, the latter, because of his harsh and uncompromising personality. The proposed historical period stands out for being one of the most violent moments in the entire history of humanity, since we find ourselves with the development of the last crusades, with great famines, religious persecutions, feudal confrontations, political plots and contagious diseases. It will be with the advance of the 14th century, when the crusades will be left aside, giving way to the development of the European continent.
It was in this setting where our protagonist ruled his Gallic possessions with an iron hand along with the peninsular kingdom of Navarre, a throne occupied practically only in name. Obtained thanks to his marriage to Juana I of Navarra, his only marriage. After the death of his wife in 1305, the king did not remarry, passing ownership of the Navarrese kingdom into the hands of the eldest son of both spouses, Louis X, who never cared about the Navarrese, self-governing this region without taking into account his opinion counts.
Felipe IV belonged to the mythical European royal dynasty of the Capetos, founded by Hugo Capeto -King of the Franks- in the 10th century. From the accession of Hugh Capet to the throne (we must not forget the elective character of the Capetian monarchy until the 13th century) until the fall of Philip IV, only eleven monarchs held the crown of France, leaving all of them alive to an heir who could perpetuate the legacy of the dynasty, something that led all his subjects to bless the Capetians. In addition, this remarkable royal continuity was reflected in a society that ended up getting used to living under the same law, which gradually gave rise to a timid incarnation of the idea of nation, which emanated from the person of the king, since the king was France. However, the death of Felipe IV and the consequent upheaval in the subsequent succession of monarchs destroyed all the progress made, and the Capetians came to be seen by their subjects as a dynasty wrapped in doom and curse, as we will see throughout the article. proposed.
THE REIGN AND THE CURSE ON PHILIP IV
Felipe IV el Hermoso already from a young age became absolute master of all the decisions of the kingdom, turning France into one of the central axes of Europe. In spite of everything, our protagonist was not born as heir to the French throne, since he was not the eldest son of Philip III the Bold, but his second son. However, fate played his cards, because after the poisoning of his older brother Luis and his subsequent death, the young Philip became the heir to his father, succeeding him in 1285.
The monarch throughout his reign stood out for his iron fist for the government and his restrictive policies, something that led him to: dominate the barons of the kingdom, allow his vassals to buy their freedom, put out the Flemish uprising, stop the English in Aquitaine and subjugate the Papacy, thus becoming one of the main protagonists of the crisis that the pontificate experienced between the 13th and 14th centuries. Felipe IV, through the attack of Anagni (1303) against Pope Boniface VIII (Pontiff who had tried to excommunicate the French king through the bull Unam Sanctam), got him to abandon the chair of Saint Peter, appoint a new Pope (the Frenchman Clement V, although Benedict XI preceded him for a year before) and moved the papal seat from Rome to Avignon from 1309 to 1377 Thus, “at this time the direct intervention of the French monarch in the government of the Church was complete” (GARCÍA DE CORTAZAR and SESMA MUÑOZ 2015, p.398), since the following five Popes were French, all of them, close to the actual environment.
On the other hand, the success of the royal government was also in the intuition that Felipe el Hermoso had to know how to surround himself with notable men. (Guillermo de Nogaret or Enguerrand de Marigny) who knew how to advise him on the direction his mandates should follow, most of them aiming to alleviate the needs that the Treasury of France was continually experiencing. Something that led him to implement burdensome taxes, to vary the value of the currency and to plunder the Jews. However, the economic crisis became notable during his reign, which led the kingdom to ruin and famine, multiplying as a consequence riots and executions on the gallows, since no one could oppose the royal authority, everyone had to bow before it, thus Philip IV managed to strengthen the French royal power.
Sovereignty that in the eyes of the king was guaranteed, since the succession to the throne was safe, since he had three healthy sons: Luis X, Felipe V and Carlos IV; married to Margarita de Borgoña, Juana de Borgoña and Blanca de Borgoña, respectively. Along with these men he had a fourth daughter: Elizabeth, Queen of England after her marriage to Edward II Plantagenet. She is a woman who will go down in history with the name of the She-Wolf of France, since she was the director of the revolt of the English barons against her husband, whom they ended up overthrowing and assassinating. She ruled England after this, along with her lover Sir Roger Mortimer on behalf of her son Edward III, until he took over England by hanging her mother’s lover in 1330.
The sum of all the above, makes us see Felipe IV as one of the most powerful sovereigns of all Christendom. However, the monarch found himself with a power that managed to challenge and oppose him: The order of the Knights of the Temple. This mythical ecclesiastical-military organization boasted incalculable glory and wealth, and thanks to its financial expertise it had manors scattered throughout Europe, especially France, where Philip IV also entrusted them with control of the Treasury.
The independence and power that the Templars held did not please the French monarch, it was something that worried him, becoming an impediment to achieving his economic and political objective with France. The order had become a nest of opposition to the monarch and the mandates of him. Thus, Felipe IV took advantage of the acquired control over the Papacy to launch a conspiracy against the Temple, which would destroy it and allow him to seize its riches. Thus, with the consent of Clement V –the Pope had nothing against the order but the pressure from the king took its toll on his fragile personality– Philip IV ordered his adviser Nogaret to launch a legal process in 1307 against the Temper. The process, not exempt from corruption and dark interests – the knights should have been judged by canon law – lasted seven long years with around fifteen thousand men arrested, tortured, murdered and forced to confess under torture to charges such as: sodomy, idolatry, sorcery, among others; in short, the Templars were branded as heretics, something that led the order to its destruction.
The culmination of this conspiracy came in March 1314 with the conviction and execution of the Grand Master of the Order, Jacques de Molay., who was burned alive at the stake in front of a large crowd, after being severely tortured and several false confessions ripped from his throat, thanks to the great work that Nogaret’s torturers did with the body of the Grand Master. However, Molay publicly retracted his confessions before being burned alive and uttered a curse with his last breath against the king, the pope and all the other actors who had participated in his misfortune.
Depending on the source that we consult, the words expressed by Molay vary, since the testimonies of the medieval characters are altered depending on the chroniclers consulted. For this reason, to get an idea of the words pronounced by the grand master, I have decided to rescue his last wishes from the texts written by the French writer, Maurice Druon, a great expert on the proposed subject, according to which Molay would have said the following: “ Pope Clement! Sir William! King Philip! Within a year I summon you to appear before the tribunal of God, to receive your just punishment! Damn, damn! Cursed until the thirteenth generation (according to other texts until the seventh) of your lineage!” (DRUON 2009, p.117). Thus, Molay prophesied divine vengeance against those responsible for his misfortune and his appearance before the tribunal of God within a year. The curse was pronounced and soon the first symptoms of it would appear.
After the confiscation of all the assets of the Temple – part of the Knights Hospitaller remained and part of the kingdoms where their possessions were found – the economic situation should have improved, however this was not the case, since the French Treasury quickly returned to giving symptoms of exhaustion. To this was added an unexpected problem that corrupted the tranquility of the kingdom, the Tower of Nesle scandal, which involved the entire royal family, starting point of the curse that persecuted the Capetians until its end. A place that became a place of lust chosen by the Burgundian princesses, Blanca and Margarita, wives of the French princes Charles IV and Louis X, to keep dates with their secret lovers, the Norman brothers Philippe and Gautier D’Aunay, who also they had the help and cover-up of the other princess, Juana, wife of the remaining brother, Felipe V.
The deception was discovered by Elizabeth of France, the only daughter of Philip IV and sister of the humiliated princes. When the scandal broke out and splashed the entire royal family, the king was ruthless with his daughters-in-law and their lovers. In this way, after a long council and after the confessions of adultery were extracted from the D’Aunay brothers by torture, a sentence was passed. The brothers were sentenced to be: rolled up, skinned alive, castrated, beheaded and hanged in public. For their part, the king’s daughters-in-law, Margarita and Blanca, were sentenced to be imprisoned for life in the fortress of Château-Gaillard. Juana, the remaining daughter-in-law, as an accomplice and abettor of adultery, was sentenced to be locked up in the tower of Dourdan until the king freed her from her. In addition, the three daughters-in-law, according to Maurice Druon, were also condemned to witness the ordeal of their lovers in person through carts covered with tarpaulins.
The royal family fell apart since the conviction of their wives left the three children of Philip IV without the ability to increase their offspring, endangering the Capetians: Luis only had one daughter, Juana, branded illegitimate after the scandal; Carlos had no offspring with Blanca; Felipe had three daughters who could also be affected by the scandal. This problem of the necessary offspring could have been avoided if the princesses had been executed – an option considered but rejected due to the possible consequences – together with their lovers, since the…