France during the Crusades, p.5
France during the Crusades
Philip II Augustus (1180-1223)
Along with Philip IV, easily the most important of the French kings in the Middle Ages. Philip transformed the royal court, much as Henry II did in England, but he also was able to claim significant military victories as well. His military success is ironic in view of his distaste for war. He was no pacifist, far from it, but he personally did not care for combat and did not revel in the details of campaigning. Nevertheless, he won a series of great victories against the English, most notably at Bouvines in 1214, and ended his reign having more than doubled royal holdings.
Philip spent the first years of his reign battling the Plantagenets. Even his short sojourn on the Third Crusade was hardly more then a desultory diversion before returning to the business of doing in Richard of England. It was Philip who attacked Normandy with no more cause than that Richard was away, and then conspired with John to do even more damage. Alarmed by all this, Richard finally gave up on the Crusade but was captured on his return home. It was money from Philip that managed to keep Richard imprisoned for fourteen months.
Once Richard had been felled by a bolt from a crossbow, Philip began to enjoy success on the battlefield. He allied first with Arthur of Brittany and launched a major assault on Normandy. Although Arthur died in the effort, Philip captured one fortress after another. By 1206, he controlled all or most of Normandy, Maine, Anjou and Touraine. John made one last major effort to recover his losses, but this ended in a catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Bouvines
(John didn't lose the battle, Otto of Brunswick did, but the loss meant John could not recover his French lands).
Normandy alone yielded as much revenue as the entire royal demesne had in his father's day; Philip's conquests in total quadrupled crown income. His other great acquisition was Flanders, which he gained through marriage and the failure of the line in that county (1185). In fact, so great and rapid were Philip's acquisitions that the government was hard pressed to rule them. It was Philip who introduced two royal officers who would become characteristic of French royal administration: the bailli and the seneschal. The baillis were given a portion of a province where they were responsible for collecting royal revenues and for administering royal justice. They were also the principal liaison between the king and the vassal and the vassals local authorities. Most baillis were drawn from the middle class, not from the nobility, and Philip moved them around frequently; this was in order to ensure they stayed loyal to the crown. The seneschals were much like baillis but they were given border territories that required frequent military action. Because the main function of a seneschal was military, he was almost always drawn from the nobility.  Since both a bailli and a seneschal needed a staff, with Philip we begin to see the growth of a significant and regular royal bureaucracy.
Philip did less well in regard to the papacy, mainly because of a quarrel over his marriage to Ingeborg of Denmark. No sooner had he married her in 1193, he wanted to be rid of her, but the pope refused to grant a divorce. Philip treated Ingeborg very poorly, essentially imprisoning her for many years while he had two children by another woman (Agnes of Bavaria). There were a number of dramatic confrontations with papal representatives of Innocent III, but Philip dissimulated and outright lied until he finally restored Ingeborg to her station in 1213. He also disputed with Innocent over the imperial succession in Germany; Innocent supported Otto of Brunswick while Philip supported Philip of Swabia. The two eventually reconciled after Philip of Swabia died, and Philip of France actually helped finance the young Frederick Hohenstaufen in his bid to become emperor. This was not the last time the King of France would meddle in the succession to the imperial throne.
In part because of his personality, in part because of his many successes, and in part because of the great wealth his successes brought, Philip was able to extend royal power it every direction. Geographically, he added to the royal domain Artois, Amiens, Valois, Flanders, Vermandois, much of the Beauvaisis, Normandy, Maine, Anjou, Touraine, and a part of Poitou. Through the use of new officials, plus iron and gold, he was able to enforce royal authority in these areas. Whereas his father had relied heavily on Church officials, Philip used civil officials, and he insisted that churchmen be as obedient to the crown as anyone else in France. If any one person can claim to have made France a great power in Europe, it was Philip II, who was given the nickname Augustus even in his own lifetime, in recognition of his accomplishments.