Counterfeiting is one of the oldest criminal professions - as soon as money appeared, people immediately appeared who began to forge it. The famous ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes Sinop, who, according to legend, lived in a barrel, but few people know that in his youth he was a counterfeiter ...
There is a story that has come down to us about his father, who was engaged in the fabrication of counterfeit money. According to legend, Diogenes' father was a usurer and money changer in Sinop, and he attracted his son to the manufacture of "light" coins. Diogenes took part in his father's scam, was exposed with him, caught and expelled from his native city.
The first counterfeiter in history is the tyrant ruler of the island of Samos named Polycrates, who seized power in 538. He paid off the Spartans besieging the island, who surrounded Samos with lead coins covered with a thin layer of gold, and thereby lifted the blockade of the city.
In the XII-XIV centuries, counterfeiting was carried out by representatives of all classes, but most often of the spiritual. History has preserved the name of Abbot Messendron, who during the reign of the English King Edward III (1312-1377) almost openly manufactured and distributed counterfeit coins. They hung him on the rack and then hung him.
In the 15th century in France, Countess Jeanne de Bologne-et-Auverne made counterfeit coins for seven years in her family castle in Toulouse. "Mint" was equipped in the basement of the castle, two specially trusted persons minted coins. In 1422, they were nevertheless exposed and arrested.
Counterfeiting paper money probably began long ago, shortly after its inception. The apparent simplicity of the process attracted me. Indeed, paper money is not a coin that requires quite sophisticated equipment, appropriate alloys and chemicals, and a certain skill to counterfeit. And here is something simpler: copy the drawing on a paper rectangle - and you are rich ...
However, this apparent simplicity attracted not only ordinary scammers, but also the powers that be. They did not trouble themselves by drawing individual pictures by hand, but put things on a grand scale ...
Easy money is the worst punishment
But, observing the historical sequence, it would still be logical to start with the counterfeiting of coins as a more ancient means of payment. For centuries, coins were minted only from gold and silver. The state that issued the money was responsible for the accuracy of the weight and sample. The face value of the coin was always slightly higher than the actual value of the metal from which it was made. This difference provided the so-called monetary income of the treasury. And some rulers sought to increase this income. They were simply engaged in falsification - they reduced the weight of the coins, added a ligature (low-value impurities) to the metal.
The French monarch Philip IV, who went down in history as the "forgery king", was especially famous in this field. The court alchemist of the English king Henry VI once discovered that copper rubbed with mercury becomes silvery. With his discovery, he hurried to the king, and he, without thinking twice, ordered the release of a huge number of such false silver coins.
Coin of Philip IV the Handsome, 1306
And the German princes of the 17th century completely lost their conscience. They issued counterfeit coins without any restrictions. And when the time came to collect taxes, the princes refused to accept fakes, demanding only coins of earlier issues. Apparently, it was then that the sad saying was born: "Easy money for the country is a worse punishment than hard wars."
The minting of counterfeit money was also used as an instrument of foreign policy. The Czech king Louis II in 1517 issued coins similar to the Polish half pennies, but containing a very small amount of silver. This "currency" brought down the Polish market. At the beginning of the 17th century, Poland and Sweden were at war with Russia - and fake Russian coins were minted by both.
In the middle of the 18th century, during the war with Saxony, King Frederick II of Prussia put coins with a reduced silver content into circulation in the occupied territory, marking the pre-war dates of issue on them. So the august counterfeiter ensured the maintenance of his army.
Russia itself did not lag behind in this ignoble industry. On December 18, 1812, Arakcheev, in a letter to the Minister of Finance Guryev, conveyed the highest command: upon the appearance of the army abroad, to assign the maintenance "one and a half rubles in silver, counting the Dutch gold piece in three rubles in silver." Why were salaries recalculated for Dutch chervonets?
The answer is simple. For a century and a half now, Russia has been minting these same Dutch chervonets, with which it made foreign payments. In official papers, there was an evasive name for them "famous coin". Obviously, Dutch chervonets were very popular in those days, because England also forged exactly the same coins.
Ducats of 1818, 1829 and 1841 coinage of the St. Petersburg Mint.
All this, as they say, is just flowers. Berries began with the widespread use of paper money, although they existed as such before.
His Majesty's Engraver
At the end of the 18th century, a revolution broke out in France. And emigrants, loyal to the idea of monarchy, not from a good life forged the banknotes of the Convention. They were engaged in this at specially equipped enterprises in Switzerland and England. After only one battle on the Quiberon peninsula, the revolutionary troops seized 10 million fake livres!
Later, this French experience served the most famous Frenchman in history - Napoleon. From 1806 to 1809, he ordered to counterfeit Austrian and Prussian money, seeking the collapse of the enemy's economy, in 1810 - English, and then it came to the Russians. About how it was, tells in his memoirs Joseph Lal, an engraver of the main military department of France, who was approached by the Special Department of the secret office of the emperor.
Lal writes that at the beginning of 1810 an unfamiliar customer came to him and asked him to accurately copy the text printed in London. The work was done on time and so well that it delighted the customer. There was no point in encrypting further. Having revealed his incognito, the customer invited Lal to the Ministry of Police, where he was asked to make a cliché of an English bank. Lal did not let us down and soon received a similar order for Russian fakes.
In just a month, Lal and his employees made about 700 clichés - the production of fakes was planned on a grand scale. The printing house was equipped in Montparnasse, and was supervised by her brother, Napoleon's secretary, Jean-Jacques Fin. There was, according to Lal, a special room where the floor was covered with a thick layer of dust. Ready-made banknotes were thrown into this dust, after which they were mixed with a leather whisk. This was necessary (we quote Lal) "in order for them to become soft, take on an ashy hue and look as if they had already passed through many hands."
What was the quality of the English "money" produced by the company "Lal and company", we do not know, but with the Russians they could not achieve decent quality. It was easy to spot fakes. The French printed banknotes on paper of better quality than the Russians; on fakes, the images of medallions, which are almost invisible on the originals, stood out quite clearly. The letters on the fakes were engraved more clearly than on the originals, and in some batches outright mistakes were made - for example, the letter "l" instead of "d" in the word "state".
Detector scales for detecting counterfeit coins, USA, 1882.
However, one way or another, Napoleon's scam gained momentum as the French approached the capital of Russia - printing houses were opened in Dresden, Warsaw, and finally, in Moscow itself, at the Preobrazhensky cemetery. When, after the war, our Senate carried out the replacement of banknotes, among the 830 million in circulation, more than 70 million were Napoleonic counterfeits.
There are no gentlemen in war
Where there is war, there is, as a rule, economic sabotage with the help of counterfeit money. During the American Civil War, southerners counterfeited northerners' money. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, the Land of the Rising Sun printed counterfeit rubles.
And on the eve of the First World War, the money of the future enemy was made in Germany and Austria-Hungary. Minister of Justice Shcheglovitov wrote in a letter to the director of the Police Department Dzhunkovsky that in Russia “government credit notes of 500-ruble denominations, printed on specially prepared paper with a watermark, were distributed in the same way that was used exclusively by the Expedition for Procurement of State Papers and was considered up to still unconditionally securing government credit notes against counterfeiting.”
A record of the interrogation of an Austrian prisoner of war Josef Hetl was found in the archives of the Special Section of the Russian Police Department. The prisoner said that his school friend Alexander Erdelyi works at the Vienna Military Geographic Institute, where fake Russian banknotes are printed in denominations of 10, 25, 50 and 100 rubles. His testimony was confirmed by repeated seizures of such papers in the Volga region, in the Caucasus, in Irkutsk, Kursk and other cities.
The Minister's Plan Fails
Counterfeit money adventures continued after the war. Could not, and did not want to overcome the temptation of Germany, Austria and Hungary. On Austrian territory, for example, Czech banknotes were printed. Although their quality was high, the agent was nevertheless arrested while trying to sell - the operation became known to Czech intelligence in advance.
And the well-known political figure Gustav Stresemann, who was the German Foreign Minister from 1923 to 1929, developed a plan to counterfeit francs, with a further focus on pounds sterling.
The practical implementation of the project was entrusted to the Hungarian prince Windischgrätz. The illustrious swindler studied the technique of falsification at the German intelligence factory in Cologne. One of Windischgrätz's assistants, Colonel of the General Staff Jankovic, went to Paris, where he got acquainted with the peculiarities of packing money by the French Bank on the spot.
Banknotes were ready in 1925, they were kept in the Hungarian embassies in a number of countries. Jankovic went to Holland and in The Hague presented a thousand-franc note at the bank. He was unlucky: an attentive cashier immediately recognized the fake and called the police.
Jankovic was arrested. The Hungarian ambassador informed the government of what had happened, and on a prearranged signal, the agents destroyed the evidence - doused it with gasoline and burned the entire supply of fakes. But the Bank of France saw a serious danger in the Yankovic case. He sent detectives to Budapest, and they managed to unearth a lot. A major international scandal was brewing. To deflect the blow from the government, Windischgrätz and Jankovic took all the blame and were sentenced to prison in 1926.
A thief stole a club from a thief
In these notes, we deliberately did not touch on the activities of the Nazi counterfeiters who printed pounds sterling and dollars as part of Operation Bernhard. Books have been written about this operation, documentaries and feature films have been shot. Let us mention only one curiosity associated with it.
A paid agent worked for the Third Reich in the English embassy in Turkey under the pseudonym Cicero. He transmitted information of operational importance, but the Germans could not use it due to the rapidly changing military situation.
After the war, Cicero found out that the pounds that German intelligence was paying him were counterfeit. And so it happened that the Germans paid for information that was useless to them with counterfeit money.
Andrey BYSTROV
Philip also had a second nickname: the counterfeiter. It remained with Philip IV to this day, although many rulers later surpassed him in this craft. The king earned his nickname by being a "political blacksmith from Reims", as the king's brother Charles of Valois used to say. This "Rheims blacksmith" also attracted the attention of Dante Alighieri, who, having fired many sarcastic arrows at the Capetians in the Divine Comedy, devoted several lines to Philip's monetary manipulations and connected Philip's death from boar fangs with the royal counterfeiting of coins. (Philip died on November 29, 1314, as a result of several blows, the first of which overtook him on November 4 while hunting. The legend that he fell from his horse and was attacked by a boar was widespread in his time.)
Already in 1292, the first sin of the French king begins. He introduces a general taxation of his subjects, which also applies to the clergy. Worldly nobility is taxed in the amount of a hundredth of their property (in some parts of the country the tax rises to 1/50), cities pay a turnover tax of one denier per livre, the church is obliged to pay tithes to the royal treasury, not only during the war years and in other emergency, but also during normal times. Here is also the “tax from the hearth” - six salts from each household, as well as the “Lombard tax”, which applies to Italian merchants and money changers in France, and the “Jewish tax”.
Only the "Lombard tax" brought to the treasury in 1292-1293 about 150,000 livres.
Without a doubt, this taxation was caused not only by the deplorable state of the finances of the court. Philip armed for the war for Aquitaine and Flanders.
In 1294, Philip's troops invaded Aquitaine, and Edward I sends troops from England to defend his duchy. It was a "silent" war, and already in 1296 the opponents agreed to cease hostilities. The agreement was reinforced by the intentions of the royal families to intermarry. Dynastic marriages often protected nations from bloody clashes, but they were never a guarantee of peace.
Nevertheless, the Gascon War, as this campaign came to be called, was very expensive for France. Until the final peace treaty concluded at Chartres in 1303, French troops were stationed in Aquitaine, which cost the treasury 2 million livres.
Today millions, billions of sums of state budget operations, property of corporations, enterprises and even individuals do not cause our surprise. But at the end of the 13th century, a million livres was an overwhelming, unimaginable amount. The calculations were in livres, salts and denier. 12 denier (d) equaled 1 sol (s), and 20 sols equaled 1 livre (l). The livre was only a counting unit, there were no coins in denominations of 1 livre, the most popular coins were denier and noon.
During the time of Philip IV in France, there were two currency systems: the old, Parisian (p) and the new (n). Four old livres equaled five new ones.
A skilled craftsman received at best 18 new deniers (nd) per day, or 27 new livres (nl) per year. The salary of a royal servant of non-noble origin (with the exception of senior officials) was 2-5 soles per day, a knight - 10 soles.
The incomes of senior officials were calculated on an annual basis. The salary of the supreme judge or the highest official of the royal court ranged from 365 to 700 nl. The master of the royal mint, at the same time the king's adviser on monetary affairs, Beten Kosinel, received only 250 nl. The highest paid person in the royal service, Enguerrand de Marigny, received 900 nl a year.
A document drawn up around 1296 gives an idea of what sources were supposed to raise funds to finance the Gascon War:
200,000 nl - solid income from royal estates
249,000 nl - tithe withheld from the income of the church
315,000 nl-tax on barons (1/100 of property)
35,000 nl - tax on barons in Champagne (1/50)
65,000 NL - tax on Lombards
60,000 nl - tax on the trade turnover of cities (in most cases in the form of a "tax from the hearth")
16,000 nl - taxes on transactions between Lombards in France
225,000 Nl - tax on Jews, including fines withheld
200,000 nl - loans from Lombards
630,000 nl - loans from wealthy subjects
50,000 nl - loans from prelates and royal servants
50,000 nl - income from "coin facilitation"
Total: 2 105000 nl
Some positions (for example, the taxation of the Jews) are certainly overstated. Some are not fully disclosed: the list of cities from which the treasury receives tax revenues is clearly not complete.
Whether this money was received, we do not know, nor do we know for what period these receipts were calculated. Only the church tithe corresponded to the annual amount. Of the loans in 1295, 632,000 nl were received, and not always and not everywhere in a non-violent way. In general, the royal appeal to help the treasury in the "defensive struggle" was a great success. The fact that it was planned to start the war at the latest in 1292, the people, of course, did not know.
But it was almost impossible to repeat what was done in 1295. The peculiarity of loans is that they must be repaid, in addition, interest. Some cities, having learned the hard way about the financial morality of the crown, were able to reduce the amount of loans placed by royal officials, while refusing their subsequent reimbursement. So, in 1295, from the city of Sainton-Poitou, 44,910 nl came as gifts and only 5666 nl - as loans.
Philip IV and later turned to internal loans, but with less success than in 1295. From this year on, the tax pressure began to tighten so hard that wealthy subjects preferred to refrain from voluntary donations. The French kings never took the terms of payments on loans received seriously. When it came to war loans, lenders somehow had to take note that it was pointless to expect to receive their money while the war was going on.
In the cited document, no doubt, a curious position is the income from "coin relief". Already in 1293, the king had a confidential conversation with Muschiatto Guidi, a Lombard experienced in money matters, about the advantages and disadvantages of manipulating coins. Muschiatto did not advise the king to embark on this risky venture, because the consequences of such actions for the economy are negative, the income of the crown ultimately turns into losses. But Philip did not fully understand the needs of the country's economy. His chief advisor on monetary matters, Bathen Cocinel, who was the head of the Paris mint, was also not an expert in this matter. He could only calculate the direct momentary gain to the crown from the reduction in the content of precious metals in the coins. Unlike Muschiatto, he was, moreover, a devoted servant of his master. He had every reason to be useful to his king. At many courts, it was customary to "save" the precious metal in the manufacture of coins. In any case, Cosinelle undertook to fulfill the king's instructions to mint a new largest French coin (sol) with a face value much higher than the previous one that was in circulation, while significantly reducing the content of the precious metal in it. Jacques Dimer, auditor of the Paris Mint, submitted to the "higher powers."
The largest coin in circulation at the peak of fraud in 1305 had a face value of 36 denier (instead of 12), which in the end should have caused a corresponding rise in prices. True, this could not happen overnight. The economy in the Middle Ages reacted much more slowly to changes in the monetary economy than it does today. The king was thus able, by issuing falsified and overvalued coins in comparison with their real value, to quickly free himself from a third of his debts. Barons and townspeople fared much worse. They got only a third of the rent they expected to receive from the loans granted to the king.
To prevent unrest, the king already in 1295 instructed his officials to explain to the people the monetary policy pursued as a kind of war loan: as soon as the state of war ceases, the coin, which has deteriorated and overestimated compared to its real value, will be fully exchanged for new money.
Philip fulfilled this promise in his own way. Until 1306, he withdrew coins from circulation five times in order to replace them with new, improved ones, and restore their previous state. The edicts, according to which all full-weight coins that were in circulation in the country and outside it, as well as products of gold and silver, were to be exchanged for bad royal coins, supplemented these measures of the crown, which, in addition, appropriated the income from war booty.
The scale of fraud with silver coins can be seen from the following data. Under Saint Louis (1226), coins were minted from a certain weight of silver, the value of which was more than three times lower than the declared record value of coins minted in April 1305 from the same weight of silver.
The income of the royal treasury from monetary fraud in 1296 was indicated by a modest figure of 101,435 nl. Just two years later, between June 24, 1298 and June 24, 1299, it already amounted to 1.2 million nl. The idea that in such a situation it would be necessary to raise the money income of their subjects was absolutely alien to Philip and his advisers. On the contrary, in their view, each soldier for the previous salary should have been three times as diligent, and this could not go on for a long time.
In 1297, Philip's troops marched against Flanders. The northern county, thanks to the industriousness of its people, was considered the richest of the vassal possessions of the French king. And not only the ruler of Flanders, Guy de Dampierre, but also the rich cities of Ghent, Bruges, Lille, which supplied the whole of Europe with their canvas, considered themselves completely independent. Philip had other plans. The attacks on Aquitaine (1294) were primarily intended to force England, a traditional ally of Flanders, to abandon the defense of the county. And the English king Edward I, whose hands were tied by internal affairs, the suppression of the Scottish rebels, gave Philip this pleasure. In 1300, Flanders was "pacified", its peace and order were to be ensured by the French occupying troops.
The looting of the poorly paid French occupiers and the taxes that Philip imposed on the cities led to a general uprising in May 1302. Philip sent 7,000 horsemen and 20,000 infantry to suppress it. In the bloody Battle of Kortrijk, the French troops were utterly defeated. This is the most crushing defeat of Philip for all the time of his reign.
The Parisian court experienced depression and disappointment these days. There is a search for the reasons for what happened, and the indignant king is carefully trying to make it clear that the outcome of the battle may have been influenced by the low salary of well-armed soldiers. Philip does not accept any explanation: the defeat of the rebellious mob cannot be excused by anything. In addition, he has no money:
"Tax collectors deceive us at every turn, they collect much more than they hand over to the treasury."
This is the first and only time that the king accuses those in his service of uncleanliness. He knows that his accusations are based on nothing. Treasury revenues from taxes and manipulation of the mint, for the most part, do not go to pay the troops at all. Huge sums are spent on the expansion of the royal palace, palace festivities, generous gifts to foreign rulers to ensure non-interference in the military enterprises of the king.
The minting of counterfeit coins, or, to put it better, the manipulation of coins, is the second major sin of Philip the Handsome, of which history accuses him. The third sin of the Capetian king will never be forgiven in Rome.
In 1296, Philip demands that the French church double its tithe contribution to the treasury to maintain the protection of the kingdom. Until now, Philip has never denied the church "reciprocal gifts", primarily in the form of expanding its land holdings, given that church tithes in difficult years amounted to a quarter to a third of all state revenues. However, this time the church demands greater privileges from France. Unexpectedly, even before the start of negotiations, the Roman holy father Pope Boniface VIII intervenes in this matter, forbidding in his bull any indemnities from the church in favor of worldly rulers.
The Holy See in those days was by no means an all-Christian institution. For centuries, he fought with the royal houses for power even in this world. His sure weapon so far has been the refusal of a blessing, the threat or actual excommunication. This meant that the "excommunicated" was outside of any worldly and spiritual laws. The power of the papal curse was experienced by Henry IV (1056-1106) and Frederick II (1212-1250).
Boniface VIII, the 199th pope in the history of the church, a power-hungry and irascible man, was elected pope in 1294. This year he turned 76 years old, the age at that time downright biblical.
Philip IV responded to the papal bull by banning any export of gold and precious metals from France. After an exchange of letters in which each side defended its point of view, the pope finally relented and declared that his bull did not apply to France. And then something happened that temporarily suspended the constant, sometimes smoldering, sometimes flaring up like a volcano, the struggle of the sacred throne for worldly power.
Bishop of Parma
Bernard Sesse, Bishop of Parma, a faithful supporter of the pope, repeatedly spoke out against the despotism and autocracy of Philip, thereby winning applause not only in Rome. He spoke of Philip's coins as follows:
“This money is cheaper than mud. They are impure and false; unrighteous and dishonest acts the one by whose will they are minted. In all the Roman curia I do not know anyone who would give even a handful of dirt for this money.
These speeches evoked a lively response from his flock. But they reacted in their own way in the palace. Philip did not tolerate any opponents, he only waited for a convenient excuse to silence his opponent. Sesse soon gave the king such an opportunity himself, when he compared the king, invested with the rank of God's viceroy in France, with an owl, “the most beautiful of birds, which is good for nothing ... Such is our king, the most beautiful man in the world, who, however, , can do nothing but see the surroundings. It was an open insult to royal majesty, treason. At the end of October 1301, Bernard Sesse was taken into custody and brought to trial. It was a kind of process. There was no shortage of witnesses confirming the seditious statements of the accused. He was even deprived of a protector. Yet Sesse was the Pope's messenger. In any case, the decision of the court was very lenient. There were also such witnesses who urged not to take everything seriously. Bishop - an elderly man with a bad temper, who, after taking a sip from a bottle, sometimes blurts out too much. Others, not without irony, said that he was simple "to the point of holiness." The verdict took into account "extenuating circumstances". Philip actually limited himself to depriving Sesse of the episcopal dignity and property worth 40,000 nl, which "with the consent" of Sesse was transferred to one of the monasteries. Sesse never saw his money again, although seven years later he was returned to the episcopal rank.
The Chronicle reports that Philip was not pleased with the process, and with good reason. He needed a church tithe.
The reaction of the Holy See was not long in coming. Already on December 5, 1301 (the verdict dated from the end of November), the papal ambassadors brought Boniface's bull (this message, under the eloquent title "Listen, son" was prepared even before the start of the trial against Sesse), in which he called himself the supreme judge. Boniface notified the "king of the French" about the elimination of all privileges that the French court had in relations with the holy church. The most painful for Philip was the annulment of the right negotiated in 1297 from Rome to tax the French church with a decimal tax without the consent of the pope. Philip was also irritated by the attacks on his policies contained in a very voluminous bull. It was also about his export bans, about the choice of royal advisers, about royal decrees, about financial policy and manipulation of coins. Boniface, however, refrained from directly calling Philip IV a counterfeiter.
In later sources devoted to this historical martial art, it is invariably reported that Philip in February 1302 ordered the burning of the papal bull in public. However, there is no conclusive evidence, and it is generally unlikely. Philip instructed his first minister, Pierre Flot, to sort out this matter, who informed only a narrow circle of advisers about the content of the bull. It remained unknown primarily to the most faithful associates of the pope from the royal entourage. Instead of a detailed notice, Floté summed up the Roman reproaches in one sentence: "Know that you are our subject in both temporal and spiritual matters." Boniface did not write like this, but it followed from the content of his epistle. And it was by this phrase that the papal bull was to be judged at the meeting of the Estates General on April 10, 1302.
This April day is a very curious date in French history. For the first time, representatives of not only the nobility and clergy, but also the third estate in the person of the townspeople were invited. This move ensured victory for the king, and the Fleet was given the title of Keeper of the Great King's Seal in gratitude.
The old man, seated on the Holy Throne, when he learned of the decision taken at the meeting of the three estates in Paris, was beside himself. He convenes a church council, to which only half of the French bishops arrive (39 out of 79), and curses the Navy, "whom God has already punished with partial physical blindness and complete spiritual blindness." The fleet is called the second Ahitophel, it is also said that he will share the fate of the latter. The pope's prediction was soon confirmed: Pierre Floté was killed on July 11 of the same year at the Battle of Kortrijk. What impression his death made on the French bishops, we do not know.
Fleet's successor was the same energetic and even more scrupulous in carrying out the will of the king, Guillaume Nogaret, who was soon granted the nobility by the king. Maurice Druon, in his book The Curse of Fire, characterizes this lean, dark-haired man with restless eyes as a merciless and "inevitable as a scythe of death" servant of the king, who looked like a devil and was devilishly persistent in carrying out his master's policy.
On November 18, 1302, a new bull of Boniface follows, in which he develops the postulate that any being between heaven and earth is subject to the Holy See: “We declare, proclaim and determine that every person is necessarily a subject of the Roman pontificate, if he immortality of his soul.
In addressing this message, Boniface overestimated his strength, although it is sustained in a much more peaceful tone compared to the previous bull. Philip had influential allies in Italy as well. First of all, these are representatives of the family of the Counts of Colonna, whose property was sequestered by Boniface in favor of members of his family, greedy for power and wealth. In turn, Guillaume Nogaret knew from Colonne about the accusations made against Boniface during the period of the unusual abdication of the throne by his predecessor Celestine V. The content of the accusations boiled down to the fact that Boniface was allegedly subject to heresy, sexual perversion and other sins. Hardly anything from this list corresponded to reality. However, Philip's lawyers were subtly experienced in scholastic chicanery battles, and Boniface's phrase, which he really could utter in vehemence: "I'd rather be a dog than a Frenchman," turned against him: "A dog has no soul, but the very last Frenchman she is. In other words, Boniface does not believe in the immortality of the soul. He is a heretic."
On June 13, 1303, at a meeting of representatives of the nobility and clergy in the Louvre, many similar finds were announced, which gave rise to a proposal to convene a church council at which Boniface's heresy was to be discussed. The question of where and when to convene a council remained open.
Boniface, meanwhile, writes another bull, which is delivered to Paris on September 8 and is read out. The content of the bull is as follows: Philip of France is excommunicated because he forbade the French prelates to go to Rome, gave refuge to the apostate Stefano Colonna and lost the confidence of his subjects.
On the same day, the king speaks confidentially with the keeper of his seal: “Nogare, no one should know about this message. We do not limit you in anything, but the pope must appear before the church cathedral. Guillaume Nogaret did not need many words, and the handshake with which the king honored him meant that the fate of the king was now in his hands. Nogare wastes no time, he chooses the most reliable and most courageous knights and together with them goes to Anagni, the personal possession of the pope. There, with the support of the Colonna family, he actually captures the 86-year-old dad. Apparently, Boniface was subjected to very ill-treatment. In any case, four weeks after the people of Anagni release him, he dies in the Vatican. But the fading strength of Boniface is enough to excommunicate Guillaume de Nogaret from the church.
Dante finds bitter words to describe the attack at Anagni, qualifying it as a murder, although Boniface does not arouse much sympathy from him.
In the struggle for power with Rome, the winner is Philip IV. But at what cost? In the years 1301-1303, his treasury does not receive church tithes, and this is a loss of almost 800,000 nl. Benedict XI, the newly elected pope, is peacefully disposed and is ready to agree to the collection of church tithes by the French king, provided that Philip takes an oath in holy scripture that he was not involved in the attempt at Anagni. Philip swears, but it is a false oath.
The 200th pope, Benedict XI, was destined to remain on the Holy Throne for only a year. His successor was Philip's protégé, Archbishop of Bordeaux Bertrand de Gault, who was elected pope in 1305 thanks to the efforts of the French crown and took the name of Clement V. Four years later, he moved his residence to Avignon, where the popes spent in the so-called "Babylonian exile" [similar to captivity in Babylon of the people of Israel by Nebuchadnezzar (597-538 BC)] until 1377.
December 23, 1305 Clement V releases Philip from Boniface's curse and grants him remission of sins associated with numerous extortion of church money and manipulation of coins. He extols, by the grace of God, the King of France as "the brightest star among all the Catholic Monarchs." Philip, who is by no means deaf to flattery, responds by declaring himself the protector of those bishops and abbeys against whom Clement V was too cruel, but he himself begins to collect taxes and forced loans from them, the King easily distributes reciprocal gifts - letters of grant privileges and freedoms - and just as easily forgets about them. His lawyers have to take care of loopholes, and they know their stuff.
The third sin, attacking the Holy See, is immediately followed by the fourth.
Seven centuries have passed since that October day in 1285, when the people of Paris welcomed the 17-year-old youth. It was Philip of the Capetian family, who, with solemn ceremony, was anointed to the French throne.Philip IV, as he could now be called, did not show his royal majesty to the Parisians for long, he had nothing to say to them. Casting an unseeing glance over the cheering crowd, he turned and disappeared, surrounded by courtiers. If anything else is expected of him, let those who are in his service do it. He, Philip, the king by the grace of God, will not speak to the mob.
Philip the Beautiful, named so soon by his contemporaries, under this name went down in history.
Philip was the offspring of an ancient family, the power and success of his ancestors in the state field were of a very different nature. The Capetian clan fought for the unity of the kingdom for three centuries. The founder of the family was Hugo Capet, who ruled in 987-996. In those days, the power of local feudal lords in the kingdom was practically unlimited, they had the right to mint coins and their own mints. Hugo, at best, was the first among equals, coins with his image were minted only in Paris and Orleans.
Since then, a lot of water has flowed. After the marriage in 1284 of the 16-year-old Philip with Joanna, heir to the throne of Navarre (she did not know a word of Spanish) and the Countess of Champagne, the number of his pseudo-independent possessions was reduced to four: Flanders, Brittany, Aquitaine and Burgundy. Philip the Handsome was seized with an ambitious plan to subdue the remaining areas to the absolute power of the king, so that no one else, but only he would be the arbiter of worldly and spiritual affairs in all of France. Circumstances did not at all favor this.
The conditions for the coinage created since the time of Louis IX (1226-1270) contributed to the economic development of French cities. The gold and silver coins (turnoses) minted since then - “golden lambs” (named after the lamb depicted on the coin) and “golden chairs” (named after the king depicted on the coin, sitting on a Gothic throne) - were money that was in circulation in neighboring countries, where they were also made.
This, however, exhausted the positive deeds of Philip III, the father of the young king. A lost war with Aragon, huge debts and an unstable southern border - these were the realities of the French kingdom. The income of the crown consisted only of receipts from its possessions, from the occasional traditional donations of barons, clergy and cities, when a member of the royal family entered into a marriage alliance, was ordained a knight, or when it was necessary to prepare and arm for a crusade.
We know a little about the plans that Philip hatched until the 90s of the XIII century, history is also silent about his “inner life”. Until the end of his days, he remained a soullessly neutral sphinx. Generations of historians and writers puzzled over what motivated him to take such contradictory actions. The range of assessments given to him is just as great: he is both a greedy despot and a progressive ruler who is ahead of his time.
The duchy of Aquitaine in southeastern France, which was a vassal of the English king, and the wealthy county of Flanders in the north, were from the very beginning the immediate targets of Philip IV's policy of unification of the kingdom, a policy that also corresponded to the king's financial ambitions.
Money was both the end and the means of his policy. And he did not have enough money until the very last day. Philip needed money to consolidate his power over the territories that belonged to him. A huge bureaucracy for those times was created so that the will of the king was realized in all corners of the country.
From the services of advisers to Philip III, the young king soon refused. He needed energetic, people who were completely devoted to his goals, capable lawyers, headed by Pierre Flotet, Guillaume de Nogaret and a brilliant clever, fully conscious of his power Enguerrand de Marigny. These were people, not always of purely noble origin, who gave all their strength to serve the interests of the crown.
Counterfeiter.
Philip also had a second nickname: the counterfeiter. It remained with Philip IV to this day, although many rulers later surpassed him in this craft. The king earned his nickname by being a "political blacksmith from Reims", as the king's brother Charles of Valois used to say. This "Rheims blacksmith" also attracted the attention of Dante Alighieri, who, having fired many sarcastic arrows at the Capetians in the Divine Comedy, devoted several lines to Philip's monetary manipulations and connected Philip's death from boar fangs with the royal counterfeiting of coins. (Philip died on November 29, 1314, as a result of several blows, the first of which overtook him on November 4 while hunting. The legend that he fell from his horse and was attacked by a boar was widespread in his time.)
Already in 1292, the first sin of the French king begins. He introduces a general taxation of his subjects, which also applies to the clergy. Worldly nobility is taxed in the amount of a hundredth of their property (in some parts of the country the tax rises to 1/50), cities pay a turnover tax of one denier per livre, the church is obliged to pay tithes to the royal treasury, not only during the war years and in other emergency, but also during normal times. Here is also the “tax from the hearth” - six soles from each household, as well as the “Lombard tax”, which applies to Italian merchants and money changers in France, and the “Jewish tax”.
Only the "Lombard tax" brought to the treasury in 1292-1293 about 150,000 livres.
Without a doubt, this taxation was caused not only by the deplorable state of the finances of the court. Philip armed for the war for Aquitaine and Flanders.
In 1294, Philip's troops invaded Aquitaine, and Edward I sends troops from England to defend his duchy. It was a "silent" war, and already in 1296 the opponents agreed to cease hostilities. The agreement was reinforced by the intentions of the royal families to intermarry. Dynastic marriages often protected nations from bloody clashes, but they were never a guarantee of peace.
Nevertheless, the Gascon War, as this campaign came to be called, was very expensive for France. Until the final peace treaty concluded at Chartres in 1303, French troops were stationed in Aquitaine, which cost the treasury 2 million livres.
Today millions, billions of sums of state budget operations, property of corporations, enterprises and even individuals do not cause our surprise. But at the end of the 13th century, a million livres was an overwhelming, unimaginable amount. The calculations were in livres, salts and denier. 12 denier (d) equaled 1 sol (s), and 20 sols equaled 1 livre (l). The livre was only a counting unit, there were no coins in denominations of 1 livre, the most popular coins were denier and noon.
During the time of Philip IV in France, there were two currency systems: the old, Parisian (p) and the new (n). Four old livres equaled five new ones.
A skilled craftsman received at best 18 new deniers (nd) per day, or 27 new livres (nl) per year. The salary of a royal servant of non-noble origin (with the exception of senior officials) was 2-5 soles per day, a knight - 10 soles.
The incomes of senior officials were calculated on an annual basis. The salary of the supreme judge or the highest official of the royal court ranged from 365 to 700 nl. The master of the royal mint, at the same time the king's adviser on monetary affairs, Beten Kosinel, received only 250 nl. The highest paid person in the royal service, Enguerrand de Marigny, received 900 nl a year.
A document drawn up around 1296 gives an idea of what sources were supposed to raise funds to finance the Gascon War: 200,000 Nl - solid income from royal possessions 249,000 Nl - tithe withheld from the income of the church 315,000 Nl - tax on barons (1/100 of property) Nl 35,000 tax on barons in Champagne (1/50) Nl 65,000 tax on Lombards Nl 60,000 tax on urban trade (in most cases in the form of a "home tax") 16,000 nl - taxes on transactions between Lombards in France 225,000 nl - tax on Jews, including fines withheld 200,000 nl - loans from Lombards 630,000 nl - loans from wealthy subjects 50,000 nl - loans from prelates and royal employees 50,000 nl - income from “coin relief” Total: NL 2,105,000
Some positions (for example, the taxation of the Jews) are certainly overstated. Some are not fully disclosed: the list of cities from which the treasury receives tax revenues is clearly not complete.
Whether this money was received, we do not know, nor do we know for what period these receipts were calculated. Only the church tithe corresponded to the annual amount. Of the loans in 1295, 632,000 nl were received, and not always and not everywhere in a non-violent way. In general, the royal appeal to help the treasury in the "defensive struggle" was a great success. The fact that it was planned to start the war at the latest in 1292, the people, of course, did not know.
But it was almost impossible to repeat what was done in 1295. The peculiarity of loans is that they must be repaid, in addition, interest. Some cities, having learned the hard way about the financial morality of the crown, were able to reduce the amount of loans placed by royal officials, while refusing their subsequent reimbursement. So, in 1295, from the city of Sainton-Poitou, 44,910 nl came as gifts and only 5,666 nl - as loans.
Philip IV and later turned to internal loans, but with less success than in 1295. From this year on, the tax pressure began to tighten so hard that wealthy subjects preferred to refrain from voluntary donations. The French kings never took the terms of payments on loans received seriously. When it came to war loans, lenders somehow had to take note that it was pointless to expect to receive their money while the war was going on.
In the cited document, no doubt, a curious position is the income from "coin relief". Already in 1293, the king had a confidential conversation with Muschiatto Guidi, a Lombard experienced in money matters, about the advantages and disadvantages of manipulating coins. Muschiatto did not advise the king to embark on this risky venture, because the consequences of such actions for the economy are negative, the income of the crown ultimately turns into losses. But Philip did not fully understand the needs of the country's economy. His chief advisor on monetary matters, Bathen Cocinel, who was the head of the Paris mint, was also not an expert in this matter. He could only calculate the direct momentary gain to the crown from the reduction in the content of precious metals in the coins. Unlike Muschiatto, he was, moreover, a devoted servant of his master. He had every reason to be useful to his king. At many courts, it was customary to "save" the precious metal in the manufacture of coins. In any case, Cosinelle undertook to fulfill the king's instructions to mint a new largest French coin (sol) with a face value much higher than the previous one that was in circulation, while significantly reducing the content of the precious metal in it. Jacques Dimer, auditor of the Paris Mint, submitted to the "higher powers."
The largest coin in circulation at the peak of fraud in 1305 had a face value of 36 denier (instead of 12), which in the end should have caused a corresponding rise in prices. True, this could not happen overnight. The economy in the Middle Ages reacted much more slowly to changes in the monetary economy than it does today. The king was thus able, by issuing falsified and overvalued coins in comparison with their real value, to quickly free himself from a third of his debts. Barons and townspeople fared much worse. They got only a third of the rent they expected to receive from the loans granted to the king.
To prevent unrest, the king already in 1295 instructed his officials to explain to the people the monetary policy pursued as a kind of war loan: as soon as the state of war ceases, the coin, which has deteriorated and overestimated compared to its real value, will be fully exchanged for new money.
Philip fulfilled this promise in his own way. Until 1306, he took the coins out of circulation five times in order to replace them with new, improved ones, and restore their former condition. The edicts, according to which all full-weight coins that were in circulation in the country and outside it, as well as products of gold and silver, were to be exchanged for bad royal coins, supplemented these measures of the crown, which, in addition, appropriated the income from war booty.
The scale of fraud with silver coins can be seen from the following data. Under Saint Louis (1226), coins were minted from a certain weight of silver, the value of which was more than three times lower than the declared record value of coins minted in April 1305 from the same weight of silver.
The income of the royal treasury from monetary fraud in 1296 was indicated by a modest figure of 101,435 nl. Just two years later, between June 24, 1298 and June 24, 1299, it already amounted to 1.2 million nl. The idea that in such a situation it would be necessary to raise the money income of their subjects was absolutely alien to Philip and his advisers. On the contrary, in their view, each soldier for the previous salary should have been three times as diligent, and this could not go on for a long time.
In 1297, Philip's troops marched against Flanders. The northern county, thanks to the industriousness of its people, was considered the richest of the vassal possessions of the French king. And not only the ruler of Flanders, Guy de Dampierre, but also the rich cities of Ghent, Bruges, Lille, which supplied the whole of Europe with their canvas, considered themselves completely independent. Philip had other plans. The attacks on Aquitaine (1294) were primarily intended to force England, a traditional ally of Flanders, to abandon the defense of the county. And the English king Edward I, whose hands were tied by internal affairs, the suppression of the Scottish rebels, gave Philip this pleasure. In 1300, Flanders was "pacified", its peace and order were to be ensured by the French occupying troops.
The looting of the poorly paid French occupiers and the taxes that Philip imposed on the cities led to a general uprising in May 1302. Philip sent 7,000 horsemen and 20,000 infantry to suppress it. In the bloody Battle of Kortrijk, the French troops were utterly defeated. This is the most crushing defeat of Philip for all the time of his reign.
The Parisian court experienced depression and disappointment these days. A search is underway for the reasons for what happened, and they carefully try to make it clear to the unfitting king that the outcome of the battle may have been influenced by the low salary of well-armed soldiers. Philip does not accept any explanation: the defeat of the rebellious mob cannot be excused by anything. In addition, he has no money: "Tax collectors deceive us at every turn, they collect much more than they hand over to the treasury."
This is the first and only time that the king accuses those in his service of uncleanliness. He knows that his accusations are based on nothing. Treasury revenues from taxes and manipulation of the mint, for the most part, do not go to pay the troops at all. Huge sums are spent on the expansion of the royal palace, palace festivities, generous gifts to foreign rulers to ensure non-interference in the military enterprises of the king.
The minting of counterfeit coins, or, better, the manipulation of coins, is the second major sin of Philip the Handsome, of which history accuses him. The third sin of the Capetian king will never be forgiven in Rome.
In 1296, Philip demands that the French church double its tithe contribution to the treasury to maintain the protection of the kingdom. Until now, Philip has never denied the church "reciprocal gifts", primarily in the form of expanding its land holdings, given that church tithes in difficult years amounted to a quarter to a third of all state revenues. However, this time the church demands greater privileges from France. Unexpectedly, even before the start of negotiations, the Roman holy father Pope Boniface VIII intervenes in this matter, forbidding in his bull any indemnities from the church in favor of worldly rulers.
The Holy See in those days was by no means an all-Christian institution. For centuries, he fought with the royal houses for power even in this world. His sure weapon so far has been the refusal of a blessing, the threat or actual excommunication. This meant that the "excommunicated" was outside of any worldly and spiritual laws. The power of the papal curse was experienced by Henry IV (1056-1106) and Frederick II (1212-1250).
Boniface VIII, the 199th pope in the history of the church, a power-hungry and irascible man, was elected pope in 1294. This year he turned 76 years old, the age at that time downright biblical.
Philip IV responded to the papal bull by banning any export of gold and precious metals from France. After an exchange of letters in which each side defended its point of view, the pope finally relented and declared that his bull did not apply to France. And then something happened that temporarily suspended the constant, sometimes smoldering, sometimes flaring up like a volcano, the struggle of the sacred throne for worldly power.
Bishop of Parma.
Bernard Sesse, Bishop of Parma, a faithful supporter of the pope, repeatedly spoke out against the despotism and autocracy of Philip, thereby winning applause not only in Rome. He spoke of Philip's coins as follows: “This money is cheaper than mud. They are impure and false; unrighteous and dishonest acts the one by whose will they are minted. In all the Roman curia I do not know anyone who would give even a handful of dirt for this money.
These speeches evoked a lively response from his flock. But they reacted in their own way in the palace. Philip did not tolerate any opponents, he only waited for a convenient excuse to silence his opponent. Sesse soon gave the king such an opportunity himself, when he compared the king, invested with the rank of God's viceroy in France, with an owl, “the most beautiful of birds, which is good for nothing ... Such is our king, the most beautiful man in the world, who, however, , can do nothing but see the surroundings. It was an open insult to royal majesty, treason. At the end of October 1301, Bernard Sesse was taken into custody and brought to trial. It was a kind of process. There was no shortage of witnesses confirming the seditious statements of the accused. He was even deprived of a protector. Yet Sesse was the Pope's messenger. In any case, the decision of the court was very lenient. There were also such witnesses who urged not to take everything seriously. The bishop is an elderly man with a bad temper who, after taking a sip from a bottle, sometimes blurts out too much. Others, not without irony, said that he was simple "to the point of holiness." The verdict took into account "extenuating circumstances". Philip actually limited himself to depriving Sesse of the episcopal dignity and property worth 40,000 nl, which "with the consent" of Sesse was transferred to one of the monasteries. Sesse never saw his money again, although seven years later he was returned to the episcopal rank.
The Chronicle reports that Philip was not pleased with the process, and with good reason. He needed a church tithe.
The reaction of the Holy See was not long in coming. Already on December 5, 1301 (the verdict dated from the end of November), the papal ambassadors brought Boniface's bull (this message, under the eloquent title "Listen, son" was prepared even before the start of the trial against Sesse), in which he called himself the supreme judge. Boniface notified the "king of the French" about the elimination of all privileges that the French court had in relations with the holy church. The most painful for Philip was the annulment of the right negotiated in 1297 from Rome to tax the French church with a decimal tax without the consent of the pope. Philip was also irritated by the attacks on his policies contained in a very voluminous bull. It was also about his export bans, about the choice of royal advisers, about royal decrees, about financial policy and manipulation of coins. Boniface, however, refrained from directly calling Philip IV a counterfeiter.
In later sources devoted to this historical martial art, it is invariably reported that Philip in February 1302 ordered the burning of the papal bull in public. However, there is no conclusive evidence, and it is generally unlikely. Philip instructed his first minister, Pierre Flot, to sort out this matter, who informed only a narrow circle of advisers about the content of the bull. It remained unknown primarily to the most faithful associates of the pope from the royal entourage. Instead of a detailed notice, Floté summed up the Roman reproaches in one sentence: "Know that you are our subject in both temporal and spiritual matters." Boniface did not write like this, but it followed from the content of his epistle. And it was by this phrase that the papal bull was to be judged at the meeting of the Estates General on April 10, 1302.
This April day is a very curious date in French history. For the first time, representatives of not only the nobility and clergy, but also the third estate in the person of the townspeople were invited. This move ensured the king was in trouble, and the Fleet, in gratitude, was granted the title of keeper of the great royal seal.
The old man, seated on the Holy Throne, when he learned of the decision taken at the meeting of the three estates in Paris, was beside himself. He convenes a church council, to which only half of the French bishops arrive (39 out of 79), and curses the Navy, "whom God has already punished with partial physical blindness and complete spiritual blindness." The fleet is called the second Ahitophel, it is also said that he will share the fate of the latter. The pope's prediction was soon confirmed: Pierre Floté was killed on July 11 of the same year at the Battle of Kortrijk. What impression his death made on the French bishops, we do not know.
Fleet's successor was the same energetic and even more scrupulous in carrying out the will of the king, Guillaume Nogaret, who was soon granted the nobility by the king. Maurice Druon, in his book The Curse of Fire, characterizes this lean, dark-haired man with restless eyes as a merciless and "inevitable as a scythe of death" servant of the king, who looked like a devil and was devilishly persistent in carrying out his master's policy.
On November 18, 1302, a new bull of Boniface follows, in which he develops the postulate that any being between heaven and earth is subject to the Holy See: “We declare, proclaim and determine that every person is necessarily a subject of the Roman pontificate, if he immortality of his soul.
In addressing this message, Boniface overestimated his strength, although it is sustained in a much more peaceful tone compared to the previous bull. Philip had influential allies in Italy as well. First of all, these are representatives of the family of the Counts of Colonna, whose property was sequestered by Boniface in favor of members of his family, greedy for power and wealth. In turn, Guillaume Nogaret knew from Colonne about the accusations made against Boniface during the period of the unusual abdication of the throne by his predecessor Celestine V. The content of the accusations boiled down to the fact that Boniface was allegedly subject to heresy, sexual perversion and other sins. Hardly anything from this list corresponded to reality. However, Philip's lawyers were subtly experienced in scholastic and chicanery battles, and Boniface's phrase, which he really could utter in vehemence: "I'd rather be a dog than a Frenchman," turned against him: "A dog has no soul, but the very last Frenchman she is. In other words, Boniface does not believe in the immortality of the soul. He is a heretic."
On June 13, 1303, at a meeting of representatives of the nobility and clergy in the Louvre, many similar finds were announced, which gave rise to a proposal to convene a church council at which Boniface's heresy was to be discussed. The question of where and when to convene a council remained open.
Boniface, meanwhile, writes another bull, which is delivered to Paris on September 8 and is read out. The content of the bull is as follows: Philip of France is excommunicated because he forbade the French prelates to go to Rome, gave refuge to the apostate Stefano Colonna and lost the confidence of his subjects.
On the same day, the king speaks confidentially with the keeper of his seal: “Nogare, no one should know about this message. We do not limit you in anything, but the pope must appear before the church cathedral. Guillaume Nogaret did not need many words, and the handshake with which the king honored him meant that the fate of the king was now in his hands. Nogare wastes no time, he chooses the most reliable and most courageous knights and together with them goes to Anagni, the personal possession of the pope. There, with the support of the Colonna family, he actually captures the 86-year-old dad. Apparently, Boniface was subjected to very ill-treatment. In any case, four weeks after the people of Anagni release him, he dies in the Vatican. But the fading strength of Boniface is enough to excommunicate Guillaume de Nogaret from the church.
Dante finds bitter words to describe the attack at Anagni, qualifying it as a murder, although Boniface does not arouse much sympathy from him.
In the struggle for power with Rome, the winner is Philip IV. But at what cost? In the years 1301-1303, his treasury does not receive church tithes, and this is a loss of almost 800,000 nl. Benedict XI, the newly elected pope, is peacefully disposed and is ready to agree to the collection of church tithes by the French king, provided that Philip takes an oath in holy scripture that he was not involved in the attempt at Anagni. Philip swears, but it is a false oath.
The 200th pope, Benedict XI, was destined to remain on the Holy Throne for only a year. His successor was Philip's protégé, Archbishop of Bordeaux Bertrand de Gault, who was elected pope in 1305 thanks to the efforts of the French crown and took the name of Clement V. Four years later, he moved his residence to Avignon, where the popes spent in the so-called "Babylonian exile" [similar to captivity in Babylon of the people of Israel by Nebuchadnezzar (597-538 BC)] until 1377.
December 23, 1305 Clement V releases Philip from Boniface's curse and grants him remission of sins associated with numerous extortion of church money and manipulation of coins. He extols, by the grace of God, the King of France as "the brightest star among all the Catholic Monarchs." Philip, who is by no means deaf to flattery, responds by declaring himself the protector of those bishops and abbeys against whom Clement V was too cruel, but he himself begins to collect taxes and forced loans from them. The king easily distributes reciprocal gifts - letters of granting privileges and freedoms - and just as easily forgets about them. His lawyers have to take care of loopholes, and they know their stuff.
The third sin, attacking the Holy See, is immediately followed by the fourth.
By edition:
Vermusch, Günther "Scams with counterfeit money. From the history of counterfeiting banknotes"
Per. with him. – M.: Intern. relations, 1990 - 224 p.
The position of Rome in this confrontation is very curious from a historical point of view. The Pope rather weakly insisted on the accusation (given the severity of the offenses from the point of view of Catholic dogma), many Templars shied away from responsibility in the provinces where the Pope or the Italian nobility had great influence. Researchers of the issue quite reasonably believe that the Italian nobility owed huge sums to the Templars, it is possible that the Pope himself was their borrower.
6. Financial activity
The main nerve of all Philip's activities was the constant desire to fill the empty royal treasury. For this, the States General and separately city representatives were convened several times; for the same purpose, various positions were sold and leased, violent loans were made from cities, goods were subject to high taxes (for example, Gabel was introduced in 1286, which existed until 1790), and estates, low-grade coins were minted, and the population, especially non-commercial suffered heavy losses.
In 1306, Philip was even forced to flee Paris for a while, until the popular fury had passed over the consequences of the ordinance he issued in 1304 on the maximum price.
The administration was highly centralized; this was especially felt in the provinces, where feudal traditions were still strong. The rights of feudal lords were significantly limited (for example, in the matter of minting coins). The king was not loved not so much for his nature, ready for any crime, but for his too greedy fiscal policy.
The extremely active foreign policy of Philip regarding England, Germany, Savoy and all the border possessions, which sometimes led to the rounding of the French possessions, was the only side of the king's rule that both his contemporaries and the next generations liked.
The posthumous gravestone of Philip IV the Handsome.
Philip IV the Handsome died on November 29, 1314, at the age of 47, at his birthplace - Fontainebleau, probably the cause of his death was a massive stroke. Many associated his death with the curse of the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Jacques de Molay, who, before his execution on March 18, 1314 in Paris, predicted the death of the king, his adviser Guillaume de Nogaret and Pope Clement V in less than a year - all three really died in the same year. He was buried in the Basilica of the Abbey of Saint-Denis near Paris. He was succeeded by his son Louis X the Grumpy
8. Family and children
He was married from August 16, 1284 to Jeanne I (January 11, 1272-April 4, 1305), Queen of Navarre, and Countess of Champagne from 1274. This marriage made it possible to annex Champagne to the royal domain, and also led to the first unification of France and Navarre within the personal unions (until 1328).
In this marriage were born:
· Blanca (1290-1294)
· Isabel(1292-August 27, 1358), wife from January 25, 1308 of the English King Edward II and mother of Edward III. From Isabella come the Plantagenet claims to the French crown, which served as a pretext for the beginning of the Hundred Years War.
There is no information about the personal life of the king after the death of his wife, as well as about the presence of children from other women.
Literature
· Boutaric, La France sous Philippe le Bel, P. 1861
· Jolly, Philippe le Bel, P., 1869
B. Zeller, Philippe le Bel et ses trois fils, P., 1885
Maurice Druon "Iron King". The first book in the Cursed Kings series (Iron King. The Prisoner of Chateau Gaillard. Translated from French. M., 1981)
When writing this article, material from the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron (1890-1907) was used.
The royal power in France was especially strengthened under Philip IV the Handsome (1285-1314). Having married favorably, he took possession of the Champagne region and the kingdom of Navarre beyond the Pyrenees, and then subjugated rich Flanders to himself. However, the cities of Flanders soon rebelled and completely defeated in the so-called "Battle of the Spurs"(1302) Choice French knighthood.
Philip IV the Handsome was indeed a handsome man - stately, pale-faced, fair-haired. He did not tolerate rudeness, respectfully treated the ladies, seemed meek and modest, almost quiet. But at the same time he could be decisive, strict, even cruel. He knew how to hide his real mood, but even more so - to select smart and reliable assistants for himself. Was fond of hunting.
Philip IV the Handsome was constantly short of money. He borrowed them from foreign bankers, even became counterfeiter . But the king pinned his greatest hopes on the collection of taxes from the population, ordered that the clergy also pay the tax.
In order for the people to come to terms with new taxes, Philip IV the Handsome in 1302 convened Estates General- an obedient deliberative body under the king, which existed in France until 1789. The States General included representatives of the clergy, nobility and townspeople. With the advent of the Estates General in France, the estate monarchy was strengthened.
The very idea that the church in France had to pay taxes unnerved the pope. The pope and the French king quarreled. But the king nevertheless won, and he made the popes dependent on the French crown for a long time, even forced them to move to Avignon, on the territory of France.
The victory over the Catholic Church unleashed Philip IV's hands. He took on his main creditors - the Templars, who owed a lot of money. The king was worried not so much about the debt itself (he knew how not to return debts), but about the power of the order, which was subordinate not to the monarch, but to the pope. The Templars owned lands in France, England, Flanders, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Austria, Germany, Hungary and the East. In France, their mighty fortresses propped up the sky. The Templars were actively engaged in usury, it was they who invented - bill of exchange . Therefore, it is not surprising that they had enough money to lend it even to kings. They behaved arrogantly and did not arouse sympathy from anyone.
In 1307, the French king, having requested the consent of Pope Clement V, carried out a brilliant police action - he arrested and imprisoned many members of this order, including its Grand Master, Jacques de Molay. The king was impatient to take possession of the treasures of the Templars, but they fell through the ground. material from the site
The king and the pope held a trial for the Templars. Obedient judges accused them of all mortal sins, in particular, that they supposedly defiled the cross and did not honor Jesus Christ. This trial ended with the fact that fifty Templars were burned alive in Paris. There is a legend that Jacques de Molay, before his death, cursed Philip IV and Clement V and predicted their imminent death. This gloomy prediction came true - both the king and the pope soon left this world under very mysterious circumstances. Historians believe that they could have been poisoned to avenge the dead Templars - "lesser sinners than their judges."
The death in 1314 of Philip IV the Handsome, who was nicknamed the "Iron King", opened a new, gloomy page in French history.
"Battle of the Spurs" - the battle got its name because the victors removed 4000 gilded spurs from the dead French knights and hung them in the cathedral as a sign of their victory.
Counterfeiter - one who, for personal gain, mints a fake, defective coin.
bill of exchange - a document according to which money deposited in one bank can be received in another.
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