Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Philip I. of France

PHILIP I. (1052–1108), king of France, was the son of Henry I. and Anne of Russia, and was born in 1052. He was associated with his father on the throne in 1059, the consecration taking place at Rheims (23d May), and he succeeded to the undivided sovereignty in the following year (4th August 1060), first under the regency of his mother, and afterwards, from 1062 to 1067, under that of Baldwin V., count of Flanders. In 1072 he married Bertha, daughter of Robert the Frisian, at whose hands he had sustained a shameful defeat at Cassel in the preceding year. His jealousy of William the Conqueror led him into an act of overt hostility in 1075, when his troops raised the siege of Dol, and a state of war, interrupted by inconsiderable intervals, continued thenceforward to subsist until the death of William. Philip afterwards supported, but ineffectually, the pretensions of Robert of Normandy against William Rufus. In 1092 he brought himself into collision with the church by shutting up his wife Bertha with her three children in the castle of Montreuil, and espousing Bertrada of Montfort, whom he had induced to leave her husband, Fulk of Anjou. The marriage was indeed sanctioned after Bertha's death by a subservient council at Rheims in 1094, but led to the king's excommunication by the council of Autun in the same year—a censure which was renewed by Pope Urban II. at Clermont in 1095. Having dismissed Bertrada early in 1097, he was forthwith absolved, but on a repetition of the offence three years afterwards the sentence was re newed, at Poitiers, and only removed by Paschal II. after Philip had once more submitted himself to the church. In 1100 he made his son Louis (afterwards Louis VI.) joint king, and his death took place at Melun on 29th July 1108. See France, vol. ix. pp. 537–539.