Charles IV of France - Domestic Policy

Domestic Policy

Charles came to power following a troublesome two years in the south of France, where local nobles had resisted his elder brother Philip V's plans for fiscal reform, and where his brother had fallen fatally ill during his progress of the region. Charles undertook rapid steps to assert his own control, executing the Count of L'Isle-Jourdain, a troublesome southern noble, and making his own royal progress. Charles, a relatively well educated king, also founded a famous library at Fontainebleau.

During his six-year reign Charles' administration became increasingly unpopular. He manipulated the coinage to his own benefit, sold offices and confiscated estates from enemies or those he disliked. He was also closely involved in Jewish issues during the period. Charles' father, Philip IV, had confiscated the estates of numerous Jews in 1306, and Charles took vigorous, but unpopular, steps to call in Christian debts to these accounts. Following the "leper scare" of 1321, numerous Jews had been fined for their alleged involvement in this conspiracy to poison wells across France through local lepers, and Charles worked hard to execute these fines. Finally, Charles at least acquiesced, or at worst actively ordered, in the expulsion of many Jews from France following the leper scare.