John II

1319–1364
King of france

Sources

Famous Family . One of the greatest royal families of the French Middle Ages was the Valois dynasty. In the course of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, the Valois became dukes and countesses (for example, Louis, Duke of Orleans, and Jeanne, Countess of Bar), empresses and queens (for example, Catherine of Constantinople and Madeleine of Scotland), archbishops and abbesses (for example, Michel de Buey and Madeleine of Orleans), and after 1328 the kings of France when the Capetian Charles IV died leaving no sons. The Valois had in fact started out as nobles—their rise to power stemmed from their having created a lineage from Charles, Count of Valois, the brother of King Philip IV the Fair of France. Hardly a pivotal figure in the rise to power of the Valois, the renown of John II in particular would rest in part on his role in creating a more modern system of French coinage.

Political Connections . The reign of John II (1350–1364) was determined by his father, Philip VI, who became the first Valois king in the early fourteenth century to give continuity to the French crown under succession claims from the English king, Edward III. The threat from English royalty was to play an important part in the early Valois’ strength. Under Philip VI, the French royal council became the dynasty’s strongest supporters against King Edward III. Philip’s son, John, also became thereby the most powerful representative of the French throne, despite his inability to exert the necessary political influence over a reform-minded nobility, a power-hungry bourgeoisie, and his own opportunistic courtiers. In 1356 day-to-day control of the kingdom fell to his son, heir apparent Charles V, who took charge of trying to raise the ransom sum of twelve and one-half tons of gold, three millions ecus, to free his father from English imprisonment stemming from his capture at the Battle of Poitiers. The English crown freed King John II in 1360 on four conditions: the signing of the Treaty of Brétigny-Calais; the relinquishing by France of about half its continental territory; the paying of a king’s ransom; and the retention of surrogate hostages.

Branching Effects . The fortunes of the French economy had been growing all the more precarious under the Valois’s reign. A series of monetary debasements were instituted from 1337 with the beginning of the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453) between France and England. Unlike the English royalty of the fourteenth century, which had extremely circumscribed taxation rights, historically each of the French kings had been granted a great deal of autonomy in levying. As war began, however, to take a larger share of their tax revenues, only devaluation seemed to insulate them against the losses in real terms. King John II instituted several economic reforms upon his release from English captivity. A new system was introduced to prevent a full-blown monetary crisis from bringing down the French economy: the Pied de Monnaie system denoted with one number the intrinsic worth of a coin with respect to its weight and fineness, with reference to the sound money of 1329. New taxes were ordered, the most unpopular being the gabelle (tax on salt).

Ruler of His Destiny . As monetarists, the Valois were enabled to pay about one-third of King John’s ransom, with, in addition, three of his fourteen children playing a major role in his release, as surrogate hostages. John’s primary activities once at liberty were aimed at his indebtedness to the English crown, and he was able to find support by unusual means through economic maneuvers, making himself ruler of France again in everything but power. Through connections with a rich duke in Milan, Galeas Visconti, John managed to have his daughter Isabelle, age twelve, sold into marriage for more than another one-third of his English ransom amount. Indeed, France was so buoyed at his liberation that the royal mint marked the event by releasing a new gold coin. This first commemorative French coin backfired in spirit, however. When one of the king’s sons, Louis of Anjou, was reported in 1364 to have escaped from his prison in Calais ostensibly to go on crusade, the king himself returned to England as hostage to restore the family honor. Until his death in April of that year in London, the king’s imprisonment set the tone for a return to regency in France.

Patron of Knights . John’s rule not only influenced the distribution of economic power in France and England, but it also affected medieval chivalric life. He promoted the military pursuits of knights through the foundation of a new chivalric order, the Order of the Star. He was particularly active in military encounters himself in the Hundred Years’ War. The Order of the Star became his centerpiece military entourage. John supported a new knights’ order to instill bravery through oaths of steadfastness in battle. His ideals came under challenge in the Battle of Poitiers, where he saw most of the Order’s members killed. The Order of the Star, started in 1351, nonetheless set the standard for a national chivalric order. Its attire, the red cloak bearing a huge black star of eight points, and motto, “They show the way to kings by the star,” guaranteed the predominance of the king’s military order. In his own prowess on horseback and as patron of knights, John sustained a chivalric code of military conduct that would not persist for long with his successors.

Image Concerns . John’s interest in coinage was partly prompted by his worries about how his captivity had affected his royal/knightly image. The Order of the Star, for example, had not survived his years as a prisoner in London. The king became strongly attached to minted symbolic representations also as a counterpoint to the stresses on the economy. On the first coin he issued, the Franc à Cheval, at 3.764 grams of pure gold, he made sure there was a worthy representation: the king in full armor on horseback holding his sword in his left hand. He also, however, took special pains at humility, complementing an obverse caption, “John, King of the Franks, by God’s grace,” with a reverse motif of a cross bedecked with flowers surrounded by the caption “May Christ conquer, rule and reign.” With his release from captivity, the king chose to create his own sense of freedom through the newly “franchised” (hence the word franc) coinage.

Collapse of Royal Strength . French royal strength began seriously to falter with John’s first imprisonment in 1356. Even before being captured, the Valois had focused more on his image and patronage roles than on sound rule. Charles V became, however, an active behind-the-scenes ruler of France and a major support to his father during his captivity. He forged per force administrative ties with the leading merchants of Paris who under the leadership of Etienne Marcel, in league with John’s cousin, Charles “the Bad,” King of Navarre, had arisen in revolt. Even as the political alliances in Paris were collapsing in 1356, two years later, the standing of Charles V’s economic strength in his own county of Dauphiné could no longer depend on the resources of the peasantry. Royal demands for contributions in labor and money to aid in the king’s ransom were met by a peasant rebellion, the Jacquerie.

Impact . With the imprisonment of King John II, Charles V had to step in to take the lead in political and economic rule. Charles V was in the long run to prove to be a much more competent administrator. His greater prominence earned him the title of Charles “the Wise,” as opposed to his father’s John ”Bon Homme” (Good Fellow). Nevertheless, the close relationship between father and son and the kingdom was to remain a defining feature of the early generations of the Valois dynasty. While Louis of Anjou, too, would acquire royal power as King of Naples, Sicily, and Jerusalem in 1382, after having become the adopted son of Jeanne I, Queen of Naples, much of his father’s positive legacy would stem from his act to cleanse the “blemished honor to the lineage,” which his son’s escape had caused.

Sources

Anne Denieul-Cormier, Wise and Foolish Kings: The First House of Valois, 1328–1498 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1980).

John Bell Henneman, Royal Taxation in Fourteenth-Century France: The Captivity and Ransom of John II, 13567Ndash;1370 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1976).

Henneman, Royal Taxation in Fourteenth-Century France: The Development of War Financing, 13227ndash;1356 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971).