IV.] EXTENSION TO THE SOUTH. 47 him, and at Courtrai was fought a great battle between Flemish burghers and French barons, resulting in the total defeat of the French, and the loss of 200 nobles and 6,000 knights. This was one of the earliest cases of a feudal army being defeated by burghers or other popular infantry. It Avas thus a great blow to feudalism ; as it was also in another way by the death of so many great lords which helped Philip in his scheme of despotism. He raised money by selling freedom to serfs, and letters of nobility to the nobles, as well as by forcing all who possessed plate to sell it to him for base coin. With an army of 10,000 knights and 40,000 infantry he marched into Flanders ; but he was no soldier, and could do so little that he released old Count Guy, to try to quiet the insurgents. The old man soon found that they would not hearken ; so he gave them his blessing and went back to prison, where he died in 1303. His three sons were thus left free to act, and though defeated at Moiis, they fought on till the king was forced to give up the struggle, and restore the eldest to his rank and dominions. 23. Strife with Boniface VIII., 1298. — One notable mark of the tyranny of the Pest of France, as Dante calls Philip IV., was that it was all done through the Parliament of Paris, which registered whatever he pleased, and whose lawyers advised him. Former kings had kept the nobles in check by resting on the clergy and burghers, but he oppressed all three orders alike, and in 1294 laid a tax, afterwards called the Maltole, or ill-taken, first on merchants, and then on the clergy. They appealed to the pope, Boniface VIII., a fiery old man, Bejiedetto Gae- tani by name, and he put forth a bull, called Clericis Laicos, forbidding any secular power to demand contri- butions from the clergy without the consent of the pope. To this Philip paid no heed, and on his laymg hands on a fief of the Holy See, Boniface sent a legate to remonstrate. But he unfortunately chose Bernard of Saisset, bishop of Paniiers, 3. Tolosan, who naturally hated the French kings, and talked in the most un- measured terms of Philip. When the king found that the Bishop had really talked of reviving the independence of the south, he had him arrested, tried, and found guilty by the obedient Parliament. Philip called on the Arch- bishop of Narbonne to depose him, and on a refusal wrote to the pope to demand his degradation ; but Boniface made d reply which convinced the lawyers that a legate was
