| |
| 1432 |
| |
| Charles favored the council of Basel, which was pro-French and antipapal. | 1 |
| |
| 1435 |
| |
| Separate Peace of Arras, reconciliation with Burgundy: Charles agreed to punish the murderers of Duke John of Burgundy and recognized Philip as a sovereign prince for life. Burgundy was to recognize Charles's title; the Somme towns were to pass to Burgundy (subject to redemption). The English refused to make peace on acceptable terms. Charles recovered Paris (1436). | 2 |
| |
| 1437–39 |
| |
| Famine, pestilence, anarchy, but steady progress against the English. | 3 |
| |
| 1438, July 7 |
| |
| Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges. The French clergy asserted, under direction of Charles VII and while the Council of Basle was sitting, that a general council of the church was superior to the pope; that French clergy had the right to administer its temporal property independent of the papacy, and denied papal right of nomination to church offices. A general statement of the autonomy of the French church and of its independence for the papacy. | 4 |
| |
| 1440 |
| |
| The Praguerie, part of a series of coalitions of great nobles against the king, with support from the dauphin (later Louis XI), was put down; the dauphin was ordered to the Dauphiné, where he continued his intrigues. | 5 |
| |
| 1444 |
| |
| Louis the dauphin made a treaty of alliance with the Swiss cantons. The alliance was strengthened (1452), and an alliance was made with the towns of Trier, Cologne, et al. (1452), and with Saxony, as part of a developing anti-Burgundian policy. Intermittent support for the house of Anjou in Naples and the house of Orléans in Milan. Under Jacques Coeur, the merchant prince of Montpellier, royal finances were reformed, control of the public revenue by the king was established, and French commercial penetration of the Middle East was furthered (c. 1447). | 6 |
| |
| 1445–46 |
| |
| Army reforms: establishment of the first permanent royal army by the creation of 20 companies of élite cavalry (200 lances to a company, six men to a lance) under captains chosen by the king; a paid force, the backbone of the army. | 7 |
| |
| 1449–61 |
| |
| Expulsion of the English (See 1450): Normandy and Guienne regained; Talbot slain (1453). | 8 |
| |
| 1461–83 |
| |
| LOUIS XI (the Spider), of simple, bourgeois habits, superficial piety, and a feeble, ungainly body, the architect of French reconstruction. He was well educated, a brilliant diplomat, a relentless statesman, an endless traveler throughout his kingdom. He perfected the governmental system begun under Charles V (revived by Charles VII), and established the basic structure of the country until 1789. The recognized right of the king to the taille, aides, and gabelle taxes made a good revenue available for defense and diplomacy. Louis improved and perfected the standing army with added emphasis on the artillery but seldom waged war. Feudal anarchy and brigandage were stopped; a wise economic policy restored prosperity despite grinding taxes. | 9 |
| |
| 1461 |
| |
| Louis's first step in the reconstruction of the kingdom was a rapprochement with the papacy by the formal revocation of the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges. Little of the royal power was sacrificed, and the national Church remained under the firm control of the crown. | 10 |
| |
| 1462 |
| |
| Acquisition of Cerdagne and Roussillon; redemption of the Somme towns (1463) revealing the resumption of national expansion. | 11 |
| |
| 1465 |
| |
| League of the Public Weal, a conspiracy against Louis by the dukes of Alençon, Burgundy, Berri, Bourbon, Lorraine. | 12 |
| |
| |
