Philip IV the Fair was King of France from 1285 until his death. A member of the Capetian dynasty, Philip was born at the Palace of Fontainebleau at Seine-et-Marne, the son of King Philip III and Isabella of Aragon. Philip was nicknamed the Fair (le Bel) because of his handsome appearance.

As a king, Philip was determined to strengthen the monarchy at any cost. He relied, more than any of his predecessors, on a professional bureaucracy of legalists. His reign marks the French transition from a charismatic monarchy–which could all but collapse in an incompetent reign–to a bureaucratic kingdom, a move towards modernity.

On October 13, 1307, what may have been all the Knights Templar in France were simultaneously arrested by agents of Philip the Fair, to be later tortured into admitting heresy in the Order. A modern historical view is that Philip, who seized the considerable Templar treasury and broke up the Templar monastic banking system, simply sought to control it for himself.

Philip tried and tortured a number of the Templars that he had captured, and in 1314 he had Jacques de Molay, the Templar Grand Master, and Geoffrey de Charney, the Preceptor of Normandy, burned at the stake. It is said that de Molay cursed both Philip and Clement V from the flames and then he summoned them before God's Tribunal within a year; both king and pope died within the next year.

Philip IV's rule signaled the decline of the papacy's power from its near complete authority. He died during a hunt and is buried in Saint Denis Basilica.... More • http://www.answers.c ... -of-france View • Books • Images • Videos • Search Related • Royalty • Capet • France • Middle Ages • Rulers • 13th Century • 14th Century • People