e would have
called his parliament together, and have found national support and
national supplies. The French King preferred having recourse to a
recoinage. In 1294 he had forbidden any persons to keep plate unless
they possessed an annual revenue of six thousand livres. He now ordered
his bailies to deliver up their plate, and all non-functionaries to send
half of theirs. Those who did so received payment in the new coin, and
lost one-half thereby. A tax of one-fifth, or 20 per cent., of the
annual revenue was levied on the land, and a twentieth was levied on the
movable property. In the following year the King found it more
advantageous to order that all prelates and barons should, for every
five hundred livres of yearly revenue in land, furnish an armed and
mounted gentleman for five months' service, while the non-noble was to
furnish and keep up six infantry soldiers (_sergens de pied_) for every
hundred hearths. This decree was a return to feudal military service,
occasioned, no doubt, by the general disaffection caused by the raising
of the war supplies in money. As if to recompense all classes for the
severity of the exaction, Philip published an _ordonnance_ of reform for
the protection of both laymen and ecclesiastics from the arbitrary
encroachments or interference of his officers.

Having thus set his realm in order, and collected an army of seventy
thousand men at Arras, the King marched to meet the Flemings, who in
equal force had mustered in the vicinity of Dovai. They kept, as at
Courtrai, on the defensive; and the King of France, too cautious to
attack them, allowed the whole autumn to pass, and returned to France
after a campaign as inefficient as inglorious.

Philip had been long involved in a controversy with Pope Boniface VIII,
and the quarrel still continued. It was not till some time after the
battle of Courtrai that the King at last, delivered from the menacing
hostility of Rome, had leisure to turn his mind and efforts again toward
Flanders. During the year 1303 he had sought to keep the Flemings at bay
by bodies of Lombard and Tuscan infantry, whom his Florentine banker
persuaded him to hire, and by Amadeus V, Duke of Savoy, who brought
soldiers of that country to his aid. Although the long lances and more
perfect armor of these troops gave them some advantage over the
Flemings, the latter took and burned Therouanne, overran Artois, and
laid siege to Tournai. Amadeus of Savoy, unable to overco