arges against them were true or not, their
helplessness in the grip of the King shows clearly the low ebb to which
knighthood had fallen, and the rising power of the monarchs. The day of
feudalism was past.[2]

We may read yet other signs of the age in the career of this cruel,
crafty King. To strengthen himself in his struggle against the Pope, he
called, in 1302, an assembly or "states-general" of his people; and,
following the example already established in England, he gave a voice in
this assembly to the "Third Estate," the common folk or "citizens," as
well as to the nobles and the clergy. So even in France we find the
people acquiring power, though as yet this Third Estate speaks with but
a timid and subservient voice, requiring to be much encouraged by its
money-asking sovereigns, who little dreamed it would one day be strong
enough to demand a reckoning of all its tyrant overlords.[3]

Another event to be noted in this same year of 1302 took place farther
northward in King Philip's domains. The Flemish cities Ghent, Liege, and
Bruges had grown to be the great centres of the commercial world, so
wealthy and so populous that they outranked Paris. The sturdy Flemish
burghers had not always been subject to France--else they had been less
well to-do. They regarded Philip's exactions as intolerable, and
rebelled. Against them marched the royal army of iron-clad knights; and
the desperate citizens, meeting these with no better defence than stout
leather jerkins, led them into a trap. At the battle of Courtrai the
knights charged into an unsuspected ditch, and as they fell the burghers
with huge clubs beat out such brains as they could find within the
helmets. It was subtlety against stupidity, the merchant's shrewdness
asserting itself along new lines. King Philip had to create for himself
a fresh nobility to replenish his depleted stock.[4]

The fact that there is so much to pause on in Philip's reign will in
itself suggest the truth, that France had grown the most important state
in Europe. This, however, was due less to French strength than to the
weakness of the empire, where rival rulers were being constantly elected
and wasting their strength against one another. If Courtrai had given
the first hint that these iron-clad knights were not invincible in war,
it was soon followed by another. The Swiss peasants formed among
themselves a league to resist oppression. This took definite shape in
1308 when they rebelled