| Notes |
- In 1325 France is unmistakably the heart of Europe. A French pope
is resident in Avignon. The French king, Charles IV, has inherited
from his Capetian ancestors a realm which, from its early beginnings
around Paris, has grown steadily in size, wealth and influence. The
kingdom has a larger population than any rival state in Europe (around
15 million). Paris is the continent's intellectual centre.
Three years later this stability is severely threatened by the
early death of the king. When Charles IV dies, at the age of
thirty-four in 1328, he has been three times married but he has no
son. Since the death of Hugh Capet in 996 there has always been a son
(or very occasionally a brother) to inherit the French crown. In the
present generation the pattern is broken. Charles IV succeeds two
elder brothers (Louis X and Philip V), and he leaves two daughters -
one of them born posthumously.
The claim of Charles's elder daughter is rejected on the grounds of
her sex, even though the Salic law is not yet officially enshrined in
the French system. A great assembly of feudal magnates is charged with
deciding who is the rightful heir.
The closest male relative of Charles IV is his nephew Edward, the
son of Charles's sister Isabella. There is a certain logical objection
to Edward's inheritance; if the crown may not be inherited by a woman,
it would seem inconsistent for it to be inherited through a woman.
There is another factor which the chronicles of the time imply to
be an even more powerful obstacle. Edward is now Edward III, king of
England. France does not want an English king.
In the circumstances it is not surprising that the assembly awards
the crown to a more distant relation. Philip of Valois is only a
cousin of Charles IV, but his descent is all-male and all-French (he
is the son of a younger brother of Charles's father, Philip IV).
The Valois prince is crowned king at Reims in May 1328 as Philip
VI, beginning a new (though closely related) line on the French
throne. The dynasty's first reign is a difficult one. It includes the
human and economic disaster of the Black Death. And the disputed
succession brings on the long-drawn-out conflict known as the Hundred
Years' War.
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1273 - 1348 (75 years)