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Crisis in the Late Medieval Church

Philip IV of France - Immediate Circumstances

This was a trend that other French kings had either agreed to or had been unable to oppose effectively. Philip was determined not only to oppose but to counteract and reverse the trend.

It was made more pressing by war. France and England fought two wars in the early part of Philip's reign and war always created a serious financial burden. Philip saw assertion of royal authority over the French Church (sometimes called the Gallican Church, after Gaul, the old name for France) as at one and the same time a matter of royal dignity and a matter of pressing fiscal and national concern. Unfortunately, the Roman Church was at the same time asserting its rights and privileges with a new energy.

The specific issue was over clerical exemption from royal taxes. Where the clergy held non-Church lands, Philip argued they should pay royal taxes. Of course, the clergy sought diligently to have as much land as possible be considered as Church land. Even more, though, Philip claimed the clergy should also contribute to direct taxes, arguing that they were benefitting from royal protection from the English and so should contribute to the expense of that defense.

These were not new battles, but were the same sorts of issues that had caused clergy and kings to squabble for two hundred years. But there was a new pope in Rome, and he proved to be every bit as determined as Philip in defending and extending the rights of his position.