Étienne Marcel
Encyclopedia
Etienne Marcel was provost
of the merchant
s of Paris under King John II
, called John the Good (Jean le Bon).
Etienne Marcel was born into the wealthy Parisian bourgeoisie
, being the son of the clothier Simon Marcel and his wife Isabelle Barbou. Etienne is mentioned as provost of the Grande-Confrérie of Notre Dame in 1350, and in 1354 he succeeded Jean de Pacy as provost of the Parisian merchants representing the mercantile leaders of the Third Estate.
His political career began in 1356, when King John was made prisoner after the battle of Poitiers
. In conjunction with Robert le Coq
, bishop of Laon, Etienne played a leading part in the Estates General
called together by the dauphin Charles
on 17 October. A committee of eighty members, formed by the two, pressed their demands with such insistence that the dauphin dismissed the states-general; but financial straits obliged him to summon them once more on 3 February 1357, with the consequence being, the promulgation of a great edict of reform
. John the Good forbade its being put into effect, whereupon a conflict began between Marcel and the dauphin, Marcel endeavoring to set up Charles the Bad
, king of Navarre, in opposition to John. The states general assembled again on 13 January 1358, and on 22 February the populace of Paris, led by Marcel, invaded the palace and murdered the marshal
s of Champagne
Jean de Conflans and Normandy
Robert de Clermont, before the prince's eyes. However, the murder of the nobles undermined Marcel's further support from the aristocracy.
Thenceforward Marcel was now in open hostility to the throne. After vainly hoping that the insurrection of the Jacquerie
might turn to his advantage, he next supported the king of Navarre, whose armed bands infested the neighborhood of Paris. On the night of 31 July Marcel was about to open the gates of the capital to them, but Jean Maillart prevented the execution of this design. Etienne was killed by the guards at the Porte Saint-Antoine
. During the following days his adherents were likewise put to death, and the dauphin was enabled to re-enter Paris.
Etienne Marcel married first Jeanne de Dammartin, and secondly Marguerite des Essars, who survived him.
The assemblies proved incapable of resolving the crisis in the kingdom. The Dauphin, Charles, was able to take power and save the crown from the Valois line. Étienne Marcel was assassinated by Parisian bourgeois who believed he had gone too far in opposing the king, and who thought he might hand over the city to the English.
in Flanders, came from the urban upper class, close to the powerful. He distinguished himself in the defense of the small craftsmen and guild
smen who made up most of the city population. However, the two men were only the best known of the actors in a profound reform movement that emerged from the crisis of the feudal system. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the nobility and clergy no longer fulfilled the role that they originally had been given in a society with three orders. The economic and cultural changes led to a growing division within the Third Estate
of the bourgeoisie
, who began to take an important place at all levels of society. The discontent inherent in the crisis, and the example of Flemish
, Italian, and Hanseatic
cities, showed that towns could even lead society, and that new economic imperatives now existed, more centered on trade and less on land and property.
, had been well adapted for a decentralized, agricultural society. The nobility protected the land and rendered justice. The religious order
s were the spiritual guides of the community. They took care of social welfare and contributed to upholding and developing culture. As for the peasants, their work provided for the others.
Starting toward the end of the thirteenth century, the balance between the three orders began to shift. The development of the cities required the creation of a centralized state dealing with justice, unifying money, and able to protect the country against possible attack by kingdoms who could raise large armies. Such a structure needed to be paid for, and the state needed even more money because the feudal system supported itself by the redistribution of wealth toward vassals. The great trade families possessed abundant resources and lent them to princes and clergymen. Thus they became irreplaceable parts of the system.
The Capet
rulers, wanting to limit the power of the great feudal lords
, and lacking administrators, delegated more and more political, judicial and financial power to the bourgeois, creating veritable free zones at the great commercial crossroads. The increasing amount of business to be managed had made it impossible for the king and high nobility to deal with everything. A part of their judicial power was now delegated to parlements and other courts of justice. At the time, rather than maintain a costly government, the rulers had picked up the habit of having taxes collected by rich individuals, who would give them the wished-for amount, reimbursing themselves by taxing the people on their own account, which assured them a comfortable income. In England, the reverses of King John
against Philip Augustus had led the English barons to impose the Magna Carta
on him in 1215. It instituted, among other provisions, freedom for the cities and Parliamentary
control of finances.
In France, Philip the Fair set up the Estates General
, where the nobility, the clergy, and the cities were represented, in order to have a legitimate authority to raise taxes, including upon the lands of the Church. The Estates General were also meant to unite the budding nation to form a bloc against the pope, who could not accept such taxes and who proclaimed the primacy of the spiritual over the temporal (in the papal bull
Unam Sanctam
of 1302, Pope Boniface VIII
demands the establishment of a theocracy
).
Also, for the needs of commerce, as well as for its own social ascension, the urban upper class took charge of a part of the culture, creating lay schools, becoming patrons of the arts, and financing charities. Most technical innovations were the work of laymen—engineers, architects (like Villard de Honnecourt
), artisans (like Jacopo and Giovanni di Dondi, who conceived the idea of the mechanical escapement
clock)... The clergy lost part of its cultural and social role in the cities.
Many bourgeois tried to become aristocrats in order to attain the political role due to them for their growing importance in society. For example, Robert de Lorris, a counselor close to John the Good, made use of his protection and of judicious marriage alliances to help his allies. The high bourgeoisie adopted behavior like that of the nobility. The provost's office, for example, organized a tournament
in 1330 where bourgeois fought like knights. Those like Étienne Marcel, who did not belong to the very small circle of powerful men around John the Good, and whose social rise was therefore blocked, became the most fervent proponents of a political reform that would lead to the control of the monarchy by the Estates.
, were overpopulated and tried to reclaim land
from the sea. They became more centered on trade in order to be able to import food. In England, in 1279, 46% of the peasants had a farm of less than 5 hectares. The minimum for supporting a family of five people was 4 to 5 hectares. The rural population became poorer and poorer, the price of crops dropped, and the income of the nobility also diminished while they were expected to pay more. Tensions arose between the nobility and the peasants. Many peasants went to the cities at certain times of year, working for very low salaries, which created tension in the towns as well. The evolution of the economy toward specialization; global cooling
, which caused bad harvests; and population pressure combined to create famine
s, which had not been seen since the 12th century, in northern Europe in 1314, 1315, and 1316. In 1316 alone the town of Bruges
lost 5% and Ypres
10% of its population.
The nobility needed to make up for the loss of its income, and war was an excellent way to do so, through ransoming enemy captives, pillage of enemy goods, and raising taxes justified by the war. There was therefore a push towards war by the nobles, particularly in England where their income was most affected. In France, King Philip VI
(known as the Fortunate) needed to refill his treasury, and a war would allow a king to levy special taxes.
The growth in trade had made some regions dependent on other kingdoms. At this period, freight was carried mainly by water. The regions of Champagne
and Burgundy
supplied Paris via the Seine
and its tributaries, and were therefore pro-French. Normandy
was divided, because it was where the Seine and the English Channel
areas met. This had become a zone of intense activity because of the progress in shipping (Italian ships now often went around the Iberian peninsula
). The southern area of Aquitaine
, which exported wine to England, Brittany
, which exported salt
, and the County of Flanders, which imported British wool
, were all inclined toward the English sphere of influence.
Because of this, Flemish merchants, wishing to escape from French pressure to pay taxes, revolted repeatedly against the king of France. This led to the battles of Courtrai, called the Battle of the Golden Spurs
, in 1302 (where the knights of France were swept from the field, and the Flemish burgher
s showed that towns could defeat the king's feudal armies), of Mons-en-Pévèle
in 1304, and of Cassel
in 1328 (where Philip VI subdued the Flemish rebels). The Flemish supported the king of England, even declaring in 1340 that Edward III
was the legitimate king of France.
The two countries, therefore, were both trying to add to their territory to increase their wealth. The intrigues of the two kings as they tried to control Gascony
, Brittany, and the County of Flanders rapidly led to war. This war lasted 116 years. Of course, the consequences of this endless conflict were serious for trade, especially since it included an increase in taxes.
in 1346. Through a series of legal artifices, Philip VI took the throne of France, which Edward III of England also claimed as the grandson of Philip the Fair through his mother.
In the same way, Charles II of Navarre
(called "the Bad") also claimed the throne. His mother Joan
, only child of Louis X
"the Quarrelsome" (le Hutin), had been set aside during the dynastic crisis of 1316–1328 so that no foreigner could take control of the kingdom through marrying her. The maneuvers of the King of Navarre
, who tried to play off the French-English rivalry and to influence the Duke of Normandy
, led Jean le Bon to intervene in brutal fashion. On 5 April 1356, he had Charles seized in Rouen
and thrown in prison. In this era, nobility was supposed to show its quality through chivalrous
behavior on the battlefield. But Crecy had been a disaster even though the English army had far fewer soldiers, and Philip VI had fled from the fight, causing the divine right
of his house of Valois to be questioned. This disgrace was aggravated by the appearance of the Black Death
in 1348, which corroborated the idea that the dynasty was not favored by God. Edward III and Charles of Navarre saw the chance to further their claims to the throne of France. They took advantage of the opportunity to attract the cities, letting them believe that they would establish a limited monarchy.
Also, the country was reluctant to pay the taxes necessary for the government to function. Since Philip the Fair, the rulers of France had used monetary alteration (mutations monétaires) to devalue the coin of the realm, causing high inflation. The king and the state were the only beneficiaries. The nobility, clergy, and the upper bourgeoisie who owned financial property all saw the value of their incomes and rents melt away. The devaluation
s weighed on the exchanges, penalizing trade (especially since Paris was an enormous consumer center and had to import its more and more expensive merchandise, especially cloth from Flanders) and hurting the purchase power of the entire population. The rich wanted a strong currency, the poor a weak one, but everyone needed a stable currency. The catastrophic beginning of the war for France had been very expensive. There were ransoms to pay, an army to finance, cities to fortify. Trade was trammeled by the freelance companies of mercenary troops that roamed the country after 1356. The cities had no reason to want war. The ravages of the Black Death caused new disturbances. The labor shortage could lead to a rise in pay, and in higher costs for crops. John the Good reacted with an Order for the Professions of the City of Paris (Ordonnance sur les métiers de la ville de Paris) of 1351. In this he arbitrarily froze prices and salaries, and allowed workers to freely set up shop in the city (to stop them from joining the bands of vagabonds and looters that were ravaging France). This broke the system of guilds which had protected craftsmen already living in the cities. These measures caused general resentment against the house of Valois, which had not well explained its reasons. In the cities, the feeling arose that the Estates General would rule the kingdom better. Charles de Navarre, with his aura of royalty, was a brilliant speaker and presented himself as the champion of the reformers.
As the capital of France, Paris was the seat of a large part of the nobility and of the government. Their luxurious way of life created jobs for many artisans and artists. Paris was also an important university city. The basin of the Seine was an important trading center for crops, coming from the protected Champagne Fairs
, from the rich region of Normandy and the Atlantic, and from the cloth-producing regions of the north (Flanders, Artois
, and Brabant
).
In the fourteenth century, the fortress compound of Charles V
included all of what is now the third and fourth arrondissement
s of Paris, going as far as the Pont Royal
and the Porte Saint-Denis
.
Provost (civil)
A provost is the ceremonial head of many Scottish local authorities, and under the name prévôt was a governmental position of varying importance in Ancien Regime France.-History:...
of the merchant
Merchant
A merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...
s of Paris under King John II
John II of France
John II , called John the Good , was the King of France from 1350 until his death. He was the second sovereign of the House of Valois and is perhaps best remembered as the king who was vanquished at the Battle of Poitiers and taken as a captive to England.The son of Philip VI and Joan the Lame,...
, called John the Good (Jean le Bon).
Etienne Marcel was born into the wealthy Parisian bourgeoisie
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
, being the son of the clothier Simon Marcel and his wife Isabelle Barbou. Etienne is mentioned as provost of the Grande-Confrérie of Notre Dame in 1350, and in 1354 he succeeded Jean de Pacy as provost of the Parisian merchants representing the mercantile leaders of the Third Estate.
His political career began in 1356, when King John was made prisoner after the battle of Poitiers
Battle of Poitiers (1356)
The Battle of Poitiers was fought between the Kingdoms of England and France on 19 September 1356 near Poitiers, resulting in the second of the three great English victories of the Hundred Years' War: Crécy, Poitiers, and Agincourt....
. In conjunction with Robert le Coq
Robert le Coq
Robert le Coq was a French bishop and councillor.Le Coq belonged to a bourgeois family of Orléans, where he first attended school before coming to Paris. In Paris he became advocate to the parlement ; then John II appointed him master of requests, and in 1351, a year during which he received many...
, bishop of Laon, Etienne played a leading part in the Estates General
French States-General
In France under the Old Regime, the States-General or Estates-General , was a legislative assembly of the different classes of French subjects. It had a separate assembly for each of the three estates, which were called and dismissed by the king...
called together by the dauphin Charles
Charles V of France
Charles V , called the Wise, was King of France from 1364 to his death in 1380 and a member of the House of Valois...
on 17 October. A committee of eighty members, formed by the two, pressed their demands with such insistence that the dauphin dismissed the states-general; but financial straits obliged him to summon them once more on 3 February 1357, with the consequence being, the promulgation of a great edict of reform
Great Ordinance of 1357
The Great Ordinance of 1357 was an edict through which Étienne Marcel attempted to impose limits on the French monarchy, in particular in fiscal and monetary matters.-Historical context:...
. John the Good forbade its being put into effect, whereupon a conflict began between Marcel and the dauphin, Marcel endeavoring to set up Charles the Bad
Charles II of Navarre
Charles II , called "Charles the Bad", was King of Navarre 1349-1387 and Count of Évreux 1343-1387....
, king of Navarre, in opposition to John. The states general assembled again on 13 January 1358, and on 22 February the populace of Paris, led by Marcel, invaded the palace and murdered the marshal
Marshal of France
The Marshal of France is a military distinction in contemporary France, not a military rank. It is granted to generals for exceptional achievements...
s of Champagne
Champagne (province)
The Champagne wine region is a historic province within the Champagne administrative province in the northeast of France. The area is best known for the production of the sparkling white wine that bears the region's name...
Jean de Conflans and Normandy
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
Robert de Clermont, before the prince's eyes. However, the murder of the nobles undermined Marcel's further support from the aristocracy.
Thenceforward Marcel was now in open hostility to the throne. After vainly hoping that the insurrection of the Jacquerie
Jacquerie
The Jacquerie was a popular revolt in late medieval Europe by peasants that took place in northern France in the summer of 1358, during the Hundred Years' War. The revolt, which was violently suppressed after a few weeks of violence, centered in the Oise valley north of Paris...
might turn to his advantage, he next supported the king of Navarre, whose armed bands infested the neighborhood of Paris. On the night of 31 July Marcel was about to open the gates of the capital to them, but Jean Maillart prevented the execution of this design. Etienne was killed by the guards at the Porte Saint-Antoine
Porte Saint-Antoine
The porte Saint-Antoine was one of the gates of Paris. There were two gates named the porte Saint-Antoine, both now demolished, of which the best known was that guarded by the Bastille, on the site now occupied by the start of rue de la Bastille in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris.- The Faubourg...
. During the following days his adherents were likewise put to death, and the dauphin was enabled to re-enter Paris.
Etienne Marcel married first Jeanne de Dammartin, and secondly Marguerite des Essars, who survived him.
Life
Etienne, born between 1302 and 1310, died in Paris 31 July 1358, was provost of the merchants of Paris in the reign of Jean le Bon. In 1357 he found himself at the head of a reform movement that tried to institute a controlled French monarchy, confronting the royal power of the Dauphin or heir to the throne. As a delegate of the Third Estate, he played an important role in the general assemblies held during the Hundred Years War. The assembly of 1355 aimed at controlling the kingdom's finances; that of 1356 asked for the imposition of new taxes; that of 1357 had to deal with paying ransom for King Jean.The assemblies proved incapable of resolving the crisis in the kingdom. The Dauphin, Charles, was able to take power and save the crown from the Valois line. Étienne Marcel was assassinated by Parisian bourgeois who believed he had gone too far in opposing the king, and who thought he might hand over the city to the English.
Context: Feudal society in crisis
Étienne Marcel, like Jacob van ArteveldeJacob van Artevelde
Jacob van Artevelde , also known as the Wise Man and the Brewer of Ghent, was a Flemish statesman and political leader....
in Flanders, came from the urban upper class, close to the powerful. He distinguished himself in the defense of the small craftsmen and guild
Guild
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...
smen who made up most of the city population. However, the two men were only the best known of the actors in a profound reform movement that emerged from the crisis of the feudal system. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the nobility and clergy no longer fulfilled the role that they originally had been given in a society with three orders. The economic and cultural changes led to a growing division within the Third Estate
Estates of the realm
The Estates of the realm were the broad social orders of the hierarchically conceived society, recognized in the Middle Ages and Early Modern period in Christian Europe; they are sometimes distinguished as the three estates: the clergy, the nobility, and commoners, and are often referred to by...
of the bourgeoisie
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
, who began to take an important place at all levels of society. The discontent inherent in the crisis, and the example of Flemish
Flemish people
The Flemings or Flemish are the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Belgium, where they are mostly found in the northern region of Flanders. They are one of two principal cultural-linguistic groups in Belgium, the other being the French-speaking Walloons...
, Italian, and Hanseatic
Hanseatic League
The Hanseatic League was an economic alliance of trading cities and their merchant guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe...
cities, showed that towns could even lead society, and that new economic imperatives now existed, more centered on trade and less on land and property.
Rise in power of the bourgeoisie
Since the tenth-century renaissance when it was constructed, medieval society had evolved considerably. Europe had progressed in technology, in art, and in population. The towns had grown around craftsmen and tradesmen, creating new social classes. The religious and feudal system of three orders, begun at the time of the movement of the Peace of GodPeace and Truce of God
The Peace and Truce of God was a medieval European movement of the Catholic Church that applied spiritual sanctions in order to limit the violence of private war in feudal society. The movement constituted the first organized attempt to control civil society in medieval Europe through non-violent...
, had been well adapted for a decentralized, agricultural society. The nobility protected the land and rendered justice. The religious order
Religious order
A religious order is a lineage of communities and organizations of people who live in some way set apart from society in accordance with their specific religious devotion, usually characterized by the principles of its founder's religious practice. The order is composed of initiates and, in some...
s were the spiritual guides of the community. They took care of social welfare and contributed to upholding and developing culture. As for the peasants, their work provided for the others.
Starting toward the end of the thirteenth century, the balance between the three orders began to shift. The development of the cities required the creation of a centralized state dealing with justice, unifying money, and able to protect the country against possible attack by kingdoms who could raise large armies. Such a structure needed to be paid for, and the state needed even more money because the feudal system supported itself by the redistribution of wealth toward vassals. The great trade families possessed abundant resources and lent them to princes and clergymen. Thus they became irreplaceable parts of the system.
The Capet
House of Capet
The House of Capet, or The Direct Capetian Dynasty, , also called The House of France , or simply the Capets, which ruled the Kingdom of France from 987 to 1328, was the most senior line of the Capetian dynasty – itself a derivative dynasty from the Robertians. As rulers of France, the dynasty...
rulers, wanting to limit the power of the great feudal lords
Feudalism
Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...
, and lacking administrators, delegated more and more political, judicial and financial power to the bourgeois, creating veritable free zones at the great commercial crossroads. The increasing amount of business to be managed had made it impossible for the king and high nobility to deal with everything. A part of their judicial power was now delegated to parlements and other courts of justice. At the time, rather than maintain a costly government, the rulers had picked up the habit of having taxes collected by rich individuals, who would give them the wished-for amount, reimbursing themselves by taxing the people on their own account, which assured them a comfortable income. In England, the reverses of King John
John of England
John , also known as John Lackland , was King of England from 6 April 1199 until his death...
against Philip Augustus had led the English barons to impose the Magna Carta
Magna Carta
Magna Carta is an English charter, originally issued in the year 1215 and reissued later in the 13th century in modified versions, which included the most direct challenges to the monarch's authority to date. The charter first passed into law in 1225...
on him in 1215. It instituted, among other provisions, freedom for the cities and Parliamentary
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
control of finances.
In France, Philip the Fair set up the Estates General
French States-General
In France under the Old Regime, the States-General or Estates-General , was a legislative assembly of the different classes of French subjects. It had a separate assembly for each of the three estates, which were called and dismissed by the king...
, where the nobility, the clergy, and the cities were represented, in order to have a legitimate authority to raise taxes, including upon the lands of the Church. The Estates General were also meant to unite the budding nation to form a bloc against the pope, who could not accept such taxes and who proclaimed the primacy of the spiritual over the temporal (in the papal bull
Papal bull
A Papal bull is a particular type of letters patent or charter issued by a Pope of the Catholic Church. It is named after the bulla that was appended to the end in order to authenticate it....
Unam Sanctam
Unam sanctam
On 18 November 1302, Pope Boniface VIII issued the Papal bull Unam sanctam which historians consider one of the most extreme statements of Papal spiritual supremacy ever made...
of 1302, Pope Boniface VIII
Pope Boniface VIII
Pope Boniface VIII , born Benedetto Gaetani, was Pope of the Catholic Church from 1294 to 1303. Today, Boniface VIII is probably best remembered for his feuds with Dante, who placed him in the Eighth circle of Hell in his Divina Commedia, among the Simonists.- Biography :Gaetani was born in 1235 in...
demands the establishment of a theocracy
Theocracy
Theocracy is a form of organization in which the official policy is to be governed by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided, or simply pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religious sect or religion....
).
Also, for the needs of commerce, as well as for its own social ascension, the urban upper class took charge of a part of the culture, creating lay schools, becoming patrons of the arts, and financing charities. Most technical innovations were the work of laymen—engineers, architects (like Villard de Honnecourt
Villard de Honnecourt
Villard de Honnecourt was a 13th-century artist from Picardy in northern France. He is known to history only through a surviving portfolio of 33 sheets of parchment containing about 250 drawings dating from the 1220s/1240s, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris...
), artisans (like Jacopo and Giovanni di Dondi, who conceived the idea of the mechanical escapement
Escapement
In mechanical watches and clocks, an escapement is a device that transfers energy to the timekeeping element and enables counting the number of oscillations of the timekeeping element...
clock)... The clergy lost part of its cultural and social role in the cities.
Many bourgeois tried to become aristocrats in order to attain the political role due to them for their growing importance in society. For example, Robert de Lorris, a counselor close to John the Good, made use of his protection and of judicious marriage alliances to help his allies. The high bourgeoisie adopted behavior like that of the nobility. The provost's office, for example, organized a tournament
Tournament
A tournament is a competition involving a relatively large number of competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:...
in 1330 where bourgeois fought like knights. Those like Étienne Marcel, who did not belong to the very small circle of powerful men around John the Good, and whose social rise was therefore blocked, became the most fervent proponents of a political reform that would lead to the control of the monarchy by the Estates.
Crisis of the feudal system
Because of progress in agriculture and the clearing of new lands, the population of western Europe had been growing since the tenth century. Now a threshold of population was reached that by the end of the 13th century strained the agricultural capacity of some regions. Through inheritance, farms grew smaller and smaller: by 1310 the average farm was only one-third of the size it had been in 1240. Some regions, like the County of FlandersCounty of Flanders
The County of Flanders was one of the territories constituting the Low Countries. The county existed from 862 to 1795. It was one of the original secular fiefs of France and for centuries was one of the most affluent regions in Europe....
, were overpopulated and tried to reclaim land
Land reclamation
Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, is the process to create new land from sea or riverbeds. The land reclaimed is known as reclamation ground or landfill.- Habitation :...
from the sea. They became more centered on trade in order to be able to import food. In England, in 1279, 46% of the peasants had a farm of less than 5 hectares. The minimum for supporting a family of five people was 4 to 5 hectares. The rural population became poorer and poorer, the price of crops dropped, and the income of the nobility also diminished while they were expected to pay more. Tensions arose between the nobility and the peasants. Many peasants went to the cities at certain times of year, working for very low salaries, which created tension in the towns as well. The evolution of the economy toward specialization; global cooling
Global cooling
Global cooling was a conjecture during the 1970s of imminent cooling of the Earth's surface and atmosphere along with a posited commencement of glaciation...
, which caused bad harvests; and population pressure combined to create famine
Famine
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including crop failure, overpopulation, or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality. Every continent in the world has...
s, which had not been seen since the 12th century, in northern Europe in 1314, 1315, and 1316. In 1316 alone the town of Bruges
Bruges
Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located in the northwest of the country....
lost 5% and Ypres
Ypres
Ypres is a Belgian municipality located in the Flemish province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the city of Ypres and the villages of Boezinge, Brielen, Dikkebus, Elverdinge, Hollebeke, Sint-Jan, Vlamertinge, Voormezele, Zillebeke, and Zuidschote...
10% of its population.
The nobility needed to make up for the loss of its income, and war was an excellent way to do so, through ransoming enemy captives, pillage of enemy goods, and raising taxes justified by the war. There was therefore a push towards war by the nobles, particularly in England where their income was most affected. In France, King Philip VI
Philip VI of France
Philip VI , known as the Fortunate and of Valois, was the King of France from 1328 to his death. He was also Count of Anjou, Maine, and Valois from 1325 to 1328...
(known as the Fortunate) needed to refill his treasury, and a war would allow a king to levy special taxes.
The growth in trade had made some regions dependent on other kingdoms. At this period, freight was carried mainly by water. The regions of Champagne
Champagne, France
Champagne is a historic province in the northeast of France, now best known for the sparkling white wine that bears its name.Formerly ruled by the counts of Champagne, its western edge is about 100 miles east of Paris. The cities of Troyes, Reims, and Épernay are the commercial centers of the area...
and Burgundy
Duchy of Burgundy
The Duchy of Burgundy , was heir to an ancient and prestigious reputation and a large division of the lands of the Second Kingdom of Burgundy and in its own right was one of the geographically larger ducal territories in the emergence of Early Modern Europe from Medieval Europe.Even in that...
supplied Paris via the Seine
Seine
The Seine is a -long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France. It rises at Saint-Seine near Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and into the English Channel at Le Havre . It is navigable by ocean-going vessels...
and its tributaries, and were therefore pro-French. Normandy
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
was divided, because it was where the Seine and the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
areas met. This had become a zone of intense activity because of the progress in shipping (Italian ships now often went around the Iberian peninsula
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
). The southern area of Aquitaine
Aquitaine
Aquitaine , archaic Guyenne/Guienne , is one of the 27 regions of France, in the south-western part of metropolitan France, along the Atlantic Ocean and the Pyrenees mountain range on the border with Spain. It comprises the 5 departments of Dordogne, :Lot et Garonne, :Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Landes...
, which exported wine to England, Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
, which exported salt
History of salt
Salt's ability to preserve food was a foundation of civilization. It eliminated the dependence on the seasonal availability of food and it allowed travel over long distances. However, salt was difficult to obtain, and so it was a highly valued trade item...
, and the County of Flanders, which imported British wool
Wool
Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....
, were all inclined toward the English sphere of influence.
Because of this, Flemish merchants, wishing to escape from French pressure to pay taxes, revolted repeatedly against the king of France. This led to the battles of Courtrai, called the Battle of the Golden Spurs
Battle of the Golden Spurs
The Battle of the Golden Spurs, known also as the Battle of Courtrai was fought on July 11, 1302, near Kortrijk in Flanders...
, in 1302 (where the knights of France were swept from the field, and the Flemish burgher
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
s showed that towns could defeat the king's feudal armies), of Mons-en-Pévèle
Battle of Mons-en-Pévèle
The Battle of Mons-en-Pévèle was fought on 18 August 1304 between the French and the Flemish. The French were led by King Philip IV the Fair in person.- Prelude :...
in 1304, and of Cassel
Battle of Cassel (1328)
The Battle of Cassel was fought on 23 August 1328 by Philip VI, the King of France, and first ruler of House of Valois , against the peasant revolt in Flanders, led by Nicolaas Zannekin. The battle took place near the city of Cassel, 30 km south of Dunkirk in present-day France...
in 1328 (where Philip VI subdued the Flemish rebels). The Flemish supported the king of England, even declaring in 1340 that Edward III
Edward III of England
Edward III was King of England from 1327 until his death and is noted for his military success. Restoring royal authority after the disastrous reign of his father, Edward II, Edward III went on to transform the Kingdom of England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe...
was the legitimate king of France.
The two countries, therefore, were both trying to add to their territory to increase their wealth. The intrigues of the two kings as they tried to control Gascony
Gascony
Gascony is an area of southwest France that was part of the "Province of Guyenne and Gascony" prior to the French Revolution. The region is vaguely defined and the distinction between Guyenne and Gascony is unclear; sometimes they are considered to overlap, and sometimes Gascony is considered a...
, Brittany, and the County of Flanders rapidly led to war. This war lasted 116 years. Of course, the consequences of this endless conflict were serious for trade, especially since it included an increase in taxes.
The Valois are discredited
In France, the beginning of the Hundred Years War was catastrophic and royal power was contested after the defeat at the Battle of CrécyBattle of Crécy
The Battle of Crécy took place on 26 August 1346 near Crécy in northern France, and was one of the most important battles of the Hundred Years' War...
in 1346. Through a series of legal artifices, Philip VI took the throne of France, which Edward III of England also claimed as the grandson of Philip the Fair through his mother.
In the same way, Charles II of Navarre
Charles II of Navarre
Charles II , called "Charles the Bad", was King of Navarre 1349-1387 and Count of Évreux 1343-1387....
(called "the Bad") also claimed the throne. His mother Joan
Joan II of Navarre
Joan II was Queen of Navarre from 1328 until her death. She was the only daughter of Margaret of Burgundy, first wife of King Louis X of France...
, only child of Louis X
Louis X of France
Louis X of France, , called the Quarreler, the Headstrong, or the Stubborn was the King of Navarre from 1305 and King of France from 1314 until his death...
"the Quarrelsome" (le Hutin), had been set aside during the dynastic crisis of 1316–1328 so that no foreigner could take control of the kingdom through marrying her. The maneuvers of the King of Navarre
Kingdom of Navarre
The Kingdom of Navarre , originally the Kingdom of Pamplona, was a European kingdom which occupied lands on either side of the Pyrenees alongside the Atlantic Ocean....
, who tried to play off the French-English rivalry and to influence the Duke of Normandy
Duke of Normandy
The Duke of Normandy is the title of the reigning monarch of the British Crown Dependancies of the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Bailiwick of Jersey. The title traces its roots to the Duchy of Normandy . Whether the reigning sovereign is a male or female, they are always titled as the "Duke of...
, led Jean le Bon to intervene in brutal fashion. On 5 April 1356, he had Charles seized in Rouen
Rouen
Rouen , in northern France on the River Seine, is the capital of the Haute-Normandie region and the historic capital city of Normandy. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe , it was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages...
and thrown in prison. In this era, nobility was supposed to show its quality through chivalrous
Chivalry
Chivalry is a term related to the medieval institution of knighthood which has an aristocratic military origin of individual training and service to others. Chivalry was also the term used to refer to a group of mounted men-at-arms as well as to martial valour...
behavior on the battlefield. But Crecy had been a disaster even though the English army had far fewer soldiers, and Philip VI had fled from the fight, causing the divine right
Divine Right of Kings
The divine right of kings or divine-right theory of kingship is a political and religious doctrine of royal and political legitimacy. It asserts that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving his right to rule directly from the will of God...
of his house of Valois to be questioned. This disgrace was aggravated by the appearance of the Black Death
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...
in 1348, which corroborated the idea that the dynasty was not favored by God. Edward III and Charles of Navarre saw the chance to further their claims to the throne of France. They took advantage of the opportunity to attract the cities, letting them believe that they would establish a limited monarchy.
Also, the country was reluctant to pay the taxes necessary for the government to function. Since Philip the Fair, the rulers of France had used monetary alteration (mutations monétaires) to devalue the coin of the realm, causing high inflation. The king and the state were the only beneficiaries. The nobility, clergy, and the upper bourgeoisie who owned financial property all saw the value of their incomes and rents melt away. The devaluation
Devaluation
Devaluation is a reduction in the value of a currency with respect to those goods, services or other monetary units with which that currency can be exchanged....
s weighed on the exchanges, penalizing trade (especially since Paris was an enormous consumer center and had to import its more and more expensive merchandise, especially cloth from Flanders) and hurting the purchase power of the entire population. The rich wanted a strong currency, the poor a weak one, but everyone needed a stable currency. The catastrophic beginning of the war for France had been very expensive. There were ransoms to pay, an army to finance, cities to fortify. Trade was trammeled by the freelance companies of mercenary troops that roamed the country after 1356. The cities had no reason to want war. The ravages of the Black Death caused new disturbances. The labor shortage could lead to a rise in pay, and in higher costs for crops. John the Good reacted with an Order for the Professions of the City of Paris (Ordonnance sur les métiers de la ville de Paris) of 1351. In this he arbitrarily froze prices and salaries, and allowed workers to freely set up shop in the city (to stop them from joining the bands of vagabonds and looters that were ravaging France). This broke the system of guilds which had protected craftsmen already living in the cities. These measures caused general resentment against the house of Valois, which had not well explained its reasons. In the cities, the feeling arose that the Estates General would rule the kingdom better. Charles de Navarre, with his aura of royalty, was a brilliant speaker and presented himself as the champion of the reformers.
Paris, economic and political capital
Étienne Marcel grew up in this time, as towns were becoming a political force, especially Paris, which was the largest city in western Europe. Its population in about 1328 is estimated at 200,000 people. However, the Black Death killed large numbers in 1348.As the capital of France, Paris was the seat of a large part of the nobility and of the government. Their luxurious way of life created jobs for many artisans and artists. Paris was also an important university city. The basin of the Seine was an important trading center for crops, coming from the protected Champagne Fairs
Champagne fairs
The Champagne fairs were an annual cycle of trading fairs held in towns in the Champagne and Brie regions of France in the Middle Ages. From their origins in local agricultural and stock fairs, the Champagne fairs became an important engine in the reviving economic history of medieval Europe,...
, from the rich region of Normandy and the Atlantic, and from the cloth-producing regions of the north (Flanders, Artois
Artois
Artois is a former province of northern France. Its territory has an area of around 4000 km² and a population of about one million. Its principal cities are Arras , Saint-Omer, Lens and Béthune.-Location:...
, and Brabant
Duchy of Brabant
The Duchy of Brabant was a historical region in the Low Countries. Its territory consisted essentially of the three modern-day Belgian provinces of Flemish Brabant, Walloon Brabant and Antwerp, the Brussels-Capital Region and most of the present-day Dutch province of North Brabant.The Flag of...
).
In the fourteenth century, the fortress compound of Charles V
Charles V of France
Charles V , called the Wise, was King of France from 1364 to his death in 1380 and a member of the House of Valois...
included all of what is now the third and fourth arrondissement
Arrondissement
Arrondissement is any of various administrative divisions of France, certain other Francophone countries, and the Netherlands.-France:The 101 French departments are divided into 342 arrondissements, which may be translated into English as districts. The capital of an arrondissement is called a...
s of Paris, going as far as the Pont Royal
Pont Royal
The Pont Royal is a bridge crossing the river Seine in Paris. It is the third oldest bridge in Paris, after the Pont Neuf and the Pont Marie.-Location:...
and the Porte Saint-Denis
Porte Saint-Denis
The Porte Saint-Denis is a Parisian monument located in the 10th arrondissement, at the site of one of the gates of the Wall of Charles V, one of the now-destroyed fortifications of Paris...
.