Francis I (of France)

I

Introduction

Francis I (of France) (1494-1547), King of France from 1515 to 1547, remembered for his rivalry with the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, for his patronage of arts and letters, and for his governmental reforms.

Born at Cognac, France, on September 12, 1494, Francis represented the Angoulême branch of the Valois dynasty, succeeding Louis XII, the last of the Orléanist branch, in 1515. His mother, Louise of Savoy, and his elder sister, Margaret of Navarre, influenced his upbringing and remained close to him during his reign. His first wife was Louis XII's daughter Claude.

II

The Valois-Habsburg Wars

In 1515 Francis commanded a spectacular victory over the Swiss at Marignano, which enabled him to seize the Italian duchy of Milan. In 1519 he was a candidate for the throne of the Holy Roman Empire, but the imperial electors chose Charles of Habsburg instead. Francis then embarked on a war against Charles in Italy, but was defeated and captured at Pavia in 1525. Imprisoned in Spain, he was ransomed and returned to France in 1527. After another round of fighting, the two monarchs made peace in 1529, and Francis married the emperor's sister, Eleanor.

Further inconclusive wars were fought against the Habsburgs from 1536 to 1538 and from 1542 to 1544. In this period Francis, a Catholic, did not hesitate to ally himself with German Protestant princes and with Muslim Turks.

III

Religious and Financial Policies

Under his sister's influence Francis was sympathetic to Protestantism, especially in its humanist form, when it appeared in France in the 1520s. In the 1530s, however, he abandoned his earlier tolerance and became a persecutor of the French Protestants. The king had concluded a concordat with the papacy at Bologna in 1516, thereby gaining greater control of the French Catholic Church.

The cost of war obliged Francis to undertake extensive reforms. He floated government bonds, punished royal fiscal agents who misappropriated funds, and twice reorganized the treasury. He began openly to sell judicial and financial offices, creating a new class of ennobled magistrates, which remained an important element in French governmental and social structures until the French Revolution. The traditional nobility served in his armies and sought to secure the patronage of the king or his favourites among the magnates. In this way factions arose, and when the king died in 1547 his reign had lost much of its glamour.

IV

Patronage of Art and Learning

Francis adopted the pose of a chivalric king, the first gentleman of his kingdom, although his autocratic statecraft was imbued with a shrewd realism. His patronage of the arts was intended to augment the splendour of his court. He brought Leonardo da Vinci and other Italian artists to France to design and ornament his châteaux. He employed the scholar Guillaume Budé in creating a royal library and in founding professorships of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, which formed the nucleus of the later Collège de France.