In a short time, in deliberate contrast with the upcoming celebrations of the Italian republic, born from the ashes of that cosmic war that marked the end of the great European civilization, with Evola we will return to the theme of Monarchy. Let's see, beforehand, an inverted and subversive example: that of Philip IV of France, said the Beautiful (1268-1314), which was precisely during the twenty years, by someone, considered a sort of “fascist king” before the letter, o before the letter, as Evola tells us in the French language. One of the many misunderstandings and blunders mentioned, even in those years, the lack of a correct approach and background preparation in the traditional sense exposed many personalities, sometimes even significant. Evola shows us the subverting function of Philip the Handsome, in this mini-essay which we divide into two parts. From the disintegration of medieval civilization to the secularization and secularization of the State; from bureaucratic centralization to the plutocratic transformation of the economy, the story of the Capetian sovereign in this first part is the description of a collapse towards the abyss, of an anti-traditional and anti-aristocratic action that was to pave the way for the French Revolution and the advent of modern civilization, “in the worst sense of the word, that is, as a synonym of the civilization of anti-tradition and of the deconsecrated and materialized man“.
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by Julius Evola
taken from “Vita Italiana”, XXIX, 341, August 1941
It's a curious thing, but therefore not without its meaning, that the figure of Philip the Fair has been recalled on various occasions today, sometimes in relation to the anti-Jewish campaign, sometimes in dealing with the origins of the modern state. It even happened that someone called Philip the Handsome a "pre-fascist king", meaning fascist before the letter, that is, a precursor of some aspects of Fascism. In all this you have, therefore, in our opinion, proof of the lack of principles typical of certain environments, of the confusions that arise from the bad habit of filming, for contingent purposes, sporadic reasons, neglecting to obtain serious knowledge on the topics and to delve into the true meaning of the eras or men to which we are referring. We do not believe it is uninteresting examine, Who, precisely, the case of Philip the Fair, which is very useful for clarifying these misunderstandings and for making us understand a very tragic and sad turning point in European history, the consequences of which are far from being over.
For this purpose we also want to use a work recently published in Italian translation on the topic: it is a section of the large one History of France by Jules Michelet, the well-known historian of the so-called French "romantic school" of the last century (1). We completely agree with the translator of this book, where he states that the historical constructions of that period, far from being "overcome", they often present us with brilliant intuitions and daring syntheses, which one would look for in vain in the most recent historiography, too often become, with the excuse of scientific rigor, flat, arid, two-dimensional. Even regarding the topic, which we intend to discuss here, «in its most essential lines the most recent historiography not only has not gone much beyond Michelet's vision, but in some respects it flattened it and dampened its meaning".
In Philip the Fair, the forces that were to cause the disintegration of medieval civilization and propitiate the birth of the "modern" one took a precise form for the first time. – modern, in the worst sense of the word, that is, as a synonym of the civilization of anti-tradition and of the deconsecrated and materialized man. Through Philip the Fair, degenerate nephew of Saint Louis of France, these forces triumphed over feudalism for the first time, on chivalry, on the papacy: «by means of a casuidic, of a bankrupt and a counterfeit money" – as Michelet says from the first pages.
The first notable act performed by this King, was to secularize the State, that is, to transform the previous spiritual type of State into a secular and secular one. So he already ruled it out in 1287 the religious element from the administration of justice, not only in its Parliament and its direct dominions, but also in that of the nobility. The ironic and hypocritical justification given by Philip the Fair for this act of his is characteristic: in arranging that no prelate should appear in Parliament, he declared that he "was scrupulous in removing such men from the government of spiritual things". Plus, Philip the Fair had to take a direct stand against the Papacy itself, which he ultimately managed to bend to his will or make an instrument of his purposes.
Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303) he pursued a decisive reaffirmation of papal privileges and power, coming into conflict with the powerful Roman feudal families (especially the Colonnas) and with European monarchs, particularly Philip the Fair, That, to subjugate the papacy to its own interests, under the pontificate of Clement V, he managed to have the headquarters transferred to France, ad Avignone.
There are those who may find all this "modern" and even nice: it is the emancipation of a "strong" state from clerical tyranny, it is a manifestation of strength and political consciousness. Actually, it was just a drop in level. In this regard, it will be enough to compare the meaning of the struggle waged against the Church by Philip the Fair and the House of France with that which was undertaken by the previous Germanic Ghibelline emperors. These opposed the Church because they conceived the Empire as an equally spiritual and "supernatural" reality, therefore having a "divine right" of its own that did not intend to remain subject at all yes and simply to the hegemonistic claim of the Roman Curia. In Philip the Fair and, in general, in the House of France, it's something completely different: here we are dealing with a mere temporal power that alienates all spiritual authority, it disowns it in every domain and asserts itself against the Church. We could therefore well say that we are at the beginning of modern anticlericalism of the Enlightenment and Masonic type. You can, from the current point of view, approve the exclusion of prelates from the structure of the State and the administration of justice. But this is just a detail, an external appearance. It's the meaning of the thing, which actually matters, and which must be understood on the basis of today's ideal world, but from then. These are prelates, o meno, what is achieved for the first time with Philip the Fair is the banishment from the State of those who should exclusively concern themselves with "spiritual things"; in other words, the spiritual element, secluded in a separate domain, had to cease to have any influence on the life of a State which is increasingly materializing and which - in an absolutist sense - becomes the enemy of the aristocracy itself. To what is denied and excluded, nothing is replaced. We can therefore well speak of a degradation and a drop in level, to the site of the alleged "strong state" gesture.
Parallel to the secularization of the State, Philip the Fair centralized it. He therefore set about creating an administrative superstructure aimed at suffocating the feudal system and then mechanizing and bureaucratizing the state inter-structure: thus he almost revived the statist model of the late Empire, with an additional absolutist emphasis, in a precise contrast with the virile and strongly personalized hierarchical ideal typical of the Middle Ages, and therefore also with the purely ethical and spiritual premises of it. So the royal power, aiming for full tyranny, he had to take sides against the feudal nobility itself and seek every way to undermine its prestige and undermine its power. A tal fine, Philip the Fair, like the irresponsible Kings of France who continued his work, he had to resort to the help of inferior elements. He even leaned on the plebs, flattering it with promises of freedom so much so as to have in it a powerful instrument against the aristocracy, which should instead have been the guarantee and firmest basis of kingship.
He Guénon, in this regard, rightly pointed out that it is no coincidence that France itself, first, the revolution took place. The French Revolution was prepared by the anti-aristocratic and centralizing action that began with Philip the Fair and continued by his successors. Once the nation has been deboned due to the elimination of the feudal nobility and the growing degradation of the surviving aristocracy into simple "court nobility", once secular public powers were created which centralized the power previously organically distributed in a series of partial sovereignties, these "public" powers were to be the body in which, the kings themselves were undermined, the plebs, flattered by them and tactically used against the most ancient and true nobility, it then had to incarnate and assert itself. This has the effect of a precise logic, not to mention a kind of immanent justice. In every era, absolutism has always paved the way for demagogy.
Instead, precisely because of the centralizing work he carried out, Philip the Handsome may appear "modern" to some and nice: again, because of a fundamental misunderstanding. As we have had the opportunity to point out here on another occasion, you forget, in this regard, to examine the very different meaning that centralism or totalitarianism has, depending on its historical antecedents. Today a centralized and totalitarian type of state has been imposed on us for the simple reason that the historical precedent was the chaos of the liberalistic and democratic era, because it was necessary in any way to neutralize the centrifugal tendency of a general dissolution that would ultimately overwhelm every institution, any political authority, every tradition. Things were very different in the time of Philip the Fair: the antecedent, At that time, it was constituted precisely by the feudal system, to the freedoms of which it was enough to put a certain brake in order to find in it the firmest and most lively basis of a true order. It is precisely centralism that, faced with the articulation specific to the hierarchical-feudal system, he had a dream of dissolution, of leveling, of destruction of everything that was still qualitative and differentiated. It is therefore absolutely absurd to establish parallels between the work of Philip the Fair and today's totalitarian state idea., as overcoming the individualistic and liberating dissolution of the last period.
Moreover, Michelet has clearly highlighted the lethal consequences that at that time resulted from the irresponsible initiative of the King of France, even on the most material level. The bureaucracy of the King's men demanding, to be maintained, a large tax bill, a transformation of the economy had to be slowly achieved, and specifically to the primacy of mobile capital represented by gold over land ownership. «the Lord of the Middle Ages – writes Michelet – paid his servants with letters and the products of the land; adults and children had a place at his table; the payment was the meal of the day. To the immense machine of the royal government, which substitutes its complicated movement for the thousand natural and simple movements of feudal government, only money could give the impulse to such a machine". But the increasingly important role that gold assumed in this way had to gradually return to the advantage of those who at the time mainly traded in it., namely the Jews, with the effect of a subversion of financial situations, fomenter of profound hatred. Philip the Fair ends up intervening directly, with two masterstrokes.
The state Moloch increasingly needs golden food, Philip the Fair thought of providing it by the shortest route, taking it from those to whom his system had mostly made it flow, that is, by the Jews, that's why in 1288 the King prohibits any power of the Church over the Jews: these had to be his thing, his private hunt. At the most suitable time, an expropriation decree is issued. «The operation was carried out on the same day with a secrecy and speed that do honor to the King's agents – writes Michelet -. It seems that not a single Jew escaped. Not content to sell their goods, the King began to persecute the debtors of the Jews, declaring that the writings of these were sufficient as a title of credit and that for him the Hebrew writing was authentic". Here, then, is the true meaning of the anti-Judaism that some today would like to attribute to the glory of Philip the Fair, with full ignorance of the circumstances. The theft that the Jew had perpetrated through usury takes over, Who, pure and simple stripping by royal decree, with this aggravating circumstance: that the goods had accumulated among the Jews essentially due to a subversion caused by the King himself. And the severity of the King's agents towards the Jews was no greater than towards the Christians who were debtors to the Jews., from whom these agents managed to extract the money and goods that the Jews themselves had not been able to obtain. God protect us, old man, from having to take anti-Judaism of this kind as a model...
But the Jews had not done enough. Philip the Fair then studies another move, directed directly against Christians. It was his new glorious and innovative action, the counterfeiting of money. Philip the Fair increased its title and decreased its weight: so with two lire he paid eight. But when it wasn't about paying anymore, but to receive, he accepted his own money only at one-third of the face value. «So he made two bankruptcies in the opposite direction» – Michelet points out. Here we can truly recognize something "exquisitely modern" in Philip the Fair.: it can in fact be said that history begins with Philip the Fair, close to a conscious intention, that nefarious system of inflation, which must have played such a large part in the economic crisis of our times and in which the Jews themselves had to prove themselves as teachers.
Use
(1) J.Michelet; From vespers to the extermination of the Templars, trad. by E.Omodeo-Zona, Ed. Laterza, Bari, 1941-XIX.
Continued in the second part
source – https://www.rigenerazionevola.it/il-caso-di-filippo-il-bello-prima-parte/
