‘Our Dearest Lord and Father Received Him From the Baptismal Font’: The Life and Career of Philippe le Convers

ABSTRACT

This article examines the life and career of Philippe le Convers, a converted Jew who was a powerful royal administrator and the godson of King Philip the Fair of France (r. 1285–1314). Unlike other high-profile French converts, Philippe does not appear to have contributed to conversionary efforts or to anti-Jewish legislation. The article draws on evidence from financial records and royal letters to evaluate Philippe's work as a tax collector, master of the Parlement of Paris and forest enquêteur. It also examines the administrative appointments he secured for his relatives and the large estate he amassed at Léry, which he eventually transferred to Queen Jeanne of Burgundy in exchange for payment that significantly exceeded the property's value. This discussion highlights the ways that the sons and successors of Philip the Fair used their continued patronage of Philippe to emphasise their ties to their late father.

KEYWORDS:

• France
• Jews
• Conversion
• Royal administration
• Philippe le Convers
• Philip the Fair

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to this journal's editors and two anonymous readers for their comments and recommendations, to Sharon Farmer for her advice on earlier versions of this article, and to the many colleagues who commented on drafts and shared their insights on this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Jessica Marin Elliott, ‘The Changing Status of Converted Jews in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Northern France’ (PhD diss., University of California, Santa Barbara, 2014), 56–126. The following abbreviation has been used in this article: AN: Paris, Archives nationales de France.

² Historians of medieval French Jewry have discussed Philippe le Convers briefly, but he has been better studied by Olivier Canteaut, Jean Favier, Franklin Pegues and Joseph Strayer as a member of the royal administration. See Olivier Canteaut, ‘Gouvernement et hommes de gouvernement sous les derniers Capétiens (1313–1328)’ (PhD thesis, Université de Paris, 2005), 654–61; Robert Chazan, Medieval Jewry in Northern France: A Political and Social History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), 189; Jean Favier, ‘Les légistes et le gouvernement de Philippe le Bel’, Journal des savants 2 (1969): 92–108; William Chester Jordan, The French Monarchy, and the Jews: From Philip Augustus to the Last Capetians (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), 189; Franklin Pegues, The Lawyers of the Last Capetians (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962), 124–40; Joseph Strayer, The Reign of Philip the Fair (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 22–401 passim.

³ On the host desecration accusation, see Joanie Dehullu, ‘L’affaire des Billettes: Une accusation de profanation d'hosties portée contre les Juifs à Paris, 1290', Bijdragen 56, no. 2 (1995): 133–55; Susan Einbinder, Beautiful Death: Jewish Poetry and Martyrdom in Medieval France (Princeton, 2002), 155–79; Jessica Marin Elliott, ‘Jews “Feigning Devotion”: Christian Representations of Converted Jews in French Chronicles before and after the Expulsion of 1306’, in Jews and Christians in 13th-Century France: Culture, Society and Mutual Perceptions, eds. Elisheva Baumgarten and Judah D. Galinsky (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 169–82; Miri Rubin, Gentile Tales: The Narrative Assault on Late Medieval Jews (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 40–69. On Philip the Fair's anti-Jewish policies, see especially Chazan, Medieval Jewry, 154–205; Jordan, French Monarchy, 179–238. On the expulsion in 1306, see Céline Balasse, 1306: L'expulsion des Juifs du royaume de France (Brussels: De Boeck, 2008); Céline Balasse, ‘Les conflits de juridiction nés autour de l’expulsion de 1306: Une tentative de renforcement du pouvoir royal?', in Philippe le Bel et les Juifs du royaume de France (1306), ed. Danièle Iancu-Agou (Paris: Cerf, 2012), 125–37; Susan Einbinder, No Place of Rest: Jewish Literature, Expulsion, and the Memory of Medieval France (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009); William C. Jordan, ‘Administering Expulsion in 1306’, Jewish Studies Quarterly 15 (2008): 241–50.

⁴ On officials who remained in royal service after the death of Philip the Fair, see Strayer, Reign, 40. On the relationship between Philip the Fair and his sons, see Elizabeth A. R. Brown, ‘Philip the Fair and His Family’, Medieval Prosopography 32 (2017): 125–85; Elizabeth A. R. Brown, ‘Philip the Fair's Sons, Their Statuses, and Their Landed Endowments’, Medieval Prosopography 32 (2017): 186–227.

⁵ Translated in Robert Stacey, ‘The Conversion of Jews to Christianity in Thirteenth-Century England’, Speculum 67 (1992): 263–83 (276–78). On royal enthusiasm for conversion in England, see John Tolan, ‘Royal Policy and Conversion of Jews to Christianity in Thirteenth-Century Europe’, in Contesting Inter-Religious Conversion in the Medieval World, eds. Yaniv Fox and Yosi Yisraeli (Routledge: London, 2017), 96–111. On Henry of Winchester, see also Paul Brand, ‘Jews and the Law in England, 1275–90’, The English Historical Review 115, no. 464 (2000): 1151–52; Lauren Fogle, The King's Converts: Jewish Conversion in Medieval London (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2019), 56–57; Zefira Entin Rokéaḥ, ‘Money and the Hangman in Late Thirteenth-Century England: Jews, Christians and Coinage Offenses Alleged and Real (Part I)’, Jewish Historical Studies 31 (1988–90): 83–109; Zefira Entin Rokéaḥ, ‘Money and the Hangman in Late Thirteenth-Century England: Jews, Christians and Coinage Offenses Alleged and Real (Part II)’, Jewish Historical Studies 32 (1990–92): 159–218.

⁶ Stacey, ‘Conversion of Jews’, 277–78. Irven Resnick's analysis of the incident highlights Thomas de Cantilupe's belief that ‘certain Jewish traits’ (specifically, Jewish hatred of Christians) ‘persisted beyond baptism’. Irven Resnick, Marks of Distinction: Christian Perceptions of Jews in the High Middle Ages (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2012), 291.

⁷ See Robert Chazan, Daggers of Faith: Thirteenth-Century Christian Missionizing and Jewish Response (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989); Jeremy Cohen, Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999), 319–41; Jeremy Cohen, ‘The Mentality of the Medieval Jewish Apostate: Peter Alfonsi, Hermann of Cologne, and Pablo Christiani’, in Jewish Apostasy in the Modern World, ed. Todd M. Endelman (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1987), 20–47; Gilbert Dahan, ed., Le brûlement du Talmud à Paris, 1242–1244 (Paris: Cerf, 1999); Judah Galinsky, ‘The Different Hebrew Versions of the “Talmud Trial” of 1240 in Paris’, in New Perspectives on Jewish-Christian Relations, eds. Elisheva Carlebach and Jacob J. Schacter (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 109–40; Harvey Hames, ‘Kings and Conversion in the Thirteenth Century: Where Politics and Religion Meet?’, Archives de sciences sociales des religions 182 (2018): 227–47; Deeana Klepper, ‘The Encounter Between Christian Authority and Jewish Authority over Scriptural Truth: The Barcelona Disputation 1263’, in Autorität und Wahrheit. Kirchliche Vorstellungen, Normen und Verfahren (13.–15. Jahrhundert), ed. Gian Luca Potestà (Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, 2012), 1–19; Joseph Shatzmiller, La deuxième controverse de Paris: Un chapitre dans la polémique entre chrétiens et juifs au moyen âge (Paris: Peeters, 1994).

⁸ Jordan, Apple of His Eye, 94–6.

⁹ The earliest definitive reference to Philippe's pension appears in an account for the Candlemas 1285 term, recording payment received in February 1286. He also appears twice in an account that purports to pertain to the first half of 1285, but there is conflicting evidence for the dating of this account. See below, n. 35, on the evidence from this source.

¹⁰ Pegues, Lawyers, 127. On Philip the Fair's councillors and the studium at Orléans, see Charles Vulliez, ‘Des écoles de l’Orléanais à l'université d'Orléans (10e–début 14e siècle)', (PhD thesis, Université Paris-Nanterre, 1994), 3:1251–1302; Charles Vulliez, ‘Les maîtres orléanais et leur place dans la société (milieu XIIIe-début XVIe siècle)’, in Les universités en Europe du XIIIe siècle à nos jours: Espaces, modèles et fonctions, eds. Frédéric Attal et al. (Paris: Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2005), 19–37. The practice became even more pronounced after the formal foundation of the University of Orléans in 1306. For the papal bull granting the school the privileges of a university and other related documents, see Marcel Fournier, ed., Les statuts et privileges des universités françaises depuis leur fondation jusqu'en 1789 (Paris, 1890), 1:1–23; Marie-Henriette Jullien de Pommerol, ed., Sources de l'histoire des universités françaises au Moyen Âge: Université d'Orléans (Paris: Institute national de recherche pédagogique, 1978). On the studium at Orléans in the thirteenth century, see also Hastings Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1895), 2:139–42. I thank the anonymous reader of this article who brought these references to my attention.

¹¹ For the ages of law students at the University of Bologna, for instance, see Alan Cobban, English University Life in the Middle Ages (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2002), 19. See also Ruth Mazo Karras, From Boys to Men: Formations of Masculinity in Late Medieval Europe (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), 70.

¹² For the hospital and Philippe's reference to Villepreux as his birthplace, see AN JJ 60, fols. 119–19v, no. 186. See also Pegues, Lawyers, 139. Most extant references to Philippe refer to him as ‘Philippe le Convers’, but he was also referred to at times as ‘Philippe de Villepreux’. For documents referring to him as ‘Philippus di Villa Petrosa, alias Conversus’, see, among others, Charles-Victor Langlois, ed., Inventaire d’anciens comptes royaux dressé par Robert Mignon sous le règne de Philippe de Valois (Paris, 1899), 153. See William Chester Jordan, The Apple of His Eye: Converts from Islam in the Reign of Louis IX (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019), 116–18, for references to a converted Muslim known as both ‘Gobert Sarrasin’ and ‘Gobert de Laon’ during the same period.

¹³ Pegues, Lawyers, 125.

¹⁴ Regestum Clementis papae V ex Vaticanis archetypis, vol. 4 (Rome, 1886), no. 3796. See Pegues, Lawyers, 139.

¹⁵ For the houses on the rue de Sacalie, see AN JJ 41, fols. 114–14v, no. 208; duplicated in AN JJ 42B, fols. 95v–96, no. 206. On the hospital and chaplaincies, see below.

¹⁶ Élisabeth Lalou, ed., Itinéraire de Philippe IV le Bel (1285–1314) (Paris: Académie des inscriptions et belles lettres, 2007), 2:417. See Elizabeth A. R. Brown, ‘The King's Conundrum: Endowing Queens and Loyal Servants, Ensuring Salvation, and Protecting the Patrimony in Fourteenth-Century France’, in Medieval Futures: Attitudes to the Future in the Middle Ages, eds. John Anthony Burrow and Ian P. Wei (Rochester: Boydell & Brewer, 2000), 130–33.

¹⁷ Marc Bloch, La France sous les derniers Capétiens, 1223–1328, 2nd edn. (Paris: Armand Colin, 1971), 38, 110; Canteaut, ‘Hommes de gouvernement’, 654–61; André Guillois, ‘Recherches sur les maîtres des requêtes de l’hôtel des origines à 1350' (PhD thesis, Université de Paris, 1909), 219–21; Pegues, Lawyers, 124–40. On the death and testament of Philip the Fair, see Elizabeth A. R. Brown, ‘Royal Salvation and Needs of State in Late Capetian France’, in Order and Innovation in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor of Joseph R. Strayer, eds. William C. Jordan, Bruce McNab and Teofilo F. Ruiz (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 365–83; Élisabeth Lalou, ‘Les testaments des rois capétiens: Perspectives et problématiques’, Cahiers de recherches médiévales et humanistes 31 (2016): 61–68. For the final codicil of the testament of Philip the Fair, naming Philippe le Convers as an executor, see AN J 403, no. 18, transcribed in Edgard Boutaric, ‘Notices et extraits de documents inédits relatifs à l’histoire de France sous Philippe le Bel', Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale et autres bibliothèques 20: 2 (1862): 83–237 (229–35).

¹⁸ Translated by Franklin Pegues. Pegues, Lawyers, 139. For the full Latin text, see AN JJ 59, fol. 178v, no. 339. The document is also described in Registres du Trésor des chartes: Inventaire analytique, vol. 2, Règnes des fils de Philippe le Bel, part 1, Règnes de Louis X le Hutin et de Philippe V le Long, eds. Robert Fawtier and Jean Guerout (Paris: SEVPEN, 1966), no. 3060.

¹⁹ See Jordan, Apple of His Eye. See also Alexandre Bruel, ‘Notes de Vyon d’Hérouval sur les baptisés et les convers et sur les enquêteurs royaux au temps de saint Louis et de ses successeurs (1234–1334)', Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes 28 (1867): 609–21. On Philip's veneration of his grandfather, see Elizabeth M. Hallam, ‘Philip the Fair and the Cult of Saint Louis’, Studies in Church History 18 (1982): 201–14. For royal godparents to converted Jews in thirteenth-century Italy, England and Aragon, see Jessica Marin Elliott, ‘“For those who have been made worthy of favor by new conversion”: Angevin Policies toward Jews and Converts in Naples and Provence, 1285–1309’, Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies 52 (2021): 279–317 (291); Stacey, ‘Conversion of Jews’, 263–83; Paola Tartakoff, ‘Christian Kings and Jewish Conversion in the Medieval Crown of Aragon’, Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies 3 (2011): 27–39.

²⁰ Comptes royaux (1285–1314), eds. Robert Fawtier and François Maillard, 3 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1953–56), nos. 612, 3676, 3761. See Pegues, Lawyers, 135.

²¹ AN JJ 54B, fols. 26v–27, no. 36; Comptes royaux, nos. 4743, 4755. On Thomas, see Pegues, Lawyers, 135; Joseph Strayer, ‘Viscounts and Viguiers under Philip the Fair’, Speculum 38 (1963): 242–55.

²² Comptes royaux, no. 6537; Léopold Delisle, ‘Chronologie des baillis et des sénéchaux royaux depuis les origines jusqu’à l'avènement de Philippe de Valois', in Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, vol. 24 (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1904), 152–53. On Louis, see Pegues, Lawyers, 135; Strayer, ‘Viscounts and Viguiers’, 249–50.

²³ Comptes royaux, no. 3796; AN JJ 56, fol. 184, no. 429 (1318).

²⁴ AN JJ 56, fol. 208, no. 480. See Pegues, Lawyers, 135. It is unlikely that Philippe had children of his own. It was not uncommon for royal officials to hold clerical status for a time and then return to lay status (typically after completing their education), going on to marry and have children. However, the positions that Philippe held within the Church, especially the archdeaconries, required ordination which precluded marriage and legitimate children. Royal accounts identify four children (Adam, Jeanne, Marota and Marie) of someone named Philippe le Convers in 1299 and 1305, but this is almost certainly someone else. Comptes royaux, nos. 655, 3763–64. For Philippot le Convers, identified as a porter in an ordinance on the organisation of the Hôtel du roi in 1286, or another Philippe le Convers, identified as the owner of a house on the rue de la Huchette in Paris in 1284, see Charles-Victor Langlois, ed., Textes relatifs à l'histoire du Parlement depuis les origins jusqu'en 1314 (Paris: Picard, 1888), 129; Gérard Nahon, ‘La communauté juive de Paris au XIIIe siècle: Problèmes topographiques, démographiques et institutionnels’, in Actes du 100e Congrès national des sociétés savantes. Paris, 1975, Section de philologie et d'histoire (Paris: Bibliothèque nationale, 1978), 2:144–45. In 1298, a Philippe le Convers with a son named Adenotus appears in the Journaux du Trésor of Philip the Fair. Jules Viard, ed., Les journaux du Trésor de Philippe IV le Bel (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1917), no. 460.

²⁵ Olivier Guyotjeannin, ‘French Manuscript Sources’, in Pragmatic Literacy, East and West, 1200–1330, ed. R. H. Britnell (Rochester: Boydell & Brewer, 1997), 66–68.

²⁶ The original financial accounts have generally not survived, but an inventory of the accounts was created in 1328 by Robert Mignon, a clerk of the Chambre des comptes; the inventory is extant and was published by Charles-Victor Langlois in 1899. Langlois, ed., Inventaire. Those of the original accounts that have survived were published by Robert Fawtier and François Maillard in the 1950s; see above, n. 20, for the reference. Auguste Longnon's edition of the general receiver's accounts for the county of Champagne and Brie was published in 1914. Auguste Longnon, ed., Documents relatifs au comté de Champagne et de Brie, 1171–1361, vol. 3, Les comptes administratifs (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1914). In recent decades, Élisabeth Lalou has published editions of numerous financial accounts recorded on wax tablets from this period. Élisabeth Lalou, ed., Les comptes sur tablettes de cire de la Chambre aux deniers de Philippe III le Hardi et de Philippe IV le Bel (1282–1309) (Paris: Boccard, 1994). See also Élisabeth Lalou, ‘Les tablettes de cire médiévales’, Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes 147 (1989): 123–40.

²⁷ Records of the Parlement of Paris are preserved in series X of the Archives nationales; the first four registers, known as the Olim, were published by Arthur-Auguste Beugnot in the mid-nineteenth century. Arthur-Auguste Beugnot, ed., Les Olim, ou Registres des arrêts rendus par la Cour du Roi, 3 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1839–48). An inventory of the remaining acts from 1254–1328 was published by Edgard Boutaric in the 1860s. Edgard Boutaric, ed., Actes du Parlement de Paris (1254–1328), 2 vols. (Paris: Plon, 1863–67).

²⁸ The charters transcribed in the registers of the Trésor des chartes are preserved in series J and JJ of the Archives nationales de France; inventories were published in 1958–99. Registres du Trésor des chartes: Inventaire analytique, vol. 1, Règne de Philippe le Bel, eds. Robert Fawtier, Jean Glénisson and Jean Guerout (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1958); Registres du Trésor des chartes: Inventaire analytique, vol. 2, Règnes des fils de Philippe le Bel, part 2, Règne de Charles IV le Bel, eds. Jean Guerout, Henri Jassemin and Aline Vallée (Paris: Archives nationales, 1999). See above, n. 18, for vol. 2, part 1, of this work.

²⁹ Pegues, Lawyers, 124–26, 136.

³⁰ For Jeanne la Converse, see Comptes royaux, no. 3761. See also Bruel, ‘Vyon d’Hérouval', 609–21.

³¹ For the 1269 edict requiring French Jews to wear a distinctive badge, see Jessica Elliott, ‘Quoniam volumus quod Judæi a Christianis discerni valeant et recognosci (Ordinance on the Jewish Badge)’, RELMIN Project, The Legal Status of Religious Minorities in the Euro-Mediterranean World (5th–15th Centuries), http://www.cn-telma.fr/relmin/extrait270990/, accessed 31 January 2023. In addition to works on the Paris disputations cited above, see Jordan, French Monarchy, 142–76; Gérard Nahon, ‘Les ordonnances de Saint Louis sur les juifs’, Les nouveaux cahiers 6 (1970): 18–35; Danièle Sansy, ‘Marquer la difference: l’imposition de la rouelle au XIIIe et XIVe siècles', Mediévales 41 (2001): 15–36; Yossef Schwartz, ‘Authority, Control, and Conflict in Thirteenth-Century Paris: Contextualizing the Talmud Trial’, in Jews and Christians in 13th-Century France: Culture, Society and Mutual Perceptions, eds. Elisheva Baumgarten and Judah D. Galinsky (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 93–110. On the 1250s–60s as the peak of Jewish conversion to Christianity, see Joseph Shatzmiller, ‘Jewish Converts to Christianity in Medieval Europe 1200–1500’, in Cross Cultural Convergences in the Crusader Period: Essays Presented to Aryeh Grabois on his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, eds. Michael Goodich, Sophia Menache and Sylvia Schein (New York: Peter Lang, 1995), 297–318. Susan Einbinder has shown that the Jewish martyrological poetry produced in this period was part of an anti-conversionary strategy, aimed especially at the adolescent male Jewish students who were prime targets for Christian conversionary efforts. Einbinder, Beautiful Death, 17–67.

³² More than fifty converted Jews appear in Parisian tax and property records from this period, including quite a few converts who participated in lucrative professions and a smaller number who married into prominent bourgeois Christian families. Elliott, ‘Status of Converted Jews’, 56–126.

³³ Elizabeth A. R. Brown, ‘The Prince Is Father of the King: The Character and Childhood of Philip the Fair of France’, Mediaeval Studies 49 (1987): 316–26.

³⁴ Lalou, ed., Comptes sur tablettes de cire, 123.

³⁵ The account is identified as the general receiver's account for the first half of 1285, with individual items given dates between December 1284 and June 1285. In the account Philippe is identified as the godson of the king (‘mestre Philippe le Convert, filleul le roy’). One entry records a gift of 40 livres that Philippe received ‘to purchase law books’; the other records Philippe's receipt of his pension ‘for the Candlemas and Ascension [terms]’, which would be November 1284–May 1285, according to the dating of this account. Longnon, ed., Documents, 31, 33. However, Philip IV did not become king of France until late 1285. In early 1285, he was already count of Champagne and Brie and king of Navarre by virtue of his marriage to Jeanne of Navarre, but the Champagne accounts generally did not refer to him as ‘the king’ until he became king of France in October of that year. Auguste Longnon concluded that the Philippe le Convers referred to here must be the godson of Philip III. Longnon, ed., Documents, viii–x. This is unlikely. No other records suggest the existence of a godson of Philip III who was also known as Philippe le Convers and who also studied law, and this is clearly the same individual who appears in a partial account for the Candlemas 1285 term (encompassing December 1285, January 1286 and early February 1286), edited by Élisabeth Lalou, that records payment of the same pension to ‘Mag[ister] Philippus Conversus, filiolus domini regis’ in February 1286. Lalou, ed., Comptes sur tablettes de cire, 123. Thus, regardless of these discrepancies, we know that Philippe le Convers was receiving this pension and studying law by early 1286 at the latest.

³⁶ Longnon, ed., Documents, 31.

³⁷ Longnon, ed., Documents, 132–33.

³⁸ Pegues, Lawyers, 127. In 1313, Philippe le Convers appears with Michel Mauconduit in a list of clerks, each of whom received a cloak valued at 100 sous at Pentecost. Lalou, ed., Comptes sur tablettes de cire, 865. I thank the anonymous reader who brought this reference to my attention.

³⁹ See James A. Brundage, The Medieval Origins of the Legal Profession: Canonists, Civilians, and Courts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 232–33.

⁴⁰ Comptes royaux, no. 652.

⁴¹ Comptes royaux, no. 3761.

⁴² Strayer, Reign, 57–62.

⁴³ Pegues, Lawyers, 135. See also Élisabeth Lalou, ‘Les chanoines au service de Philippe le Bel, 1285–1314’, in I canonici al servizio dello Stato in Europa secoli XIII–XVI, ed. Hélène Millet (Modena: Franco Cosimo Panini), 219–30.

⁴⁴ AN JJ 38, fols. 25v–26v, nos. 35, 36, 38; described in Registres du Trésor des chartes, 1, nos. 136, 137, 139. Pycke states that Philippe held a canonry at Tournai from 1300 to 1321. Jacques Pycke, ‘L’examen d'un groupe social local devenu international: La prosopographie du chapitre cathédral Notre-Dame de Tournai de 1080 à 1340', in A Igreja e o clero português no contexto europeu (Lisbon: Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Centro de Estudos de História Religiosa, 2005), 217.

⁴⁵ Robert Gane, Le chapitre de Notre-Dame de Paris au XIVe siècle: Étude sociale d'un groupe canonial, ed. Claudine Billot (Saint-Étienne, France: Publications de l'Université de Saint-Étienne, 1999), 133. The earliest source that I have found referring to Philippe as a canon of Paris is from August 1308; see AN JJ 40, fol. 7, no. 14. For the chaplaincies founded by Philippe, see AN JJ 49, fols. 13v–14, nos. 22–23, fol. 71v, no. 168; Lalou, ed., Itinéraire, 404.

⁴⁶ Regestum Clementis papae V, no. 3681. For the prebend at the church of Troyes, see also Joseph Petit et al., Essai de restitution des plus anciens mémoriaux de la Chambre des comptes de Paris (Paris: F. Alcan, 1899), 150.

⁴⁷ Regestum Clementis papae V, no. 3832.

⁴⁸ For the archdeaconry of Eu, see AN JJ 49, fol. 61v, no. 143. In April 1314, he was referred to as ‘the archdeacon of Eu and Pont-Audemer’, but this title does not appear elsewhere and may be an error. Registres du Trésor des chartes, 1, no. 2157.

⁴⁹ See Pegues, Lawyers, 132–34; Strayer, Reign, 61.

⁵⁰ Along with other cited works by Brown, Favier, Pegues and Strayer, see Robert-Henri Bautier, ‘Diplomatique et histoire politique: Ce que la critique diplomatique nous apprend sur la personnalité de Philippe le Bel’, Revue historique 259 (1978): 3–27; Elizabeth A. R. Brown, The Monarchy of Capetian France and Royal Ceremonial, Variorum Collected Studies Series 345 (Aldershot: Variorum, 1991); Elizabeth A. R. Brown, ‘Moral Imperatives and Conundrums of Conscience: Reflections on Philip the Fair of France’, Speculum 87 (2012): 1–36; Jean Favier, Un conseiller de Philippe le Bel: Enguerran de Marigny, Mémoires et documents publiés par la Société de l'École des chartes 16 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1963); Robert Fawtier, Les Capétiens et la France: Leur rôle dans sa construction (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1942); Élisabeth Lalou, ‘Les légistes dans l’entourage de Philippe le Bel', in Les universités en Europe du XIIIe siècle à nos jours: Espaces, modèles et fonctions, eds. Frédéric Attal et al. (Paris: Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2005), 99–111; Élisabeth Lalou, ‘Robert Fawtier's Philip the Fair’, in The Capetian Century, 1214–1314, eds. William Chester Jordan and Jenna Rebecca Phillips (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017), 261–73; Charles-Victor Langlois, Saint Louis, Philippe le Bel, les derniers Capétiens directs (1226–1328) (1911; repr., Paris: Tallandier, 1978).

⁵¹ Joseph R. Strayer and Charles H. Taylor, Studies in Early French Taxation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1939), 4–7. On the general tax as evidence of Philip's power, see Strayer, Reign, xii.

⁵² Boutaric, ed., Actes du Parlement, 1:281.

⁵³ J. H. Shennan, The Parlement of Paris (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1968), 57.

⁵⁴ Strayer, Reign, 31, 89–93.

⁵⁵ Strayer, Reign, 90–91.

⁵⁶ Jean Glénisson, ‘Les enquêteurs-réformateurs de 1270 à 1328’ (PhD thesis, École nationale des chartes, 1946), chap. 2; summarized in Jean Glénisson, ‘Les enquêteurs-réformateurs de 1270 à 1328’, in Positions des thèses soutenues par les élèves de la promotion de 1946 pour obtenir le diplôme d'archiviste paléographe, École nationale des chartes (1946), 81–88; Jean Glénisson, ‘Les enquêtes administratives en Europe occidentale aux XIIe et XIVe siècles’, Beihefte der Francia 9 (1980): 17–25. On the role that many enquêteurs-réformateurs played in the Parlement and as fiscal commissioners, see also Olivier Canteaut, ‘Le juge et le financier: Les enquêteurs-réformateurs des derniers Capétiens (1314–1328)’, in L'enquête au moyen âge, ed. Claude Gauvard (Rome: École française de Rome, 2009), 269–318; John B. Henneman, ‘“Enquêteurs-Réformateurs” and Fiscal Officers in Fourteenth-Century France’, Traditio 24 (1968): 309–49. I am grateful to the anonymous readers who brought Jean Glénisson's thesis and other works on the development and use of the enquête procedure to my attention.

⁵⁷ Élisabeth Lalou, ‘L’enquête au Moyen Âge’, Revue historique 657 (2011): 145–53 (146–47).

⁵⁸ Marie Dejoux, Les enquêtes de Saint Louis: Gouverner et sauver son âme (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2014); Marie Dejoux, ‘Gouverner par l’enquête en France, de Philippe Auguste aux derniers Capétiens', French Historical Studies 37, no. 2 (2014): 271–302 (278–89).

⁵⁹ Boutaric, ed., Actes du Parlement, 1:281–82. On Boucel, see Strayer, Reign, 216–17.

⁶⁰ Boutaric, ed., Actes du Parlement, 1:282.

⁶¹ On the 1298 investigation and the body of documentation produced by the inquest, see Chloé Besombes, ‘“Et dixit quod sic”: Communautés et pouvoir royal dans le Lauragais de la fin du XIIIe siècle; Proposition d’étude de l'affaire Breuilly-Latilly’ (PhD thesis, École nationale des chartes, 2014); Elizabeth A. R. Brown, ‘Royal Commissioners and Grants of Privilege in Philip the Fair's France: Pierre de Latilli, Raoul de Breuilli, and the Ordonnance for the Seneschalsy of Toulouse and Albi of 1299’, Francia: Forschungen zur westeuropäischen Geschichte 13 (1985): 151–90.

⁶² Pegues, Lawyers, 60.

⁶³ Beugnot, ed., Olim, 2:422–23. See Strayer, Reign, 88.

⁶⁴ Langlois, ed., Textes, 178–81.

⁶⁵ Strayer, Reign, 215–16.

⁶⁶ Langlois, ed., Textes, 179–80. See Strayer, Reign, 216. On organisation of the Parlement, see Shennan, Parlement of Paris, 16.

⁶⁷ Comptes royaux, nos. 20906–53; Viard, ed., Journaux, no. 690; Langlois, ed., Inventaire, no. 1203. On the tax, see Strayer and Taylor, Early French Taxation, 47–53.

⁶⁸ See Strayer and Taylor, Early French Taxation, 50, n. 161. For expenses associated with messengers sent to Flanders to inform the king of the ‘inobedientia’ of the towns and of the fines imposed, see Comptes royaux, nos. 20935–38.

⁶⁹ Comptes royaux, nos. 20906–53.

⁷⁰ Comptes royaux, nos. 20954–67; Langlois, ed., Inventaire, nos. 1193, 1204.

⁷¹ Langlois, ed., Inventaire, no. 1436. Strayer suggests that Guillaume de Saint-Marcel owed his career to Philippe's patronage. Strayer, Reign, 130.

⁷² Langlois, ed., Inventaire, nos. 1808 (1315), 2667 (1300). See also AN JJ 53, fols. 10v–11, no. 22, fols. 15v–16, no. 44. The charters are described in Registres du Trésor des chartes, 2, pt. 1, nos. 307, 329. On the ordonnance of 1315 and Philippe's work related to it, see Marc Bloch, Rois et serfs: Un chapitre d'histoire capétienne (Paris: Champion, 1920), 120–31, 155–68, 197–99, 206–8.

⁷³ On responsibilities of tax collectors and subcollectors, see Strayer, Reign, 158–59.

⁷⁴ See Strayer, Reign, 14.

⁷⁵ Richard Hoffman, An Environmental History of Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 182–90.

⁷⁶ On forest administration in Normandy, see Danny Lake-Giguère, ‘Administrer les forêts du roi au Moyen Âge: Le negotium forestarum en Normandie capétienne (1204–1328)’ (PhD thesis, Université de Rouen-Normandie; Université de Montréal, 2020); Danny Lake-Giguère, ‘La livrée et le contrôle des droits d’usage dans les forêts royales de Normandie du XIIe au XIVe siècle', Annales de Normandie 67, no. 2 (2017): 27–51; Bruno Nardeux, ‘Une “forêt” royale au moyen âge: Le pays de Lyons, en Normandie (vers 1100–vers 1450)’ (PhD thesis, Université de Rouen-Normandie, 2017). I thank the anonymous readers who brought these studies to my attention.

⁷⁷ The last documentation of Philippe's ‘forest business’ is an account from 1317 noted by Robert Mignon in his inventory. Langlois, ed., Inventaire, no. 2248. Lake-Giguère suggests that Philippe's activities likely ended prior to this, closer to 1314. Lake-Giguère, ‘Administrer les forêts’, 301.

⁷⁸ Strayer, Reign, 127–29.

⁷⁹ Comptes royaux, no. 1574.

⁸⁰ AN JJ 38, fols. 25v–26v, nos. 35, 36, 38; described in Registres du Trésor des chartes, 1, nos. 136, 137, 139.

⁸¹ AN JJ 49, fols. 85v–86, no. 200. On the conflict, see Lake-Giguère, ‘Administrer les forêts’, 525.

⁸² Lalou, ed., Itinéraire, 227.

⁸³ AN JJ 59, fol. 332, no. 603; described in Registres du Trésor des chartes, 2, pt. 1, no. 3351.

⁸⁴ Élisabeth Lalou, ‘Une enquête sur la forêt de Roumare (Archives nationales, J 781 no. 16)’, in Enquête sur la forêt de Roumare, eds. Élisabeth Lalou and Benjamin Suc, Ædilis, Publications scientifiques 4 (Orléans: Institut de Recherche et d'Histoire des Textes, 2006), http://www.cn-telma.fr/enquetes/, accessed 20 February 2024.

⁸⁵ Comptes royaux, nos. 24165–89.

⁸⁶ For the gift, see AN JJ 37, fol. 29v, no. 90. For the use of the term ‘negocium forestarum’ in Philippe's accounts from 1304–5, see Comptes royaux, nos. 6534–53².

⁸⁷ Lalou, ed., Itinéraire, 272. On Philippe's inquests in the Forêt Verte, see also Lake-Giguère, ‘Administrer les forêts’, 172, 297, 425, 515–18 and, especially, the transcription of Philippe's 1305 letter related to the inquest at 425, n. 1628.

⁸⁸ Petit et al., Essai de restitution, 93–94, no. 503. On the devaluation, see Sylvain Piron, ‘Monnaie et majesté royale dans la France du XIVe siècle’, Annales. Histoire, sciences sociales 51: 2 (1996): 325–54.

⁸⁹ For an ordinance issued by Philippe in 1310, modifying forest customs and usage rights for the men of Gaillefontaine and Conteville, see AN JJ 45, fols. 81–81v, no. 120; Lalou, ed., Itinéraire, 352. For a mandement issued in 1314 to the verdier of the forest of Bretonne, ordering him to give forest usage rights to the Maison-Dieu of Pont-Audemer, see Lalou, ed., Itinéraire, 423.

⁹⁰ Comptes royaux, nos. 3463²–80; Viard, ed., Journaux, no. 4103. Strayer noted that Pierre de Monci was sent as an ambassador to England in 1301 and to Germany in 1299 and 1309, as well as sent ‘ad remota’ on ‘secret business’ in 1305. Strayer, Reign, 214–15. On the meeting at Quatrevaux, see Len Scales, The Shaping of German Identity: Authority and Crisis, 1245–1414 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 170.

⁹¹ The account is inconsistent on the length of the trip, which took either sixty-seven or seventy-seven days. Comptes royaux, no. 3464.

⁹² Comptes royaux, nos. 3463²–80.

⁹³ Strayer, Reign, 406.

⁹⁴ Strayer, Reign, 61. On the transfer of the estate, see also Canteaut, ‘Hommes de gouvernement’, 658–60.

⁹⁵ AN JJ 62, fols. 153–53v, no. 273.

⁹⁶ AN JJ 40, fol. 7, no. 14. A vidimus of this act from 1320 states that Philippe was given property in the viscounty of Valognes in July 1307, but the original charter does not appear to have survived. AN JJ 59, fol. 134v, no. 282.

⁹⁷ AN JJ 40, fol. 19, no. 52. For Philippe's sale of the fief to Robert du Sartrin in 1320, see AN JJ 59, fols. 132–32v, no. 277. See also AN JJ 59, fol. 134v, no. 282.

⁹⁸ AN JJ 45, fol. 84, no. 126, fols. 93v–94v, no. 147, fol. 106, no. 164, fol. 107v, no. 169; AN JJ 47, fol. 4, no. 3, fols. 20–20v, no. 33.

⁹⁹ AN JJ 46, fol. 4v, no. 5; AN JJ 47, fols. 54–54v, no. 84. The king gave these possessions to the Dominican nuns at Poissy. Corny, a former commune, was merged into the new commune Frenelles-en-Vexin in 2019. La Marette is part of the commune Pressagny-l'Orgueilleux. The location given as Monte Petroso and Monteperroso in documents from 1310 and 1311 may be the farm of Mont-Perreux, part of the commune Piencourt (Normandy, dep. Eure, arr. Bernay, cant. Beuzeville), or it may be connected to the château and chapel of Mont Perreux in present-day Saint-Martin-du-Vivier (Normandy, dep. Seine-Maritime, arr. Rouen, cant. Darnétal). Fawtier, Glénisson and Guerout leave the location unidentified in their inventory; Pegues also gives the name in Latin as Monte Petrosa. Registres du Trésor des chartes, 1, nos. 1279, 1548, 1561, 1612, 1621; Pegues, Lawyers, 133.

¹⁰⁰ AN JJ 48, fols. 53–53v, no. 94, fols. 83v–84, no. 140, fol. 84v, no. 143; AN JJ 49, fol. 61v, no. 143, fol. 86, no. 202; AN JJ 50, fol. 56v, no. 82; Lalou, ed., Itinéraire, 415.

¹⁰¹ Pegues states that Philippe served as Jeanne's chancellor ‘for a brief period’ but does not provide a source for this. Pegues, Lawyers, 136. Canteaut suggests that Philippe served as interim chancellor in June 1318 for Pierre Bertrand, who otherwise held the position of chancellor for much of 1318–20. Canteaut, ‘Hommes de gouvernement’, 660, n. 3787.

¹⁰² AN JJ 56, fol. 82v, no. 174.

¹⁰³ AN JJ 56, fol. 36v, no. 96.

¹⁰⁴ AN JJ 56, fol. 208, no. 481. In April, Philippe's nephew Simon also received a rent of 140 livres tournois in the viscounty of Mortain, compensation for lands that he had possessed at Léry and that had been included when the estate was transferred to the queen. AN JJ 56, fol. 208, no. 480.

¹⁰⁵ AN JJ 59, fol. 245, no. 443. A later document gives the value as 1333 livres tournois, but this appears to be an error. AN JJ 59, fol. 323v, no. 581.

¹⁰⁶ AN JJ 59, fol. 323v, no. 581.

¹⁰⁷ AN JJ 62, fols. 153–53v, no. 273.

¹⁰⁸ See, for instance, Comptes royaux, no. 612; AN JJ 41, fols. 61–61v, no. 88; described in Registres du Trésor des chartes, 1, no. 613. References to Isabelle are relatively rare. When she appears in royal accounts, it is as ‘Isabelle de Villepreux’; in the registers of the Trésor des chartes, she is identified as the ‘widow of Jean de Jouy’ and the ‘sister of Philippe le Convers’. Comptes royaux, no. 3761; AN JJ 56, fol. 252v, no. 580; Registres du Trésor des chartes, 2, pt. 1, no. 2210.

¹⁰⁹ AN JJ 56, fol. 9, no. 23, fol. 171v–172v, no. 392, fol. 184, no. 429, fol. 208, no. 480; AN JJ 59, fol. 276, no. 514; Registres du Trésor des chartes, 2, pt. 1, nos. 1644, 2018, 2056, 2108, 3236.

¹¹⁰ Comptes royaux, nos. 612, 652, 3676, 3761. See Pegues, Lawyers, 135. None of the surviving documents record stipends paid to Louis or to his sons.

¹¹¹ See Pegues, Lawyers, 136.

¹¹² Comptes royaux, nos. 6537, 6548–49.

¹¹³ For 1309, see AN JJ 41, fols. 61–61v, no. 88. For his appointment to the Parlement, see Langlois, ed., Textes, 198; Robert Fawtier, ed., Comptes du Trésor (1296, 1316, 1384, 1477) (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1930), no. 842.

¹¹⁴ AN JJ 54B, fols. 26v–27, no. 36.

¹¹⁵ Strayer, ‘Viscounts and Viguiers’, 243–44.

¹¹⁶ AN JJ 56, fol. 184, no. 429.

¹¹⁷ AN JJ 59, fol. 276, no. 514.

¹¹⁸ AN JJ 60, fols. 83–83v, no. 120.

¹¹⁹ AN JJ 61, fol. 141, no. 323; Registres du Trésor des chartes, 2, pt. 2, no. 3921.

¹²⁰ AN JJ 40, fol. 7, no. 14. For similar documents in 1310, 1312 and 1317, see AN JJ 45, fol. 106, no. 164; AN JJ 46, fol. 111v, no. 191; AN JJ 53, fol. 88, no. 208.

¹²¹ AN JJ 49, fol. 86, no. 202.

¹²² AN JJ 59, fol. 276, no. 513.

¹²³ AN JJ 60, fol. 68v, no. 98.

¹²⁴ AN JJ 56, fol. 252v, no. 580.

¹²⁵ For ennoblement of royal agents by Philip the Fair, see Strayer, Reign, 65. See also Jan Rogozinski, ‘Ennoblement by the Crown and Social Stratification in France 1285–1322: A Prosopographical Survey’, in Order and Innovation in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor of Joseph R. Strayer, eds. William C. Jordan, Bruce McNab and Teofilo F. Ruiz (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 273–91.

¹²⁶ See William Chester Jordan, Unceasing Strife, Unending Fear: Jacques de Thérines and the Freedom of the Church in the Age of the Last Capetians (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 64–65.

¹²⁷ Pegues, Lawyers, 62–63.

¹²⁸ Elizabeth A. R. Brown, ‘Philip the Fair and His Ministers: Guillaume de Nogaret and Enguerran de Marigny’, in The Capetian Century, 1214–1314, eds. William Chester Jordan and Jenna Rebecca Phillips (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017), 185–218 (206–8); Pegues, Lawyers, 62–68.

¹²⁹ Pegues, Lawyers, 62.

¹³⁰ Guillois, ‘Maîtres des requêtes’, 230; Pegues, Lawyers, 67.

¹³¹ Pegues, Lawyers, 70.

¹³² Pegues, Lawyers, 71.

¹³³ Pegues, Lawyers, 81.

¹³⁴ Pegues, Lawyers, 82–86.

¹³⁵ Pegues, Lawyers, 137–38.

¹³⁶ See, for instance, references in the Livres de la taille de Paris to Richart le Convers, a wealthy taverner and horse trader, and Jehanne le Converse and her husband, Jehan Hardi, wealthy mercers (silk merchants). Hercule Géraud, ed., Paris sous Philippe-le-Bel, d'après des documents originaux et notamment d'après un manuscrit contenant le rôle de la taille imposée sur les habitants de Paris en 1292 (1837; repr., Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1991), 160; AN KK 283, fols. 30v, 64v, 221, 293; Karl Michaëlsson, ed., Le livre de la taille de Paris, l’an de grâce 1313 (Gothenburg: Wettergren & Kerber, 1951), 133. On Jehanne, see Sharon Farmer, The Silk Industries of Medieval Paris: Artisanal Migration, Technological Innovation, and Gendered Experience (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 154–55.

Additional information

Funding

The archival research for this article was supported by funding from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the University of California and the Targum Shlishi Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Jessica Marin Elliott

Jessica Marin Elliott is an assistant professor of history at Missouri State University. She has published on representations of converted Jews in medieval French chronicles and policies concerning Jews and converts in medieval Provence and Naples. She is currently working on a monograph that examines the socio-economic status of converted Jews and attitudes toward converts in medieval France.